Injuries and Evidence


Happy to be home at last, Jake was relaxing on the couch with his injured leg propped up on it. Laura and Skip had just been visiting him, and they had offered all their love to him, praying that he would recover soon, and that he could get back to work soon. Jake and Laura had exchanged another kiss, and Skip gave Jake a little bear hug before they left.

Grandma Frannie was busy doing her usual work of washing dishes in the sink, when somebody else knocked on the front door. "I'll get it, Jake," she said, "You stay off that knee."

"Thanks, Gran, I appreciate it," said Jake.

She opened the door, and she said, "Lyle! It's good to see you." Lyle was visiting him now.

"Hi, Frannie. Is Jake up and about?" asked Lyle.

"Yes," Frannie replied, "He's on the couch, resting his knee." She let Lyle come in and returned to her dishwashing, while Lyle sat down on the fireplace hearth and started to talk to Jake.

"Hey, tiger. How goes the recovery?" he asked Jake.

"My leg's still a little stiff and sore," replied Jake, "but mostly, I'm just stir-crazy. I've been sitting in this house for weeks!"

Lyle said, "Easy, Jake, you're lucky to be alive."

Jake said, "Yeah, but it's still hard being cooped up like this."

Lyle looked at him sympathetically. "You know, son," he said, "you're not doing anybody any good sitting around here waiting for your disability leave to be up. Why don't you come on down to the office and give me a hand with the case against your parents' killer again? It might do you some good to get out of the house for a while and keep your mind working. I could sure use you."

"The exercise might prevent my knee from getting so stiff," said Jake, "You know, that might not be such a bad idea."

"Then I guess it's settled," said Lyle. "As soon as you're ready, we can get started."

"Can I get you something cold to drink, Lyle?" asked Jake, starting to get up.

Lyle waved him back into his seat and said, "I'll get it, Jake. You stay off that knee."

Jake nodded. A sudden shot of pain went through his knee as Lyle got up to get his drink, and it seemed as if it was spreading to his head. He wondered if it was the drugs he was taking to ease the pain…

There was the sound of a scuffling noise by one of the windows. Then it sounded like there were soft footsteps walking around inside, like a burglar or a prowler had snuck into the house. Twelve-year-old Jake Ryan got out of bed and rushed quietly to his parents' bedroom. He woke up his father as quickly and quietly as he could, whispering, "Dad! Wake up! Wake up! There's somebody in the house!"

John Ryan quickly got up from under the bed-sheets and assured him that he would take care of it. "You stay here, Jake," he said to his son, and John walked out of the bedroom to check out the noises, while his wife, Jackie Ryan, hugged Jake protectively by the bed…

Jake came out of it. He realized he was slightly sweaty. It disturbed him that he was suddenly having these troublesome flashbacks of that terrible night of his parents' deaths. He hoped the medication didn't have anything to do with it.

Lyle came back over to the fireplace with his drink. Jake asked him, "Lyle, how much do you know about my parents' murder?"

"The best way to answer that, Jake, is to come down to my office and check out the file I've compiled on the case," replied Lyle. "I wanted you to have this. I had these printed up for the business." He handed Jake some printouts. "Well, I've got to get going. You come down to the office when you feel up to it, and we'll get started."

"Thanks, Lyle, I appreciate it," said Jake.

Lyle took one long swallow of his drink, and was on his way.

Jake noticed that Lyle had given him a plastic-coated "Jamison and Ryan" calendar, which was small enough to fit in his pocket. He sat there for a few minutes, looking at the calendar, and finally decided that there was no time like the present. Saying bye to his grandmother for the time being, he got up carefully and walked out to his motorcycle, and drove to Jamison and Ryan.


At Jamison and Ryan, Jake was surprised, and amazed, to see that the old car he had ticketed weeks ago was still there. Where was the car's driver, anyway? And how come it was never towed away by a tow truck? Oh, well. Jake decided that it wasn't that important to him right now, and stepped inside Lyle's office.

He said to Lyle, "I've been thinking about what you said, and I decided that getting out of the house and continuing this case is good for me."

"That's great, Jake," said Lyle, "I really appreciate it. Listen, I've got an errand to run. I'll be back in a few minutes. Feel free to check out the file on the desk if you want to." He got up and walked out of the office.

The file on the desk said: "RYAN, JOHN/JACKIE – MURDER INVESTIGATION." Inside were a newspaper clipping and several police forms that detailed what little was known about the crime and the investigation.

Jake wished he hadn't seen the photos of the crime scene in the file. They made him sick, just looking at his parents' bloody bodies.

Reading the newspaper clipping caused him to flash back on that terrible night again…

His mother was telling him to hide in the closet. "Jake! Hide in the closet!" She said this three times before Jake made it into the closet, just in time. A man with long, dark hair entered the room, his gun trained on Jackie, and opened fire twice. The pistol he was wielding looked strangely like a foreign gun, not something made in America…

After recovering from the flashback, Jake looked at the file once more. A solitary evidence bag contained a single strip of microfiche. He reasoned that Lyle's computer might shed some light on what it said, so he took it over to Lyle's computer on the side of the room and slipped it inside the slot.

It detailed the Jackson Beach Police Department case on the John/Jackie murder investigation. It outlined the usual information as to when and where the crime occurred and who was on the case, obviously, Lyle Jamison. It proceeded to explain that John Ryan received a single gunshot wound to the chest that exited the victim after passing through it. Jackie Ryan was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the head. Bullet fragments removed from the body could not be identified.

The remains of a single bullet were taken from the south wall of the computer room. The bullet was found to be disfigured, and couldn't be positively identified, but the rifling marks didn't preclude the possibility that a 9mm Parabellum (Luger) was the murder weapon. Jake took note of this. He was sure that gun didn't look like an American pistol, and here was evidence that implied he was right.

Three cartridge cases were found at the scene, one near John, and one near Jackie. Each case bore the headstamp "9mm ANG" and identical scratch marks cause by ejection from a semi-automatic pistol with an overload ejector mechanism. A Luger was indeed the probable murder weapon. Finally, Jake saw some photos of the cartridges with 9mm ANG written all over them. Having gotten all of the information he could get out of the microfiche, Jake ejected it and turned off the computer, just in time for Lyle to return.

"Where do we go from here?" Jake asked Lyle.

"We need to see if we can dig up any more information or evidence about Richard Cobb," said Lyle, "Maybe we could see if we can find anybody who knows anything about him."

"Let's nose around town and see what we can stir up," suggested Jake.

"I'm right behind you, Jake," said Lyle. And they walked outside to Lyle's car, which was parked on the street (legally) next to the office and were on their way.