Walking on Thin Ice: A Rachel Drucker Thriller, page 15
Physical violence that no child could be prepared for, Rachel thought clenching her fist as Julia Brown in the back of his car vividly replayed in her mind.
“You said reconnect, so you knew him before the incident?” Rachel asked, keeping her composure.
“Oh sure we go back a long time. We were off and on again so many times. We broke up and then it was less than a year later they sent me to jail. It was the longest time we were ever apart.”
“So, with how well you know him, do you think he could kidnap a small child?”
Rachel saw the flash of anger again on Alyssa's face, but she kept cool.
“Absolutely not, he is a decent man horribly misunderstood.”
“You just said yourself he is prone to physical violence. You seriously can't believe you are the only girl he would physically hurt, do you?” Rachel asked, gripping the arm of the chair.
“Maybe not, but that was just his wrong way of expressing love. He didn't love no ten-year-old.”
Rachel's voice got a little louder and a little angrier. It was time for her to play bad cop in her one-man production. “That's even more ridiculous than saying he couldn't physically hurt anyone. The man was convicted of having child pornography. He's a registered sex offender!” Rachel said, throwing her hands up in the air. Alyssa opened her mouth to speak, but Rachel cut her off.
“The evidence is right there for all to see. He is a violent man with a thing for little girls. He had a crush on Julia Brown, snuck into her house and when she wouldn't comply with what he wanted he took out his trusty hunting knife. Tell me I'm wrong. He has the hunting knife?”
Alyssa nodded.
“We need to find that hunting knife. He probably has sick mementos, from you and other women, just lying around somewhere safe with it. Please help me make sure no one else gets hurt like you, or, god forbid, Julia Brown by this monster ever again,” Rachel said, back as good cop, pleading with Alyssa.
Alyssa wore a paralyzed glare, caught off guard by Rachel's verbal attack. For a brief second Rachel believed Alyssa may cry and reveal much needed information on Jacob Drake. Instead, she stood up and tossed her folding chair at Rachel.
“Why are you asking me these questions? You are no different from any of the other cops or reporters who came around here! You are so convinced of his guilt. You will do anything to put him in jail. I thought you said he asked you to come here. Why would he do that just so you could interrogate me to try and put him in prison? I think you’re lying to me,” Alyssa said, pacing back and forth on her side of the small table.
“He did tell me to come see you, Holly. Maybe he needs your help to come clean and can't do it by himself? Help us put him away for his own safety,” Rachel urged, having side stepped the flying folding chair.
Alyssa shook her head. “You don't understand at all. He didn't kidnap that little girl. He couldn't have done it. He was with me at the time.”
Jacob Drake had never mentioned having an alibi outside of the dream. He always said he was alone. If he had an alibi why didn't he use it, Rachel thought. Just a back-up safety plan like dad assumed?
“Coming forward as an alibi is convenient twenty years later. No one will believe you and this flimsy defense won't hold up in court,” Rachel said, taking a step towards Alyssa.
“And that's exactly why we decided I shouldn't come forward anyway. It would just cause more trouble and no one would believe me like you don't now.”
“Why are you protecting him? Your misguided thoughts on love are trying to defend his anger and excuse his behavior. He is an awful man who has done awful things,” Rachel was again desperate for a confession. The facts were on her side and no one was coming clean.
“He's not perfect, but he's not the man you make him out to be. Those child pornography charges? Those were me.”
Rachel didn't have a quick response for Alyssa this time. She had never seen the evidence of child pornography. The file said a police officer caught him with a photo on campus before he destroyed the evidence.
“Oh, you didn't know that one, did you?” Alyssa asked, glaring at Rachel. “We met when I was fifteen, taking summer school classes at the community college and we hit it off right away. He knew I was young, but I doubt he suspected I was that young. Without him knowing, I placed a nude photo in his book to find later. He opened it while studying in the library and some rent-a-cop happened to be over his shoulder. The man mentally saved it for later, but he reported Jake to the police and the rent-a-cop's word was enough to make the charges stick. Jake was so angry, but he forgave me and we continued to see each other.”
“You are saying you were in a long-term relationship with this man starting when you were fifteen and were with him at the time of the disappearance?” Rachel wondered how deep Alyssa's lie would go.
Alyssa nodded, but couldn't stop pacing back and forth. “Like I said, we went through periods of on and off, but we were mostly together until we got in a big fight and he kicked me out of our house. It left me on the street where I got pinched not too long after.”
“What was the fight about?” Rachel asked, trying to keep Alyssa talking.
“Before Julia Brown? The fights were always about men. Men looking at me, me looking at men, whatever Jake thought he saw. After Julia Brown everything changed. Our fights were about the police, staying safe, committing to a more concrete alibi, and of course that stupid car. He was convinced the police would plant hairs of the dead girl in his car so he had to get rid of it. I tried to tell him how guilty it made him look but he didn't listen. From that day forward the police constantly stalked and harassed us and it caused us to break. Well, besides a brief stint when I got out of prison, but then we remembered the fighting and it was over for good.”
Rachel looked at Alyssa, surprised she hadn’t created a trench with her aggressive pacing. Alyssa was deep in an emotional wound she never intended on opening just like the Browns. Rachel was causing people to relive so much pain. She knew it would only be worth it if she got answers for Julia.
“Okay, let's say I believe everything you’re telling me. He's not exactly a pedophile, just a man with a too young but beautiful girlfriend who got in over his head. Why didn't he mention you to the police? Why did an eye witness put him at the scene?”
“How do you think that would have gone, Rachel? I was with my sixteen-year-old girlfriend and that's why I couldn't have kidnapped the eight-year-old? It was just the two of us alone at his house. He had worked the day shift, and we stayed in eating pizza he took from work and watched movies like we did after every day shift. No one would have believed us and he would have probably been charged with another crime and put away anyway.”
Alyssa had just provided Drake's alibi, but it was just as circumstantial as it was earlier. Rachel didn't believe her and knew there was no way any police officer would either.
“What about the eye witness? He could have snuck out when you were sleeping and did this heinous deed. Everything you're telling me doesn't erase the fact that he is an awful man with a temper and a hunting knife,” Rachel asked, sticking to her guns.
“Everyone in my neighborhood has a long hunting knife. Mostly for protection and very little to do with hunting. I'm sure I have one in the house, too. I don't know what to tell you about the eye witness. We had been in the area many times before. It was his favorite spot to smoke and hang out by the river like all teenagers. There was this abandoned little fort carved in the bushes where we would spend hours drinking beer and doing stupid teenager stuff. I know it’s in the Brown's neighborhood so it's easy to put us there, but I'm telling you we weren't there that night. He didn't even know who the Browns were before the kidnapping was all over the news. He couldn't care less whose property he was trespassing on to get to his river spots. The only girl ever in his car was me. I made sure of that.”
Alyssa stopped pacing and Rachel had run out of questions. At least for now. Alyssa saw Rachel's hesitation as a chance to convince someone of her truth.
“I wish I had more answers for you, or more concrete evidence of his innocence, but he is innocent and I replay that day over and over looking for clues or facts to prove it. If you don't believe me, don't contact me ever again or I really will call the cops. I don't care who sent you.”
Alyssa went into her house and shut the sliding door behind her, never once looking back. Rachel loitered in the yard for a minute before going back to her car. Even if she had more questions, Alyssa was done answering for the evening.
At home, Rachel opened a bottle of wine as part of her usual dinner routine but forgot the food. She needed to re-evaluate the case against Jacob Drake. Something she knew her dad would scoff at for wasting any time on. Ted would have focused on Alyssa Hollander stating Drake was a regular lurker on the Brown property and he owned a hunting knife. Alyssa puts Drake in the neighborhood multiple times with ample opportunity to scope the house and know when to grab Julia.
There was a high likelihood she was just a loyal ex-girlfriend stuck in a lie by nothing more than misguided loyalty. That was exactly what Ted had predicted. Drake had an alibi in his back pocket just in case things got too hairy.
But the encounter and the interview with Jacob Drake nagged Rachel. Why not just admit she didn't see him that night 20 years later? Why be so insistent on the lie and defend such a horrible man? Or was this just the mastermind Jacob Drake continuing to be one step ahead of everyone else again? Manipulating everyone around him to keep him out of prison.
Rachel was already two glasses of wine deep and decided to use her corkboard that had been empty too long. She found her thumbtacks and notecards and wrote Jacob Drake Evidence on one placing it at the top center of the board. She then wrote out the evidence she had:
1) Pedophile–giving him a horrible motive
2) Mario's Pizza delivery range–giving him access
3) Mario's Pizza delivery menu found in bushes–giving him the perfect place to stalk the victim
4) Drake's Missing Car–proof he destroyed evidence
5) Drakes History of Violence–two domestic violence cases show he is an angry and violent man
6) His lack of alibi–he still says on record he was alone
7) The eyewitness account of him in the neighborhood on the night of the crime with Julia in the backseat.
Rachel looked disappointingly at the board. She knew the case was thin and that's why the police never rearrested him without the car, but it looked even more meager up on the board. She used string to tie each evidence to its back-up documentation. The arrest record for the pedophilia, the Mario's Pizza menu and a google map print out of the bushes, the two domestic violence cases, and the statement she herself took from William Hirt. She felt better knowing she could back up all her accusations with evidence.
Then she had to take what she learned from Alyssa Hollander into consideration. She attached a picture of Alyssa Hollander to pedophile. It was likely a consensual relationship just like with Kristy Santiago. This still made him a monster, and was illegal and disgusting, but it did poke holes in him being into 10-year-old children. Rachel had to admit even at 16 years old Alyssa nor Kristy looked anything like a 10-year-old and they were physically worlds apart from Julia Brown in 2000.
The Mario's Pizza delivery range showed he had access and Alyssa confirmed he was in those bushes which makes his opportunity even more clear. Nothing Alyssa or Kristy said made him any less of a violent sadistic person in Rachel's mind. While Alyssa made excuses for it, she never said the violence didn't exist. Alyssa, being his alibi the night of the kidnapping, was something Rachel would have to disprove. Lastly, there was the solid evidence Alyssa had no response for: the eyewitness account from William Hirt.
William Hirt didn't know Jacob Drake, so he had no reason to lie about what he saw that night. Rachel had tried to poke holes in his recollection, but he was confident in it even twenty years later. She was impressed he even had it down to which can he was moving at the time the car passed. William Hirt was a credible witness, with a machine-like routine easily believable over Alyssa or Jacob Drake.
Rachel polished her third glass of wine and convinced herself she could overcome the headache Alyssa Hollander would be in court. An ex who was still obsessed with Drake would say anything to protect his innocence. Rachel opened Instagram on her phone to find evidence Drake and Alyssa were still talking and on good terms. She needed something to show Alyssa wasn't as unbiased as she portrayed.
Rachel found Alyssa Hollander's public Instagram and scrolled through the pictures. People often lie about things that could easily be refuted by a quick look at social media nowadays. She had looked at about a dozen gorgeous photos but no sign of Drake. Mostly just selfies and some photos with friends; a pretty basic and generic Instagram, Rachel thought. Then Rachel stopped scrolling, transfixed by an older photo where the resolution was grainy.
The photo was of a woman Rachel guessed was around 30, who looked slightly like Alyssa in the eyes and nose, hugging a teenage girl somewhere around 14 -16 years old. The caption read: Can't wait to see my own kid again. Here is one of the happiest memories of me and my mother. Can't wait for the three of us to make generational memories just like this one #TBT. It was a photo of Alyssa and her own mother, but it wasn't Alyssa's mom catching Rachel’s eye.
Rachel couldn't believe she was looking at Alyssa. Gone was the long, blonde hair and the tattoos she had seen just hours earlier. Alyssa was born with brunette hair that she wore short and tight. It was beautiful short caramel brunette hair Rachel could only remember seeing once before as part of a series of events she could never unsee. Alyssa's hair looked exactly like Julia Browns.
Shit ,shit, shit, Rachel thought, panicking. Could William Hirt have seen Alyssa and not Julia? Rachel felt her pulse quicken, but tried to reassure herself. That doesn't mean anything changed, it just means perhaps Alyssa was involved, Rachel reasoned. She could have been in the back of the car with Julia. But William Hirt only remembers seeing one person? They could have tied Julia up on the floor of the car or in the trunk.
Rachel tried desperately to picture William Hirt looking at Julia in the back of the car like she had seen so clearly in her dream, but now everything was hazy. She picked up the blank notecards and threw them across the room. If she couldn't tell the difference between Julia or 16-year-old Alyssa Hollander from behind, how was a jury going to believe William Hirt? Rachel could feel her breathing shorten to fast rapid breaths. The entire case she built relied on one man and two garbage cans. Rachel felt a pit in her stomach and was full on hyperventilating.
The garbage cans, she thought. She remembered having a nagging question regarding the garbage cans when she was talking to William Hirt, but she ignored it. Her parent's garbage can day was Tuesday but Julia Brown went missing on a Thursday. She had dismissed the thought because while her parents were close, they could be on a different garbage pickup day. William Hirt was so confident in what he saw. How could he be wrong about the date?
Rachel tried to breathe and considered getting a paper bag to practice breathing techniques. It’s highly possible William Hirt's collection day was Thursday. Rachel went to the Sacramento County Waste Management Department's website and began sweating. How could I have missed something so crucial and let this detail get by me, she thought. I want to be a journalist and I can't even catch important details?
She was getting ahead of herself. She loaded the page for garbage pickup and searched by the zip code her parents shared with William Hirt. Lucky for Rachel, the map indicated the routes had not changed in the past 40 years. There were three different colored circles which the key showed were three different pickup days within the zip code. Rachel looked at the boundaries. She found her parent's house first, squarely in the red category for Tuesday. She searched the map for William Hirt's house and there it was about twenty houses away from a major cross street where the official break was between red and purple with purple's pickup labeled Thursday. Rachel's heart sank as she saw William Hirt, and all of Wandering Willow Way, on the red side of the official break.
The eyewitness puts Jacob Drake, with a brunette girl in the backseat, in the neighborhood on Tuesday, not on Thursday. The same confidence of the garbage cans now convincingly puts Drake in the neighborhood on a different night. Why was he there on Tuesday? Was he scoping the neighborhood?
Or was the simplest solution the answer. Two days before Julia Brown went missing Jacob Drake was with his underage girlfriend near the Brown residence in their favorite spot by the river without a care in the world. Just like that there was no evidence Drake was in the neighborhood the night Julia was taken. Rather, he was just some random creep who had been to the river occasionally.
Rachel could feel all the work she put into chasing Jacob Drake circling the drain. She hated him so much and wanted to see him behind bars. She didn't want to believe her own thoughts. Jacob Drake was a terrible man and he murdered Julia Brown. She had seen him do it so clearly.
Rachel was wide awake as she stared at her Jacob Drake corkboard, but she knew she had to talk to her father. She finished the rest of the wine straight from the bottle, took a sleeping pill, and curled up into a ball on her living room floor, passing out.
19
Asleep
Rachel opened her eyes to find she was on the floor, staring up at her Jacob Drake corkboard. Had the sleeping pill not worked?
“This is where you live now? I would have hoped the best reporter at The Press could afford something a bit bigger.”
Ted was looking out the window into the dark Sacramento night. He leisurely toured the living room stopping to take in the corkboard. “I admire the board, classy reporter move if I do say so myself, but what are these extra pieces from Alyssa Hollander?” Ted frowned.
