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“He was in the woods behind the hospital,” Talia told them without sugar coating it. “Someone had pumped a temporary, paralytic drug into his IV, before taking him out back, wrapping him in a tarp, walking deep into the woods to bury him under a pile of leaves and debris. We located him after an intensive search, and he was whisked right back into surgery as soon as we got him to the hospital.”
“Oh, my God,” Mrs. Eggers moaned. “Did you catch whoever…?”
“No. Which is the reason for my call.” Talia didn’t prevaricate. “I never would go behind Fleet’s back to talk about his situation, but… The info I gave you about his surgeries? That should have been on him. But what’s important to us now, is that we have an open case to investigate, and we’re looking…have looked into Fleet’s past to see if anything there raised a red flag.”
“And you found his juvenile record,” Mr. Eggers stated bluntly.
“We did. But without a court order, we can’t get into it, so I told my chief I’d make this call and see if you could tell me anything that might help in our investigation.”
“Ms. Spires…,” Mr. Eggers began.
“Talia. Please,” she countered.
“Talia,” Mr. Eggers continued. “I’ll tell you exactly what’s in his sealed records, but I assure you, it won’t be pertinent to your case. What happened to him certainly shaped our boy into the closed off man he’s become; changed him from the happy-go-lucky youngster we’d raised, into a bitter, mistrusting individual, but it absolutely did not follow him north. It’s not the people responsible for his past insecurities who have done this. I’m certain.”
“Because…?”
“Listen. I’ll tell you what happened, but only because as his girlfriend it will help you to understand him. Fleet has…ghosts that keep him from moving forward with close relationships; and to this day, shape him in ways it shouldn’t. Did he tell you he’s never been home since he left Huntsville, sixteen years ago?”
“He told me,” Talia answered. “And he promised to let me know why, but then all this happened, and there was no opportunity. Full disclosure. Fleet and I have known each other for several months, but we just started dating, officially, last week.”
“Well, I for one don’t care. You sound like you have our boy’s best interest at heart, so I’m on board with telling you everything,” Mrs. Eggers stated.
She didn’t say another word while clearly waiting for her husband’s opinion.
There was a huge sigh. “If you think it will help…” he trailed off.
“Oh,” his wife responded kind of sassily. “I don’t think it has any bearing on what’s happening to him up in Maine, but I think it will help Talia. Because if I know our son, he’ll continue to make excuses for why he won’t tell her about his past, and he’ll end up driving her away.”
Talia actually laughed. “You think? I have good news for you. I told Fleet to suck it up, because getting rid of me is not an option. I’m head-over-heels for your son, and sooner or later he’ll figure that out. But if you want to give me a version of his past that I can work with to help him? I’ll be more than appreciative.”
“He had a girlfriend back in high school,” Mrs. Eggers began without preamble. “She was a sweet thing, and the pair were like two peas in a pod for more than a year before things went bad. They did everything together, and were so darned cute…”
Talia bit her tongue, wanting Fleet’s mother to tell it all quickly, but she knew she had to give the woman time to get it out in her own way.
Mrs. Eggers clearly reminisced. “Bitsy—that’s her name—had two cousins she saw occasionally at family outings, but apparently for a very long time they hadn’t heard she was dating Fleet. When they finally found out at some event to which he accompanied her, they took exception to our son, deciding they didn’t like him on sight.”
Talia figured she knew what that meant.
“The pair were…still are…officers in Huntsville, and they began making veiled threats, saying they’d make Fleet’s life miserable if he didn’t stop seeing Bitsy. He didn’t think much of it, having never been in any kind of trouble. You have to understand. He was an exemplary student; class salutatorian. He was a big boy, playing and excelling in football and baseball, and pretty much everybody loved him.
“When he failed to heed their warnings, the two officers began making good on their threats. Fleet was stopped multiple times while driving, for trumped up reasons: A tail light was out—one that they smashed after they stopped him. Mud was obscuring a number on his license plate, which amounted to a large fine. He fit the description of someone who’d just robbed a liquor store, so he needed to be detained.” She sighed. “I’m sure you get the picture.”
“I do,” Talia bit back the swears that bubbled up inside her at the outrage she felt. “And now I understand why he was so cautious around me and my law enforcement friends in the beginning.”
Mrs. Eggers actually chuckled.
Mr. Eggers grunted. “I’m surprised he let any of you get close.”
Talia was also able to force a laugh. “He actually didn’t realize that Everlee was an ex-cop when he met her. And he absolutely didn’t know she was dating a cop who’s my chief. Fleet became embroiled with a bunch of us before he could help himself. But that’s a story for another time. Right now I need to hear more from you.”
“What I’ve told you wasn’t, of course, the end of it,” Mrs. Eggers took up her story again. “When Fleet refused to stop seeing Bitsy, those two officers upped the ante. They planted a small amount of drugs in Fleet’s locker at school, then hauled him off to jail in front of Bitsy and all his friends. They thought that would do it, but what they didn’t know is we have a dear friend who’s a state cop. We called him immediately. Benny got a hold of the so-called evidence and ran the baggie for fingerprints, not finding any from Fleet, but a lot from the pair of officers involved. He also had blood drawn from Fleet as well as doing a urinalysis, and neither showed any indication of drugs in his system.
“He was eventually let go for lack of evidence.” She paused, obviously reliving the whole, painful period before starting up again. “You would have thought the two would stop there, but they didn’t. The next thing they did was even more chilling.”
Talia gritted her teeth. There was nothing worse than crooked cops. She’d seen her share over the years, but luckily had never served alongside any that she was aware of. Her closest brush with a disgruntled cop was her current association with her squad member, Doug. But would he be capable of what Mrs. Eggers was describing? She hoped not. And if he was, he’d get his ass kicked from here to Montreal.
Talia wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the rest, but she steeled herself. “Go on.”
