Fear Has a Name: A Novel (The Crittendon Files) Read online

  “Here, in town. We’ll give you all the gory details later.”

  “Do you plan to arrest him?”

  “We’re going to search his place and see what turns up. We’ll go from there. Don’t worry, Mr. Crittendon. We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t consider him a prime suspect in the invasion of your home and the harassment of your wife and family. Hopefully we’ll surprise him, confiscate evidence, and make an arrest—at least bring him in for further questioning. We’ll see. But don’t hold your breath; sometimes these things don’t happen as fast as we’d like.”

  Jack knew it was doubtful, but he asked anyway. “Is there any way I could go with you, or meet you there?”

  Pam scowled at him.

  “No, sorry, that wouldn’t work,” DeVry said. “If we need you for anything—an ID or something like that—I have your number. Just sit tight, Mr. Crittendon. We want this guy out of your hair and off the streets.”

  Jack hung up and explained everything to Pam as they maneuvered their way along the curvy, tree-lined roads leading to the back of their neighborhood. Seeing no brown cars on their street and no sign of anything unusual at the house, Jack wheeled the car into the driveway. The girls skipped out to the street in the bright summer sun to get the bulky Sunday newspaper that had been tossed in the daisies.

  “Girls, inside!” Jack yelled, waiting to close the garage door.

  They scampered in and dashed off to their rooms to get changed.

  With her shoes off, still wearing her black linen dress and the brown pearl earrings and necklace Jack had bought her for a recent anniversary, Pam picked up odds and ends throughout the downstairs, then began cleaning up the morning dishes at the kitchen sink.

  After glancing at a few of the day’s headlines at the island, Jack approached her from behind, gently and deeply squeezed her shoulders, reached around her, and turned off the water. He then slipped both arms around her waist and nestled his head against her soft hair. She rested her hands on the counter in front of the sink and stood still, looking straight out the window.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I know I hurt your feelings. I didn’t mean to. It’s my fault.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “It’s my job to protect you,” he said. “I guess it felt like this guy had the one-up on me.”

  Still she said nothing.

  “That doesn’t excuse what I said—what I implied. I don’t know where it came from. I didn’t mean any of it, please know that. It was the old me, rearing his ugly head.”

  “The old you is a jerk,” she said, and pinched both his wrists, hard.

  “Ouch!” He did not pull away, but closed his arms around her.

  She dropped her head back against his chest. “Is it going to end today?”

  He nodded so she could feel it. “Yes.”

  “He was always shunned,” she said. “I bet no one’s ever loved him. Can you imagine how that feels? All I did was show a little interest; we didn’t even know each other that well. I listened—that’s all. I treated him like a friend.”

  “That sounds like you.”

  Pam was too good for Jack. So often, he looked into the mirror of her life and was ashamed at the selfish, prideful man he saw looking back at him. Her words confirmed what an idiot he’d been. But she was always quick to forgive—always. Jack could tell Pam had recognized that his outburst was a character flaw issue between him and God. She’d completely relinquished it. That was her way. Forgive. Leave it with God. Forget.

  Jack kissed her head and held her close. Very close. Very quiet.

  But as far as Granger Meade was concerned, Jack was dumbfounded that Pam could feel any sort of compassion for the guy. Then again, if what Jack knew was true—that it was the evil powers and spiritual forces at work inside Granger that made him “bad”—then Jack should be able to conjure up some remnant of sympathy. His dad always said, “Be slow to judge other people until you know what they’ve been through.”

  But Granger had literally busted his way into their private world. He’d stolen their personal things and attempted to frame Jack for a despicable felony. He’d attacked Pam. And he’d dared—dared—to enter the unspoken boundaries clearly and sacredly drawn around a man’s wife and children. And the sick threat of replacing Jack as Pam’s husband?

  Jack would destroy him if he ever found him.

  Yet Pam seemed willing to be merciful.

  “You’re a good person.” He turned her around, leaned her up against the kitchen sink, and kissed her softly, deeply.

  She pulled her head back and searched his eyes. “We’re partners, Jack. We’re one. I’ve never doubted that, or you, ever.”

  He drew her in as close as possible and just hugged her.

  “I love you,” he said.

  She was perfect for him. No other woman on earth could understand him, or put up with him, or uplift him as she did. He rocked her back and forth in his arms, slowly, and banished the thought of ever having to live without her.

  “I love you too, Mr. Reporter,” she said.

  “Don’t remind me of work.” He groaned. “I really gotta dig into that McDaniel piece. I’ve had no time.”

  He needed to follow up with Barbara Cooley to make sure she’d sent the email blast and find out if she’d heard back from any other church employees who may have seen Evan McDaniel the morning he disappeared. He needed to talk to the two people Barbara had mentioned who did see Evan that morning. And he needed to track down that rich lady, Pendergrass, to see what she had to say about her weekly meetings with the pastor.

  If the cops can just nail Granger Meade, we can get on with our lives.

  “I was thinking maybe I could go with you if you go back to the McDaniels’ house,” Pam said. “You know, just to kind of be there for Wendy, see if there’s anything I can do.”

  “Great idea.” Jack stretched his arms above his head and yawned. “I’d give anything to be at Granger Meade’s apartment right now.”

  “Oh, I’m sure that would be a pretty picture.” Pam squeezed him around the waist. “Let the police do their job. Come on, let’s scrounge up some lunch and get you your Sunday nap.”

  He held up his hands. “Maybe you can join me.”

  She lifted hers. Their fingers intertwined and their palms pressed together.

  “Oh, really,” she said. “I didn’t think you let anything interfere with your Sunday nap.”

  “Anything but you.” He guided her hands around his back; she latched them behind him. Smoothly, softly, he leaned in and kissed her, hoping she would feel how very much he loved her. Their mouths melted together. Warmth flowed. Pleasure swirled. And suddenly nothing else in the world mattered but their passionate communion.

  15

  Hunched over a small, creaky desk in his stifling basement apartment, Granger Meade knew the authorities would be coming for him soon.

  He let out a sigh and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the shoulder of his tight black T-shirt.

  Nothing ever went right.

  Fingering the letter he’d just finished writing, he dropped the pen on the desk and stared up at the dreamy photographs of Pamela taped to the entire cinderblock wall in front of him like a patchwork collage.

  Many of the photos—color, sepia tone, black-and-white—he had taken on Pamela’s wedding day with a telephoto lens as he sat in his car across the street from the church. There she was, in the poster-size black-and-white at the center of the mix, coming down the front steps of the church, a lovely hand at her forehead, blocking the rice being tossed by well-wishers.

  Granger’s already-failing heart had been irreparably damaged that windy spring afternoon. His lofty dream of a future with Pamela had been swept away that day, the only genuine friend he’d ever known claimed by another. It didn’t matter by whom. It could have been Jack Crittendon or Brad Pitt; the fact was, she was now officially off limits. At least by moral standards, and according to the Christian doctri
ne to which she adhered.

  A flash of rage alit within him. His mother and father had called themselves Christian. They’d played their roles at church, putting on masks of piety and righteousness on Sundays and Wednesdays and every other day the blasted place was open. Yet they were hypocrites of the worst kind. Miserable. Hateful. Self-seeking and self-righteous. In their own deceived minds, they were above everyone else, yet in reality they were the lowest of low.

  Scum.

  Bottom-dwelling scum.

  He’d almost put an end to them, that one Christmas night.

  What stopped me?

  Little had his father and mother known how close they’d come to being smothered to death by their oddball son, who’d stood over each one of them as they slept. The pillow had been in his sweaty hands, inches from his father’s gaping, snoring trap, within a foot of his mother’s poisonous, scorn-filled mouth.

  Oh, how he’d longed to shut off the flow that beat him down and weakened him like the melting desert sun each day of his rotten life.

  They’d sung in the choir Christmas Eve, his mother and father. Candles burning. Faces glowing. Wreaths smelling of pine. They took Communion. They hugged their friends and handed out their cheap little gifts.

  When they arrived back at the close, warm house, Granger gathered blankets, thinking they might allow him to sleep inside. It had been a good evening, his parents’ favorite time of year.

  “What are you doing?” Mother’s grating voice pierced him to the wall.

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” he said softly.

  Mother and Father stared at each other.

  Father looked as if he might concede, but not Mother.

  Not even close.

  Her ghostly face broke out with burning red splotches, and she lit into Granger once again for not paying attention at the service, for not singing right, for sitting alone like some “retard,” for embarrassing her and Father by being such an “awkward oddity.” One night in the shed would be his punishment.

  He retreated to the cold, damp mattress in the tool shed. Late into the night he lay awake, damp to the core, wrestling with the mythical Christmas story, listening to the mice scurry about, hating himself, his parents, the classmates who bullied him—the whole world.

  On Christmas morning he’d crept inside, frozen to the bone, and curled up on the heater vent on the kitchen floor to thaw out before his parents awoke. Father made cocoa and handed him a cup. They sat by the manger scene and tree, and with great anticipation he gave his parents the gifts he’d saved up for—a new Bible for each of them, both with genuine leather covers. Mother’s turned out to be the “wrong version,” and she insisted the print in Father’s was too small.

  In the back of his mind, Granger had known the gifts would be wrong; some way, somehow—wrong. But still, her ugly comments hollowed him inside and made him feel inadequate, clumsy, and sick to his stomach.

  Granger received two pairs of wool socks in a Walmart bag and a blue-and-gray-checked flannel jacket that used to be Father’s and smelled of Old Spice. Gifts that would keep him warm when he was forced outside, away from them, where he belonged.

  Later that night he almost choked the life out of them.

  He was glad he hadn’t, for one reason: he didn’t want to look bad in Pamela’s eyes. After all, it would have made national news.

  Sitting there at the desk in the glow of the computer light, he laid the letter down, gave a hard cough, and reached for the ratty-looking pack of Newports sitting next to a box of saltines and a can of Red Bull on the floor. Knocking one of the smokes from the pack, he tapped it on the back of his hand, flipped it to the corner of his mouth, lit, and inhaled mightily till the tobacco glowed orange.

  Look at her …

  He exhaled, blowing a stream of smoke up toward a photo of Pamela in which her full lips curved into a mischievous smile. Some of the pictures had been lifted from the husband’s laptop, reprinted, and enlarged. Her marble-brown eyes were dazzling. She had soft, bouncy blonde hair, worn in many different styles over the years, and her figure was curvy and full—a dream.

  Did she know he was not “after her” in a physical way? Not yet, anyway. She must know. She knew him back then. She knew he would never hurt her, the one true source of joy he’d ever discovered. The thought of coming across to Pam as some kind of sexual predator felt so villainous.

  He was always misunderstood.

  But you smashed your way into her home. You tried to frame Jack. At the bridge, you pointed the knife at her and slashed the tire …

  Messed up, messed up, messed up.

  His whole life was a mistake.

  Why had God let him be born?

  He slid the ashtray over and flicked the cigarette with his thumb, knocking a few flakes of ash onto the pile of a dozen butts. Shoving his chair back a foot, he buried his sweaty head in his hands.

  Why couldn’t you just let her be? Let her live her life …

  You’re tormenting her—and her girls.

  The kiddy porn he’d dumped on the husband’s laptop wasn’t his. He’d bought it off some pervert at the bowling alley where he worked.

  She’s going to hate you, you know that, don’t you? She thinks you’re some sadistic, psychotic goon.

  “It’s not true,” he moaned. “That is not me …”

  But it was. Although he didn’t want to live like a monster, he was going through the motions, almost like some kind of programmed demon.

  Maybe he was just a bad seed, as Mother had always declared.

  “There are vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor,” she would say. “You, my son, are clearly a vessel of dishonor. I don’t bother to ask the Potter why. We do not question the Potter. We are simply the clay in his hands. I can’t help it if he stuck your father and me with a bad lump like you.”

  Maybe he was a hideous, ugly mental case with no brain. Maybe he was destined for destruction, a lawbreaker who would spend the rest of his life in some concrete prison with peeling paint, fighting off rapists and felons and eating slop.

  Maybe that’s where you want to be.

  Maybe it’s the safest place for you, for everyone.

  He sat up, leaned back in the chair, and—puhhhhhhh—took a deep, loud hit of the smoke, wishing it would give him instant cancer and he’d die in that hot, cramped apartment.

  A handful of the photos on the wall were childhood keepsakes he’d hung onto all those years, including class photos and yearbook pictures. There to the right was Pamela’s seventh-grade picture—the friend and confidant whom he remembered so vividly. He’d thought of her night and day while growing up as a boy and young man in their Cleveland suburb; much more than she’d ever realized.

  But now she knew. Now she knew he had her on his brain.

  And so did the police, he was certain.

  The cat was out of the proverbial bag.

  Granger hadn’t meant to scare her by breaking into her house through the front door. He was panicked himself. The sight of her had snapped something within him and driven him into a blazing frenzy. And then the night at the bridge, he’d just wanted to talk, that was all. Oh, to talk to her again like when they were kids. That’s all he’d wanted, he’d have sworn it on his mother’s no-good Bible. He hadn’t meant to pull her hair, to hurt her. That was the last thing he would ever want. But Pamela hadn’t recognized him. She acted as if he was some kind of fiend.

  Then she tried to run me down.

  He took one last drag, let the smoke drift out of his O-shaped mouth, and inhaled every last gray vapor up his nose. It burned, and he liked it. He wished again that it would kill him. His fat, yellowish fingers warmed as he mashed the cigarette in the ashtray. His soul felt stained, just like his fingers.

  If he could just think clearly, make a few more good, sound decisions—keep the Devil at bay. He knew one thing: he needed to make things right with Pamela. That was the only thing that mattered now. He couldn’t think beyond that.

/>   The brown cardboard box he’d prepared earlier sat on the yellow Formica table in the dinky kitchen beneath a cheap hanging light. It contained Pamela’s jewelry and the girl’s locket.

  This is good. You’re doing what’s right. Just hurry up and see it through.

  It would be dangerous to deliver the box and letter to her home, but that was the next move on the agenda. He knew he could not come back to the apartment. Cops would be there within twenty-four hours max, he guessed. He would throw his clothes and essentials into his leather duffel, do the deed at Pam’s house, and ditch the car somewhere.

  Then what?

  He couldn’t last much longer in that town. When they ran the sketch of him in the paper—even though there wasn’t much resemblance—he was forced to quit his job at the bowling alley. Someone was sure to recognize him or put two and two together—probably already had.

  Granger needed to get away from there. Out of Ohio. Far away. That would be the best way he could show his love to her.

  What was love, anyway?

  He had no idea.

  The only taste of it he ever got was from Pamela, back in the day.

  Now he could return the favor—by letting her go.

  Yes, go away. Far away. Leave her alone. Never interfere in her life again. Set her free.

  That would be love.

  The sheer separation would make him—force him—to let her go.

  As long as he could continue on this train of thought, keep thinking clearly, being pure, doing the right thing …

  But he knew it wouldn’t last.

  No, don’t think that way …

  The Devil always returned.

  Always.

  Just like Mother said: “You sweep the house clean. You try to be good, morally. But if you ain’t surrendered your life to him, the Devil will come back with a vengeance, and he’ll have all his rowdy, rat-pack hooligan demons with him. Then they’ll really make a mess of things.”

  How else could he show his love for her?

  Take her.

  No. You mustn’t. That’s not what she wants.

  Show her what life could be like.