“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” When he clicked on the sentence, he was taken to another page, featuring the image of a man embracing a weeping woman and a paragraph:
Maybe you’ve lost someone to violence, or perhaps you have been the victim of a violent crime. Either way, your life has been altered and a hole has been punched open in your world. Through it comes the most malignant, destructive monster of all: FEAR. More vicious than any violent criminal, more evil than the deeds of any killer, fear will rob you of what’s left of your life. There’s only one way out of the haunted forest: You must go through. You must face what you most fear. We can show you how.
There was a number to call, and he was surprised to see that the area code was local. He cast about for a street address but didn’t find anything listed in the online Yellow Pages or in the reverse directory and soon realized that the number he had was a cellular line. He dialed the number from his cell phone, which had a blocked ID; voice mail picked up before there was even a ring tone.
“Congratulations. You’ve taken the first step. Leave your name and number here, and someone will get back to you. If you’re not ready to do that, you’re not ready for this.”
“Hi,” he said, trying to make his voice sound shaky and tentative. “I’m Ray, and I’m interested in learning more about your program.” He ended the call with an odd feeling in the base of his stomach.
After searching for more information on the organization and finding nothing, he shot an e-mail to Mike Keene, a friend of his who worked at the FBI, to see if there was anything on the radar about Grief Intervention Services. Then a couple more hours of coffee, eyestrain, aching shoulders, walking down virtual corridors and opening doors, looking for people who don’t want to be found. Around midnight his concept of himself as an orchid hunter was less appealing, less romantic.
He remembered the thoughts he had outside my memorial service, that he’d need to go back to go forward. So he entered the name Frank Geary. As he scrolled through old news articles about Frank’s trial, conviction, and sentence to death row, about my mother’s crusade, his new trial and release, then subsequent murder at the hands of Janet Parker, Harrison thought what a nightmare my life must have been.
The trail lead him to an old South Florida Sun-Sentinel piece about new DNA evidence proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Frank Geary was guilty of at least two of the murders of which he’d been originally accused.
The article went on to say that other DNA evidence added a new wrinkle, that it was possible Marlowe Geary might have either colluded in or been responsible for several of the other murders. Evidence collected during Marlowe Geary’s cross-country killing spree matched evidence collected at the scenes of murders attributed to Frank Geary.
There was a quote from Alan Parker, husband of Janet Parker and father of victim Melissa Parker: “The new evidence is disturbing. One wants justice in a case like this. One wants to face the person who killed his daughter.”
Harrison read on that Alan Parker was the founder of the Families of the Victims of Frank Geary, the group that lobbied to have the evidence in these murders reexamined as new technology became available.
The phone rang then, startling him. He jerked his arm and knocked his empty mug off the desk as he reached for the phone. It landed with a thud on the floor but didn’t break. The display screen on his phone flashed blue and read, UNAVAILABLE.
He answered. “Hello?”
But there was nothing but static on the line. “Hello,” he said again. He started to feel his heart thump; he hadn’t thought of what he’d say if the Grief Intervention people called back.
“Harrison.” A thick, male voice on the line. “It’s Mike Keene. Just got your e-mail.”
Harrison felt a cool rush of relief. He looked at the clock, nearly 1:00 A.M. “Working late?” he said.
“Yeah, always,” Mike said. “You, too?”
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his eyes. They exchanged a few pleasantries, polite questions about wives and kids. Then, “So…Grief Intervention Services?”
“It sounded familiar, so I did a little digging around. They’re incorporated in the state of Florida. But their address is a P.O. box.”
“Who’s the founding member?” Harrison asked, writing down the address Mike gave him.
He heard Mike tapping on a computer keyboard. “Someone by the name of Alan Parker. He founded the organization about five years ago. They’re listed as grief counselors. No complaints against them in the years they’ve been operating. No profit, either. They’re not on anyone’s watch list-officially.”
“Officially?”
“Well, a couple of years ago, there was an incident in South Florida. A man who’d been accused of molesting two boys while coaching a school soccer team and served some time for it-six years-was murdered in his home. Brutally murdered, castrated, skull bashed in…you know, overkill.”
“So the cops looked to the victims and their families,” guessed Harrison.
“That’s right. But there was no evidence to link anyone to the scene. So no one was ever charged. It came to light, however, that the father of one of the victims was in touch with Grief Intervention Services about six months before his son’s molester was released. The father said he needed counseling to deal with his rage and fear for his son’s safety. There was no evidence to the contrary.”
“So…”
“The weird thing about the crime was that the break-in was a textbook military entry, that the victim was bound and gagged in the way military personnel are trained to subdue an enemy. So there was this precise entry and apprehension of the victim, followed by this out-of-control rage killing. It was just bizarre.” Mike paused, and Harrison could hear him chewing on something. The chewing went on for longer than Harrison thought polite.
“I don’t understand. There’s some kind of military connection to Grief Intervention Services?” Harrison prodded finally.
“Hmm,” Mike said, mouth still full. “Sorry, I haven’t eaten all day. Alan Parker was a former Navy SEAL. One of his daughters was the victim of a serial killer by the name of Frank Geary. He and his wife, Janet Parker, founded an organization called the Families of the Victims of Frank Geary, after Geary was released in what many considered to be a travesty of justice. Then Janet Parker lost it and killed Frank Geary, burned down his house.”
Harrison could almost smell the scent on the wind.
“The organization disbanded, but Alan Parker kept lobbying for evidence retesting,” Mike went on. “Eventually it came to light that it might have been Marlowe Geary, Frank’s son, who killed Parker’s daughter. Parker disappeared for a while after that, then reappeared as the founder of GIS.
“Given his military background and his wife’s murder of Frank Geary, police were concerned that GIS was some kind of vigilante organization, so the FBI was informed. There was a cursory investigation that yielded no evidence to support any wrongdoing and was quickly dropped.”
Suddenly Detective Harrison pushed through the last of the fecund overgrowth and moved into a clearing where bright fingers of sun shone through the canopy of trees. Illuminated by the rays, the ghost orchid floated there, white and quivering, where it had been waiting all along.
I see a girl. She is lying beneath a field of stars. She is wishing, wishing she were high above the earth, an explosion from a millennium ago, that she were as white and untouchable as that. A young man lies beside her. He is pure beauty, his features finely wrought, his body sculpted from marble. His eyes are supernovas; nothing escapes them. They are lovers, yes. She loves him. But in a truer sense, she is his prisoner. The thing that binds her is this terrible void she has inside, a sick fear that he is the only home she will ever know. And this is enough.
They leave the safety of the New Mexico church, climb into their stolen car, and drive on an empty dark road that winds through mountains. She rests her tired head against the glass and listens to the hum of the engine, the rush of tires on asphalt, the song on the radio, “Crazy,” sung by Patsy Cline.
She becomes aware of something in the distance: Far behind them she can see the orange eyes of the headlights from another car. She can see them in the sideview mirror. If he notices, he doesn’t seem concerned. But that’s only because he doesn’t know what she knows. He doesn’t know about the man who dropped the note on their table.
