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“I’m Gerald Spalman, and I don’t know why I said you could come. You’d think I’d learn.” Spalman was frowning as he gestured impatiently for Kendra and Lynch to come into the foyer. “I know that you’re not going to do anything. I’ve been through it all.” His eyes squinted on Kendra’s face. “You’re that lady who was blind. I read all about you. I guess maybe I thought that you might have a different viewpoint than those guys at the FBI who think they’re so tough.”
“I’m Kendra Michaels.” She reached out and shook his hand. “And this is Adam Lynch. We appreciate you letting us come to see you. I’m sure the agents at the FBI did what they could during the investigation. But there was no real evidence.”
“And now there is?” Spalman’s lips twisted with bitterness. “I don’t think so.”
“I can’t blame you for being cynical. You’re right, there’s still no proof. But we’re looking at the cases from a different viewpoint.” She added, “And we’re trying to fit your testimony into what we’ve learned since your son took his own life.”
“Because that mass murderer Barrett killed himself, too?” he asked harshly. “It was all over the TV. My David wasn’t anything like that Barrett. Barrett was a monster; my David was a good boy before someone got hold of him and messed with his head.”
“Have you found out anything more about the person who might have done that?” Lynch asked. “Since you told the FBI that your son had confessed to you that he’d killed those football players, I’m sure you tried to find out who would have tried to influence him.”
“Of course I did. After he drove off that cliff, I searched his room and his locker at school, and I found nothing. But I know there was someone in his life…he changed that last year. He didn’t talk, and he broke with his old friends. He mentioned the name Milo a couple of times.”
“Milo?” Kendra said.
“Yeah. But there’s no evidence he even existed. An FBI profiler had a theory that it may have been a figment of David’s imagination.” Spalman snorted. “Like an imaginary friend. I never believed that. But whatever was happening, David seemed…tormented. He wasn’t the same boy.”
“In what way?” Kendra asked. “How did he change?”
“Night and day.” There was pain, not bitterness, in his expression now. “He loved sports. My wife wouldn’t let him play football because she was scared of all those head injuries, but he watched every game. He played hockey and was on the track team.” He wrinkled his brow. “Those four football players he killed; they were his heroes. He’d watched and admired them from the time they’d started playing in high school. He always talked about how great they’d do when they made the NFL.”
“Sometimes emotions become twisted,” Kendra said gently.
“Not with him.” His voice was hoarse. “He loved those guys. If they became twisted later, it was because something happened to him that shouldn’t have happened. Someone…”
“Anything else?” Lynch asked.
“Little things,” his father said. “He had secrets. He’d bring home objects, small gifts, and tell his mother and me that he’d bought them himself.” He was silent for a long moment. “And I found he’d burned photos of those four football players in his room. I felt sick.”
“I can see why. Would you mind if we searched your son’s room?”
“Why should I? There’s nothing there that has anything to do with David any longer. He was taken from us, and we’ll never get him back. Go ahead. His room is the second one to the left at the top of the stairs.” He suddenly turned back to them. “But I should probably tell you our house was broken into a week after David died. The only thing that we found stolen was one of those small objects I told you about. David kept it on a shelf facing his bed. It was the statue of a woman in an old-fashioned outfit. My wife said she remembered she’d seen it when she cleaned his room. There was a plaque on the bottom with her name.NAIAD.”
“Did you report it missing?”
He nodded. “I called them once. They didn’t seem interested. By that time, I was sick of the FBI. My wife had left me. My son was dead. The neighbors hated us and scrawled graffiti all over our property. What did it matter if some sicko had decided to steal from me? I just built my fence out front higher.”
“I’m sorry that you’ve had such a terrible time,” Kendra said as she started up the stairs. “I promise we won’t be long.”
He didn’t answer but went back out on the porch.
And Kendra tried to keep her word. The last thing she wanted was to stay in that sad room that seemed to be weighed down with melancholy. She and Lynch made a perfunctory search, but there didn’t appear to be anything that could be considered evidence. Would she have recognized it if she’d found it? Before they left the room she lingered at the door, her gaze circling the bedroom and ending at the empty shelf facing the bed. What had been so important about it to David Spalman that he’d wanted it to be the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes?
“Kendra?” Lynch asked.
She nodded. “I’m ready to go.” She followed him out of the room. “More than ready. What a complete tragedy to strike a family. I wish we’d found—” She suddenly broke off as a thought came to her. “But maybe we did.” She hurried down the steps. “Let’s get to the car!”
They quickly said goodbye to David’s father and then headed for the car. “Give me a minute before you get on the road,” Kendra said. “I need to look up something.”
“Don’t you always?” He got in the driver’s seat and turned to look at her. “The statue?”
She nodded, her fingers flying over her phone’s touchscreen. Then she found it. “Shit!”
“Bad? Good? Indifferent?”
“Definitely not indifferent. It could be bad or good.” She read from the text. “Naiad, a female nature entity. Sometimes they could be considered dangerous because they could take men underwater when fascinated by their beauty. Those men were never seen again.”
“Underwater,” Lynch repeated.
