“What about when he hired on?”
She shook her head. “Gary’s only been there six months. Mr. Brice has been in New York most of the time, on the IPO.”
“Why’d Gary go to the vigil?”
“She was his boss’s daughter. The whole town went.”
“Has Gary’s behavior changed in any way since Friday night?”
“Yes, at two this morning when the police kicked our door down and pointed guns at us. He freaked.”
“Did he dispose of any clothing recently?”
“No.”
“Did he clean his truck over the weekend?”
“No.”
“Has Gary ever displayed an unusual interest in children?”
“No. Kids drive him nuts.”
“Has he ever referred to children as ‘pure’ or ‘innocent’?”
“No. He thinks my sister’s kids were sent by Satan. Chief, where are you getting these questions, out of a child molester manual?”
He was, in fact.
“Does he have any friends you would describe as deviants or weird?”
“Have you been to his workplace? People there have rings in their ears, noses, tongues, navels, nipples, and genitals. That’s weird.”
He had to agree with her.
“Mrs. Jennings, do you and Gary have a, uh, normal marital relationship?”
“Do we have sex?”
He nodded.
“Yes, Chief, we have sex. Gary likes sex with his wife, not little girls.”
Ryan hesitated. He wasn’t getting very far with her. Of course, he hadn’t told her about the child pornography. He debated whether he should, but he decided that it would come out at trial anyway, probably sooner. So it wasn’t as if he would be intentionally upsetting her. And maybe she would then realize that her husband was guilty and she could pressure him into confessing. Paul Ryan needed a confession to keep his job. So he retrieved the picture from the desk drawer and held it in his lap.
“Mrs. Jennings, does your husband practice pornography?”
“Oh, no, he’s never asked me to do anything like that… well, one time he asked me to put it in my mouth, but I told him that was sinful. He’s never asked again.”
“No, uh, I mean, does he have pornography around the apartment, you know, magazines or movies?”
“No, he doesn’t even get Playboy since he accepted God into his life.”
“Has he ever possessed child pornography?”
“No!”
“Mrs. Jennings, we found this in Gary’s truck.”
Ryan placed the picture on the desk and slowly pushed it toward her. Her eyes locked on the image, her mouth came open, as if she was about to speak, but no words came out. She looked up at Ryan then back at the picture. Finally, she spoke.
“This was in Gary’s truck?”
“Yes, ma’am, it was.”
Her face went pale. She put her palms on the desk and pushed herself up out of the chair. Halfway up, she suddenly groaned and grabbed at her round belly, down low. She bent over and cried out in pain. She collapsed.
Jesus Christ!
Ryan vaulted to her side of the desk. Blood was on her bare legs.
“Call the paramedics!” he yelled to his secretary.
A risk level 3 offender is defined as an offender for whom there is no basis for concern that the person poses a serious danger to the community or will continue to engage in criminal sexual conduct.
Gary Jennings was a risk level 3 offender.
Elizabeth had logged onto the Texas Department of Public Safety’s online Sex Offender Database. She entered Jennings, Gary in the search box and clicked. Jennings’s photo came up along with his record.
JENNINGS, GARY MICHAEL
DPS NO.: 156870021
DOB: 3/10/78
RISK LEVEL: 3
SEX: male
RACE: white
HT: 510
WT: 155
EYE COLOR: blu
HAIR COLOR: bln
SHOE SIZE: 085
ALIAS NAMES: Jennings, Gary
CURRENT ADDRESS
1100 Interstate 45
Oakville Apartments
Apt. 121
Post Oak, Texas 78901
OFFENSE DATA
OFFENSE: Indecency w/child sexual contact
COUNTS: 1
VICTIM’S SEX: Female
VICTIM’S AGE: 16.11
DISPOSITION DATE: 07/08/1998
TIME: 1Y PROBATED
STATUS: DISCHARGED
Forty-two thousand registered sex offenders resided in the State of Texas. And one of them had abducted and murdered her daughter.
BriceWare. com Incorporated occupied an abandoned grocery store in a nondescript strip shopping center across the interstate from the affluence of Briarwyck Farms. FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux followed the father through the automatic sliding-glass doors and into the store along with Agents Stevens and Jorgenson. They had come to check Gary Jennings’s workspace and personnel records.
Inside, the cavernous space was, in fact, an empty grocery store. Big neon signs-DAIRY… MEATS… BAKERY… PHARMACY… VIDEOS… PRODUCE-still lit up the walls. Hanging from the ceiling were grocery store fluorescent lights and grocery store aisle markers with product listings. But where the aisles of groceries used to stand were now aisles of low cubicles; heads bobbed up and down. Young men and women, boys and girls really, glided by on rollerblades or personal scooters, headphones wrapped around their skulls, their ears and noses adorned with rings, their arms and ankles with tattoos, their hair representing all the colors of the rainbow; some pushed grocery carts filled with mail or boxes; they were dressed like they were at a rock concert instead of a business. If there was anyone over the age of twenty-five, Devereaux had yet to see him or her. The workplace of
