Page 54 of Red Snow
“I wasn’t talking shit. I was just asking where she is.”
“She’s fucking dead!” he snaps, raising his voice. He’s suddenly breathing harder, like he just finished jogging, and the muscles in his neck look tense.
“Oh that’s it, right there,” I say, trying to push him to his limit. “You have a sensitive subject, and it’s mommy. Were you a momma’s boy, Jeffrey? It’s all good, man. I was kind of a momma’s boy, at least until my mom died. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Jeffrey is fuming and struggling to sit still. I see his foot tapping repeatedly in the snow, and it looks like he could explode at any minute. His face has reddened, and I swear I can see tears in his eyes as he struggles to keep whatever he’s feeling bottled up. Whatever is inside of him is ready to come roaring out now, and I want to make it happen. But Jeffrey never gives me a chance.
Without saying another word, Jeffrey starts walking towards the trailer.
“Hey, you can’t go in there while we’re conducting the search,” I yell to him, but he ignores me. Just as I’m about to go tackle the fucker, he changes directions and heads to a white truck parked in front of the trailer. He snatches the door open, hops inside, starts up the engine, and drives away in a hurry. I don’t know the details behind this freak out I just witnessed, but I won’t forget it. This is something I will definitely be looking into later. For now, I make my way inside the trailer.
“I guess Jeffrey didn’t want to stay after all,” I tell Marcus, who’s standing in the kitchen with a flashlight, looking down at the linoleum floor.
“What, he left?” he says without looking up.
“Yeah. I mentioned his mother, and he kind of freaked out and drove off without saying anything.”
“Interesting. That’s cool, because we’re coming up empty in here so far, and I could use your eyes in here instead of watching with him out there.”
“Alright, well I’m here. Let’s do this.”
I put on a pair of latex gloves and get to work with the rest of the officers in the trailer. Over the next three hours, our team goes over every square inch of the single-wide trailer. We overturn furniture, open every drawer and cabinet, and look into every nook and cranny. In the end, we come up with absolutely nothing. We don’t find a single thing that could be used to push for charges against Jeffrey. Not one single fucking thing.
“What the fuck?” I snap as we step out of the trailer into the cold of the night. “I was sure we were gonna find something on this asshole.”
“Yeah, me too,” Marcus replies. Even he looks dejected, and that’s rare. “But we didn’t find anything, so we need to rethink our strategy.”
“Goddamn it. He’s our guy, Marcus, I’m telling you. You should’ve seen his little panic attack earlier. He was mad, sad, and insane, all at the same fucking time. I’ve never seen anything like it. I could see it in his eyes, Marcus, he’s not this calm, collected guy he portrays in front of us. He’s a psycho. I’m telling you, I saw it.”
“I believe you, Jarrod,” Marcus answers. “But we’re never gonna be able to press charges against him if all we have is you saying you saw it in his eyes. We need evidence.”
“Don’t start on that shit, man. I know we need evidence. All I’m saying is that we can’t move on from this guy just because we didn’t find anything here. We need to stay on him and keep looking.”
“Look where? We need just cause in order to get another warrant, so where the hell could we search, and why would a judge sign off on it?”
“I don’t fucking know.” I feel mad as fuck because I know Marcus is right. In order for us to get another search warrant, we need to be able to tell a judge that we believe the place we’re searching is somehow involved in the investigation. Without a reason to search, we’ll never get another warrant for another location. Without evidence pointing to Jeffrey, we’re going to be dead in the water, because I don’t think the department will be willing to press charges based on the video from Koot’s alone. Jeffrey and Brenda left together, and he says they had sex and she left. We don’t have anything to prove he’s lying about that besides my gut feeling.
“It’s alright, Jarrod,” Marcus says, trying to reassure me. “If he’s the guy, and I support you if you say he is, then we’ll find the evidence. You know we won’t let him get away with it if he’s really the killer. We just need to be patient and keep looking. This is what we do, and we’re gonna catch him.”
Just as I start to agree with my partner, Jeffrey’s white Ford F-150 comes driving up. Jeffrey’s back, and he climbs out of the truck with newfound confidence and happiness.
“I take it from the sad looks on your faces that you’re done with your search,” he says with a smile. “Let me guess, you came up empty-handed.”
Marcus and I just stare back at him while he grins a triumphant grin at the two of us.
“Chin up, Detectives,” he continues, really rubbing it in. “You can’t catch them all.”
“Is that right?” Marcus says. “Just what is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh nothing at all, Detective Phillips,” Jeffrey replies, still smiling. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a drink to go make.” With that, Jeffrey Lee Chapman turns on his heel and walks towards the trailer, leaving us behind. He opens his door, and just before he walks in, he turns around and smiles directly at me.
He’s fucking with me. He knows I know it’s him, and he’s playing with me. After he closes the door, I realize why he was so confident before. He already knew we wouldn’t find anything in there. He knew it all along, which is why he was so willing to stand outside and watch us conduct the search, until the mention of his mother threw him off his game. Before that, though, he was as confident as ever. There’s no way someone would be that confident about a search of their house. Not unless they already know there’s no evidence to find. He wouldn’t be that confident unless he already knew he doesn’t do his dirt here. He does it somewhere else.
“I’m gonna catch this motherfucker, Marcus,” I tell my partner as we pack up to leave. “I don’t give a fuck what I have to do. I know it’s him, and I’m not stopping until I prove it. This isn’t over.”
