More Than It Seems Read online

  He glanced over at Summer, who was looking at him with a question in her eyes, but she got up without a word and followed him out the door.

  Summer waited until they were in the car before she looked over at him to ask, “Okay, so what’s going on?”

  “We’re just going to try to get the truth out of Givens,” Sam said. “But to really answer your question, there is a strong possibility that Kenny Givens, the boy who was found alive after being abducted by Jensen, may actually be Steve’s son, Scotty. I think that Scotty was already in Jensen’s possession when Kenny was abducted, but apparently Kenny didn’t last long. Somehow, Scotty began to think of himself as Kenny, probably through some sort of deliberate brainwashing effort. Givens and his wife raised the boy as if he was their own, but I find it difficult to believe that they honestly couldn’t tell the difference.”

  Summer blinked. “Wow,” she said. “That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting you to say. So, you honestly believe Steve’s son is alive after all these years?”

  Sam nodded. “I met Kenny Givens yesterday,” he said. “One of the first things I noticed was that I could have been looking at a younger Steve Beck. It turns out that Kenny and little Scott looked an awful lot alike, almost to the point they could be mistaken for twins. Kenny even told me that Jensen, assuming he was the bunny man, commented that they were almost identical when the other boy was brought in. When he told me about it, he thought that boy might have been Scotty, but there’s a story he wrote several years ago that makes me think it’s the other way around.”

  “A story? What kind of story?”

  Sam picked up the notebook off the seat and handed it to her. “Second story,” he said. “It’s short, read it.”

  Summer flipped through the pages until she found it, then read through the scribbled lines. It took her only a few minutes to get to the end, and then she looked up at Sam with her eyes wide. “I have to agree with you,” she said. “It sounds like the guy who thinks of himself as Kenny now was the boy who went by Scooby in the story.”

  Sam nodded. “Yes, and it turns out that Scooby was the nickname Steve used for his son. Scooby, Scotty, sort of a similarity in the sound. Considering that Scotty was in a traumatic situation, probably scared to death, I think it might have been reasonable for him to create or slip into a Scooby persona. Children often do so when they find themselves in frightening or dangerous situations.”

  “Yeah, they do,” Summer said. “It could also make them unstable enough to adopt another personality or identity, especially if it’s got potential to help them survive. You think that’s what happened with Scotty, right? That somehow, his becoming Kenny had something to do with why he was released?”

  Sam looked at her. “To be honest, I hadn’t thought of that, but it does make some sense. I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of why Jensen would’ve released him.”

  “God, there could be a hundred reasons. Maybe after the real Kenny died, Jensen felt guilty about it?”

  “The guy was a serial kidnapper, at the very least, and probably a serial murderer. I’m having a rough time thinking of him as being able to feel guilty about anything. I think there had to have been something more to it, but I’m damned if I can figure out what it could have been.”

  Summer nodded again. “Well, let’s see if we can’t get some ideas out of Mr. Givens.” She reached up and undid a couple of buttons on her blouse, then pulled it open so that she was displaying her ample cleavage. “I wish I’d known you were planning this, I would’ve dressed more appropriately.”

  Sam grinned. “I think what you’re wearing is going to be effective enough,” he said. “Denny told me your jeans look like they were only painted on.”

  Summer chuckled.

  They pulled up at Givens’ house an hour later and Sam parked the SUV in the driveway again. He noticed a curtain twitch as they got out, and the front door opened before he and Summer even got to the front steps. Lou Givens stood in the doorway, looking somewhat annoyed. He was glaring at Sam, but then his attention was taken by Summer, and he seemed to have trouble pulling his eyes away. It took him a moment, but he finally looked at Sam again as they got close.

  "Mr. Prichard?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "What brings you back here today?"

  "A few more questions,” Sam said. "May we come inside?"

  Givens looked at him for another moment, then turned to look Summer over once again. "What kind of questions?" he asked, carefully keeping his eyes focused on Summer’s face.

  “Questions you might not want to answer standing out here where your neighbors might overhear,” Sam said. “Could we step inside, please?”

  Givens turned and looked at him again, but then he stepped back and held the door open. Sam let Summer go in first, then followed her into the living room. The two of them sat down on the sofa and Givens took the chair Sam had used the day before.

  “Okay,” Givens said, “what is it you want to know?”

  "For starters, I’d like to know why you lied to me yesterday," Sam said, and Givens' eyes went wide. "Or why you didn't tell us everything."

  Givens leaned back in his chair, and Sam saw him struggle to keep a straight face. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said stubbornly, looking Sam in the eye.

  "You said you’ve read all of Kenny’s stories, right?" Sam asked, watching Givens closely for his reaction. A hardly noticeable widening of the eyes, a clench of the jaw, eyes flicking over to Summer, and a trace of worry on his features. "In which case, you would’ve read the one about Scooby and Kenny, right? I think you might’ve forgotten that story was in the notebook when you let me take it, especially after I met Kenny yesterday."

  Givens swallowed. “I’m sorry, I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked back at Sam. “Are you trying to imply something?”

  “Mr. Givens, there was another boy who was abducted around the same time as your son. His name was Scott Beck, and we have reason to believe now that it was Jensen who took him. I suspect he might have been the boy Kenny identified as Scooby in the story.”

  Givens’ eyes dropped back toward the floor. “Well, what’s that supposed to mean? Just because they brought another boy in after Kenny was kidnapped, what’s that supposed to mean?”

  Summer leaned forward. “Mr. Givens, I know you went through hell when your son disappeared. Please understand, we aren’t trying to be cruel, here, but there’s something that’s got us confused, and we were hoping you might be able to help us figure it out.”

  His eyes softening slightly, Givens turned to look at her again. “Well, what would that be?”

  “Mr. Givens, Scotty Beck was taken before your son,” she said softly, looking him in the eye. “In that story, it was a boy named Scooby who was in that basement first. Kenny was the boy who was brought in afterward, but something happened to him. Scooby, who we believed was probably Scott, seems to suffer from some sort of trauma and somehow identified himself from then on as Kenny.” She reached out and laid a hand on his knee. “Mr. Givens, we believe that might be the boy you found sitting on your front step. We think you might have been so relieved to find him that you may have convinced yourself that it was your son, even though it really wasn’t.”

  “That’s insane,” Givens said. “You think I didn’t know my own kid? It was Kenny! Hell, when he got let loose, he went straight home to our old house. Would this other boy have done that?”

  “We don’t understand all of it,” Sam said. “However, I met Kenny yesterday. He looked an awful lot like Scotty Beck’s father.”

  “Well, I’m sorry about that, but you’re crazy. Kenny is my son, mine and my wife’s. We would’ve known if he wasn’t, but he was.”

  Sam and Summer were both watching him closely, and Summer looked over at Sam. Givens had been looking her in the eye when he started talking, but as soon as he began speaking, his eyes were darting all over the place. In addition, as he insisted that Kenny was his own s
on, he was suddenly shaking his head in the negative.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Givens,” Sam said, “but you don’t even believe what you’re saying right now. Look, I can understand how badly you wanted your son back, I can understand that you might have been willing to overlook the differences, but Kenny deserves to know the truth. Now, I’m not a hundred percent certain that he’s Scott Beck, but I intend to find out. So, Mr. Givens, why don't you stop lying and tell us the truth?"

  Their host swallowed and leaned back, nervously swiping his forehead as he struggled with an internal debate with himself. Finally, he let out a sigh.

  He lowered his eyes once again. "Kenny disappeared out of his bedroom in the middle of the night,” he said. “He was just gone the next morning, and nobody had any clue what could have happened. The police, they came and did their thing, but days passed, and then it turned into weeks and there was nothing. Brenda, she was just a total wreck.” He licked his lips and swallowed. “Like I told you, we had already bought this place and had to be out of the old one, so I started moving us. Brenda, she was no help at all. All she did was sit and cry all the time. When Pastor Jensen would come over, he would always try to draw her out, but nothing seemed to work. She was just—losing Kenny was the worst thing that had ever happened to her, I guess, and she just couldn’t deal with it. I couldn’t get her to eat hardly anything at all, and some days she wouldn’t even take a drink of water. I was just about to the point of talking to the doctor about—well, about putting her in the hospital for a while. Maybe get her on some medication, something to help her cope and get back to normal, you know?”

  Sam nodded. “I’m sure it was a terrible shock,” he said. “And I take it that continued until Kenny seemed to have come home?”

  Givens struggled for a minute, grappling with words, carefully avoiding looking at Sam. "She—I was afraid she was going to die. I mean, she wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t drink, wouldn’t take care of herself at all. I don’t think she even took a shower during that time, if you want to know the truth. All she did was sit there, and she was crying almost constantly. Sometimes it would be like she cried herself out for a while, but give her another hour and it would start again. The only time she even got any rest was when she cried herself to sleep, but she wouldn’t even come to the bedroom. She just sat there in that same damn chair, like she was just waiting for death to come and claim her.” He gave a rueful smile. “She actually told me that, you know? She said she just wanted to let go and die, so she could be with Kenny again.”

  “She thought he was gone forever,” Summer said. “I’m sure that must’ve been terrible for her.”

  “It was, it damn sure was. I tried everything to get through to her, but nothing worked. It was like she just didn’t have it in her anymore to want to live.”

  “And then you found Kenny on your doorstep,” Sam said. “Did that help her?”

  Givens smiled, but there was still a sadness in it. “Oh, yes,” he said. “When I called her after I took Kenny to the police station and told her I’d found him, that was the first time she showed any signs of life since the day after he disappeared. My God, she went and took a shower and got dressed, then drove up to the police station to meet us. She threw her arms around that boy and I thought she was going to squeeze him to death.”

  “Did you always drive through your old neighborhood?” Sam asked. “I took a look at where you were working, and that would’ve been out of the way.”

  “I—no, I usually went a different way, but that day, something told me I should go by the old place.” He kept his eyes firmly on the floor, but once again he shook his head slightly in the negative as he spoke.

  Sam and Summer shared a silent glance, and Sam nodded. Summer turned back to Givens.

  “Mr. Givens, forgive me, but you’re not telling us the truth. Why did you really go by your old house that day?”

  Refusing to look up, Givens continued shaking his head. “I’m not lying,” he said. “I’m not lying. I just had a feeling, that’s all it was. Just a feeling.”

  “I think it was more than that,” Summer said. She got up and walked the two steps over to where he sat, then sat down on the arm of his chair and put an arm around his shoulders. “Come on, Lou,” she said. “You’ve been carrying this burden for a long time. Secrets like this one, they can eat at you. You know I’m telling the truth, because it’s obvious you want to tell us what really happened. Come on, just tell me.”

  Givens sat there silently for another moment, then slowly nodded, blowing out a breath. "Brenda was going to die,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do, nothing seemed to get through to her. I was doing the best I could, can you understand that?”

  “Of course I can,” Summer said. “I’m sure just about anybody would understand. All we want is to know how it happened when Kenny came back. Can you tell us that?”

  He drew in a deep breath now and then let out a big sigh. “I was at work,” he said. “It was close to quitting time, and I was sitting in my office. I was the maintenance foreman out at the appliance factory, and I was doing my end of day reports when the phone rang. I don’t know who it was, but a voice said I needed to go by my old house. I asked why, and all he said was to be sure I did if I wanted to see my son again.”

  Sam’s eyes went wide. “Did you tell the police about that call?”

  “Oh, hell, no,” Givens said, looking up suddenly. “That was the other thing he said. He said if I told the police that he called me, I’d never see Kenny again.”

  Sam bit back the retort he wanted to let out. “Okay, I get it,” he said. “Mr. Givens, did the voice sound familiar at all?”

  Givens shook his head. “I think maybe I thought so back at the time,” he said, “but now—hell, I can’t remember what he sounded like. I could tell it was a man, but that was about all. Sounded like he was talking through a fan or something, if you know how your voice warbles when you talk into a fan. He kind of sounded like that.”

  “You said you knew Pastor Jensen. If you thought you recognized the voice back then, is there any possibility you might have thought it was him?”

  “I don’t know, maybe,” Givens said. “If that thought ever crossed my mind, it must not have been strong enough to make me remember it.” He looked up at Summer, then turned back to Sam. “Look, all I cared about was getting my boy back. I got Kenny back, and then Brenda came back from whatever dark place she had gone off to. That was all I knew, and that was enough.”

  “And the police were never able to come up with any leads about this bunny man?” Sam asked.

  “No. They questioned Kenny over and over, until I finally put my foot down and said that was enough. All they ever did was confuse the poor kid, because he just didn’t know how to answer them. I had to put a stop to it or he woulda probably lost his mind.”

  “Okay, that’s fine,” Sam said. “Now, when did it dawn on you that the boy you found wasn’t really your son?”

  Givens started to shake his head, but Summer put a hand on the back of his neck and began to massage. “Come on, Lou, let it out.”

  There was another sigh, and then tears began to roll down Givens’ face.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't tell anyone; it wasn't entirely my secret to tell, can you understand that? Brenda, she was just so happy to have him back, if I had said anything… God, she would’ve probably killed herself.” He looked up at Sam once more and then got to his feet. “I think you better leave now. Don't you have a job to do?"

  Sam got to his feet, followed by Summer. He reached into a pocket and said, "As a matter of fact, we do." He took out a pair of handcuffs and held them up for Givens to see. "I think you better come to the station with us, Mr. Givens. We still have some questions for you, and I'm sure the rest of our team do, too."

  Givens narrowed his eyes and took half a step back, keeping his eyes fixed on the metal bracelets. "On what charge? You wouldn't bring those out if you weren't planning to charge me wit
h something."

  "Oh, I don't know," Sam said idly. "Let's begin with obstruction of justice for now. On the other hand, if you did recognize Jensen’s voice, that means you had a pretty big motive to murder him. Maybe you'll feel more like talking by the time we get to the station."

  FOURTEEN

  "You know we can’t hold him," Franklin said to Sam as they stood outside the interrogation room, looking in at the man inside. "Any obstruction charge we could bring against him would get tossed out after this many years, and we’ve got nothing connecting him to the murder."

  "I wouldn't say that," Sam said mildly. "Besides, a little pressure might make him a little more willing to talk about what he knew, or at least suspected, twenty-five years ago."

  Franklin gave him an odd look, but Sam brushed him off, turning again to study Givens through the one-way glass. He could still feel the other man's gaze on him, but Sam was accustomed to that feeling.

  "I think we should let him stew for a bit, and then go in and question him," he said to Franklin without turning, nearly out the door as he spoke. "Let him sweat for a while." He paused before he started down the hall, started to comment on the fact that a lot of secrets from twenty-five years earlier seemed to be tied up in the case, but then changed his mind and went on his way, leaving Franklin alone in the room.

  At the moment, Givens was Sam’s only viable suspect, but he didn’t really think the guy was capable of murder. Of course, when your child has been stolen from you, you might be capable of things you would normally never consider. That’s why Sam wanted to let him stew; to see if there was an anger in the man that could turn violent under the right circumstances.