Chapter 7 – You can run, but you cannot hide

Gus broke the speed limit. Shawn was sure that Gus had never committed a single traffic violation in his entire life, but today he broke the speed limit. And it did the trick, they reached Henry's house quick enough for Shawn not to freak out entirely.

When they came into the house, Henry stormed towards them, cell phone in his hand and face drawn with worry.

"Dad, what happened?"

"I don't now. One minute he was setting up the Scrabble board while I went to get his clothes from the dryer, and when I come back into the kitchen, he's gone!"

Shawn shook his head. "You chased Eric away with Scrabble?"

"Shawn, this is not the right time for jokes!"

Shawn sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "No, it isn't. But what happened? Was he upset about something?"

"You mean more than he already was? Yes. But not so upset that I'd have thought he'd run away, otherwise I'd not have left him alone in the first place."

"Why was he upset?"

"We got talking. Well, a little. Did he tell you that his stepfather is abusing him?"

Shawn's eyes widened. "What? No, he didn't…he just told you that?"

Henry shrugged. "I asked, and he admitted."

"Please tell me you didn't interrogate him, Dad."

"Shawn, you should know me better than that. I didn't interrogate him, we talked. He was upset that sooner or later he'd have to face the police on all this because otherwise we'd not be able to help him. But I told you, he didn't look as if he was about to bolt, otherwise I'd not have left him alone."

Shawn started pacing the living room. "And you've searched for him everywhere."

Henry nodded. "Yes. I searched the entire house, and when I didn't find him I looked everywhere around the house. He isn't here. Then I called you."

"All right, we need to find him."

"Any idea where he might have gone?"

Shawn shook his head. "No. I will look at the office, and at my apartment, but I doubt that he runs away from here just to show up again there. Else, I don't really know."

Henry grabbed his keys. "All right, Gus you stay here in case Eric comes back. I take the truck, Shawn you take Gus' car. We'll start looking here in the neighbourhood, and if we don't find him I'll go southeast and you go downtown."

Gus tossed Shawn his car keys and together with his father Shawn hurried out the front door. Henry got into his truck and took off down the street. Shawn started Gus' car and set off in the opposite direction.

His father had said that Eric had left when Henry had been getting the clothes from the dryer. That meant Eric was still wearing the clothes he had worn this morning, a blue pair of shorts and a red t-shirt. It might even help them that he was wearing different clothes than he had on the surveillance video. The patrol cars were looking out for a boy in jeans and a blue hooded sweater, they might just miss taking a closer look at Eric now that he was wearing different clothes.

Shawn put his cell phone on the passenger seat and started circling the neighbourhood of his father's house. He drove slowly by all the small side-streets he still knew from his childhood, and a few times he got out of the car to check possible hiding places which he could not see from the road. But he didn't find anything.

After an hour he had looked in all possible places, including a lookout over the beach, and hadn't found Eric anywhere. Eric hadn't run away to hide somewhere near, he had run away to vanish. And that thought worried Shawn.

Even though he knew it would be futile, Shawn first drove to the Psych office and, when he didn't find Eric there, made a quick pass by his apartment. But Eric wasn't at either place. Not that Shawn had expected him to be, but one could always hope. Every half hour, Shawn checked in with Gus and his father, but neither of them had to report anything new, either.

After driving around aimlessly through the city centre for over two hours, Shawn parked the car and killed the engine to think for a moment. He didn't like driving around, waiting for a coincidence to happen. There had to be a more methodical way to find Eric again, and quickly. It was starting to get dark.

Shawn didn't believe Eric would hide out in plain sight. He was too scared of the police to risk running into them, so he wouldn't be found just walking through a shopping mall. But where else could he go? Shawn doubted that he'd hide out in an industrial park somewhere, not after what had happened in the last warehouse he had been in.

Maybe he was trying to leave Santa Barbara, figuring that too many people were looking for him there by now. But that would mean taking either the train or a bus out of town, and since train and bus stations were closely guarded and under video surveillance Shawn didn't think Eric would go there.

So he might be trying to hitch a ride somewhere. And there were endless possibilities where he could try to get out of the city. Far too many to check.

Besides, Eric wasn't a street kid. He had managed to survive for three weeks after running away, that was true, but he had had help. There had been another street kid who had told him about the possibility of sleeping in the warehouse. Whoa, wait. Eric had gone to that other kid for help. Maybe he would go try to find that kind of help again.

Shawn checked his watch. It was nearly eight. The shelters started to fill up in the evenings, it wouldn't hurt to look at the shelter where Eric had spent two nights. Maybe he'd find somebody who knew Eric, or somebody who knew where he was. Shawn grabbed his cell phone from the passenger seat and hit a number on his speed dial. His father answered nearly immediately.

"Shawn?"

"Nothing."

Henry sighed. "Same here. Nothing new at the house, either, I just checked in with Gus. I'm on my way east now, to the 101. Maybe he's trying to hitch a ride there. I doubt that he's trying to leave Santa Barbara altogether before he's found his father, but I'd still rather check first."

Shawn had to smile that his father had had the same thought that he had earlier.

"I'll try to find the shelter where Eric stayed a few nights. Maybe someone there saw him, or he's trying to get there again. St. Agnes', do you know where that is?"

Henry thought for a moment. "Downtown. Rikers, corner of Ninth, if I'm not much mistaken."

"Okay, I'm going to call if I find out anything."

"Same here."

They both disconnected and Shawn tossed the cell phone back onto the passenger seat as he started the car again and pulled into traffic. He only hoped to find Eric at that shelter, he didn't like the thought of the boy out on the streets for the night with a murderer out looking for him, not one bit.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Juliet had to admit that it had been a little boring since Shawn and Gus had left. True, Shawn's hovering behind her had been a bit unnerving, but she was a bit surprised that the two men had not come back. And they hadn't called in to ask for results, either. Juliet didn't quite know what to think of that, if she was completely honest with herself. It was unusual, that was for sure.

But she had a lot to do, and didn't have much time to contemplate the sudden absence of Shawn and Gus.

Going through the records of Griggs' landline and cell phone hadn't provided any results they could work with. None of the numbers had stood out. So she had started digging through his financial records. The department employed bookkeepers to check those kind of records for the tiniest inconsistencies, but their work was going slow. So Juliet decided to double check, not because she wanted to figure out the final details of where Griggs' money had come from, but to maybe find something more obvious that would put her on a trail.

No such luck.

Oh, Griggs had had money, and Juliet was fairly sure that he had earned far too much for it to have come solely out of the business of importing pottery. But she had no way to trace the bank accounts where the money had come from, and double checking the dates when Griggs had paid cash onto his accounts didn't bring forth anything, either.

Frustrated, she put the documents down onto her desk and got up from her chair. Lassiter was working through his own stack of reports at his own desk. His face was pulled into a perpetual scowl, and Juliet knew that this case was frustrating him. With no forensics and no witnesses, all the work they could do on this case was paperwork. Deskwork. Work Lassiter hated like the plague, Juliet knew.

"Carlton?"

Lassiter looked up, and Juliet thought she detected a spark of hope in his gaze. Hope that maybe Juliet had found something that could lead them to chasing down a subject, interrogating a witness, or maybe just a good old shootout. Anything more active than sitting in the police station all day long.

"Do you have Griggs' business phone records?"

Lassiter frowned. "I thought you were going through the phone records, O'Hara."

"Home phone and cell, yes. But Griggs had an office line, I know I requested the phone records for that. But it's not on my desk."

Lassiter started rummaging through the papers on his own desk, but the phone records where nowhere to be found.

"Are you sure you requested the business phone records?"

Juliet didn't deign that question with an answer. She was no rookie, of course she had requested it. With a sigh she returned to her desk and picked up the phone. It didn't matter, she'd just call the phone company, and they'd fax the records over in ten minutes.

The people at the phone company were complacent enough, and while Juliet was waiting for the fax to arrive, she went into the break room to grab a cup of coffee. Just as she entered, McNabb came walking towards her, flanked by a man and a woman.

"Detective", he called and Juliet stopped to wait up for them.

"Buzz?"

"Detective, those are Mr. and Mrs. Robertson. Eric Robertson's parents."

"Thank you, I'll take it from here."

Buzz nodded and left.

"Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, I'm Detective O'Hara." She stretched out her hand towards the couple, shaking hands in turn. It gave her a chance for a quick first evaluation. Both were well dressed, their clothes not too expensive but chosen with taste and a look for quality. And both were still fairly young. From the Missing Persons report she had filed, Juliet knew that Holly Robertson was thirty-one years old, and she didn't look a year older than that. Her blonde hair was cut in a modern, shoulder-length cut, and a pair of lively brown eyes was watching Juliet attentively. There were definite lines of worry in her face, though. No expression of barely concealed grief, but there was worry.

Stan Robertson was…well, Juliet had to admit that he was extremely handsome. There was no other word for it. Tall, fit and trim, also barely in the beginning of his thirties, tanned in a way that suggested outdoor activities, and just the ghost of a smile playing around his lips as he looked at Juliet. Contrary to his wife, if he worried at all about Eric, it certainly didn't show on his face.

"We heard that you had some new information on Eric", Stan Robertson said. "The LAPD came and asked us to identify his picture. Have you found him? Is he in some sort of trouble?"

Juliet shook her head.

"We are looking for him, but unfortunately we haven't found him yet. If you'd come with me, Head Detective Lassiter can surely fill you in on all the information we have."

"Of course", Stan Robertson replied and Juliet led the couple along to Lassiter's desk.

"Carlton? The Robertsons are here."

Lassiter looked up at Juliet with a sigh. "All right." he closed the files on his desk and got up. "I'll take you to the Chief. If you'd come with me. O'Hara?"

"I'll be with you in a moment, I'm still waiting for those phone records."

Lassiter nodded and led the Robertsons to Chief Vick's office.

Juliet went over towards the fax machine. There were five sheets of paper lying in it. She picked them up, grabbed her discarded coffee and sat back down at her desk.

It would take time to run all the numbers on Griggs' business phone line, but she'd give it a start, anyway. Maybe something would stick out on first glance.

She found it halfway down the first page. And on the bottom of the first page. Twice more on the next two pages, and as she hurriedly leafed through the remaining pages she found it another three times.

She couldn't believe it at first, but it was a number she immediately recognised. The extension was a different one all the times, but that simply meant the caller had used different phones. But all of them had come from inside the Santa Barbara Police Station.

Juliet grabbed the printouts and ran towards Chief Vick's office. The Robertsons would just have to wait.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

After Henry ended the conversation with his son, he continued driving east, but his thoughts were still on what Shawn had said. Henry knew that they needed to find Eric as soon as possible, before he had the chance to put a whole lot of distance between himself and them.

But there was something else nagging at him. A bad little feeling had settled in the pit of his stomach and refused to go away, but Henry just couldn't put his finger on what was wrong. So he continued driving East, checking every gas station and diner he passed in search of a kid trying to hitch a ride.

He found nothing. Not even a trace of him. No gas station attendant had seen Eric, and as he reached the outskirts of the city, Henry finally believed that even if Eric had been trying to get out of the city, he hadn't come through here.

Henry pulled into an empty space to his right to wait for a moment and think about what to do next. Shawn should be checking in soon, then he'd know what his son had found at that shelter.

The shelter!

It was so glaringly obvious that Henry asked himself how he could have possibly missed it. Resisting the urge to slam his head against the steering wheel as a punishment for not seeing it earlier, Henry quickly started the engine again and swerved the car across three lanes into the direction back into the city.

Other cars were swerving to avoid him, but Henry ignored their horns and flashing headlights. He needed to get to that shelter as quickly as possible.

Because if the police had been canvassing all shelters in the city, then they had found out that Eric had been staying in St. Agnes' for two nights. And if the police knew that, the murderer most probably did, too. He'd be stupid not to be watching the shelter, waiting for the possibility that Eric might show up again there. And Shawn was heading there right now.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Shawn parked his car on the corner of Ninth and got out. The shelter was well lit, a sign above the door identifying it as St. Agnes' shelter for the homeless. A few people, older adults mostly, were lingering on the doorstep, smoking cigarettes because it wasn't allowed inside the building. But Shawn didn't intend to go inside, anyway. If Eric had really come here, the police would have gotten to know about it immediately.

No, Shawn intended to find kids of around Eric's case hanging around here. If Eric had asked somebody for help, he'd have probably asked somebody his age, somebody who didn't pose a threat.

As Shawn crossed the street, a beat cop came walking into his direction. Shawn had never seen him before, which was not surprising since he hardly ever worked with beat cops, and obviously the cop didn't know Shawn either. He didn't pay any more attention to Shawn than to any other pedestrian on the street.

Shawn jogged across the lanes for opposite traffic and started walking down the block that housed St. Agnes' homeless shelter. A group of kids barely in their teens was standing a few yards away from the entrance to the shelter, huddled a little against the cold wind, talking amongst themselves. Shawn went over to them.

Four pairs of eyes in various states of disinterest watched him as he came over towards them.

"Hey. I was wondering if I could ask you a question."

"Sorry to disappoint you, old-timer. This ain't Who wants to be a millionaire."

Shawn hadn't been called old before. At least not to his face.

"Old-timer? What exactly makes you think I'm old? Is it the shirt? I know that black and white stripes are conservative, but I always thought the little yellow ducks on the sleeves made up for that."

The blank stares turned into disbelieving ones. "What are you, some kind of comedian?"

"No, actually I'm a consultant for the police. I need to find a boy, eleven years, brown hair, blue eyes, about this tall." He raised a hand to demonstrate. "Wears blue shorts and a red shirt. His name is Eric. Have you seen him today?"

"You with the cops?"

Shawn rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'm with the cops."

The tallest of the group made a step forward. "If you were with the cops, you'd know that there just was a cop here, asking about that kid. And I tell you the same that I've told him – I met him a few blocks from here about two hours ago, and I told him that there are good sleeping places down at the docks and the marina. If you stay outside of the fenced-off loading areas, there are some great sleeping spaces out of the wind down by the piers."

Shawn's heart started beating faster.

"Where exactly?"

"Shoreline Park."

"Thanks guys", Shawn said and hurried off back towards Gus' car. He ran back to the street, waiting for an empty stretch in traffic, then hurried across the street and back towards the car. Only to find his father's truck standing right behind it. His father was standing next to Gus' car, looking down the road to the left as if trying to spot his son. As he turned and his eyes fell on Shawn, a strange look crossed his face, but before Shawn could analyse it any further, it was gone and had been replaced by anger.

"Is carrying cell phones around not cool anymore? Because I've been trying to reach you for the past fifteen minutes and only got your voicemail."

Shawn unlocked the car and grabbed the phone from the passenger seat.

"I forgot it. But listen, I just talked to a kid who saw Eric this afternoon. We need to get down to Shoreline park, that other kid told Eric there were good places to spend the night down there."

Shawn wanted to get into the car, but Henry's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"What?"

"Shawn, if we figure out that he might show up here at the shelter again, then the killer might figure that out, as well. Especially if he is a cop and knows that Eric has been here before."
And suddenly Shawn remembered that cop he had seen earlier. He had not thought much about it, seeing a beat cop on the streets wasn't something unusual, but something was off about the picture.

"Dad, would a beat cop be on patrol alone after dark?"

Henry frowned. "No, at least not in this part of town. Why do you ask?"

"There was a cop here earlier. I saw him on my way to the shelter. And the kids told me he asked them questions about Eric. But he was alone."

"Was he in uniform?"

Shawn nodded, and Henry's frown deepened. "If Karen isn't stupid, and I know she isn't, she wouldn't let uniformed cops patrol around the shelter looking for Eric. She knows that just seeing an officer in uniform will make him run off, and she wants him to go into the shelter because his chances of running are slimmer if he's in a building when the police arrive.. And I don't see how a beat cop could patrol in this part of town on his own at night."

Shawn was already fumbling for his cell phone again, but before he could even pull it fully out of his pocket it was already ringing.

"Hello?"

"Shawn, it's Juliet."

"Jules, you have to be a mind-reader! I was just about to call you."

A moment's pause. "Why? Is there anything new?"

"Yes. I was reading through that report again", Shawn lied. "And I got something."

"What is it?"

"I got a badge. Suddenly, that's all I was seeing. A badge, and a badge number." He unconsciously squinted as he tried to remember the badge number of the cop he had seen earlier. "2591."

There was a moment's pause, and Shawn inwardly prepared himself for the upcoming exclamation that there couldn't possible be a cop involved. Juliet's next words, however, astonished Shawn.

"I was calling you to tell that we found something in Griggs' business phone records. His office was called regularly over the past months, and always from various extensions here at the police station. I double checked, and the phone calls coincide with custom checkups on his imported pottery."

Shawn whistled lowly. "Somebody was tipping him off about the controls."

"Yes. A cop could access that information, but until now we didn't know who we were looking for. I'm going to run that badge number right now. Is there anything else you're getting?"

"About Eric." Shawn paused, deliberately. "Water. He's near water. Hiding. I see piers, and docks, but he's not inside the docks."

"Shawn, there's thousands of piers in the Santa Barbara area. I need more specific information."

Shawn pretended for his breathing to come faster. Faking these visions on the phone was actually harder than doing it in front of an audience. "Parquet. No. Parking. No, but closer. Something about Parking, Parker, Pack, no, Park. Park, does that help?"
Juliet was quiet for a moment and Shawn hoped that she'd figure it out, or at least pull up a map of Santa Barbara. "Shoreline Park", she said after only a second or two.

"That's it. Shoreline Park."

"It's still a pretty big area to search. I'm going to run the badge number now, and then I'll put a BOLO out on the cop's car if he's not to be found. Lassiter and me are going down there with the cavalry."
"I'm on my way!"

"Shawn…"

But Shawn hung up on her before she could finish.

"Come on Dad, let's go!"

Henry quickly got into the passenger seat of Gus' car and Shawn started the engine.

"We're closer to Shoreline Park than the station is. We'll be there first."

Henry looked doubtful. "Shawn, I think we should wait for the police to arrive. We're not really equipped to handle a situation like stopping an armed cop right now."

"I know", Shawn said as he took a turn at breakneck speed. Gus would kill him if he got any speeding tickets. "But I can't let that guy find Eric. We need to be there first. That cop, if it really was him, has a twenty minute lead on us, maybe more."

Shawn didn't say out loud what would happen if that cop he had seen had nothing at all to do with Eric and the warehouse murder. He only hoped he hadn't just ruined a career with telling Juliet that badge number.

"Besides, we don't even know if Eric is hiding out down there. Just because the kids told him that it was a good place doesn't mean he went there. We're just looking, Dad."

Henry rolled his eyes and braced himself for the next turn. Just looking, right.

They reached Shoreline Road just a few minutes later, and Shawn slowed the car slightly, keeping his eyes trained on the sea to his left.

"There's still too many piers", Henry said from the passenger seat.

But Shawn shook his head. "That kid said he warned Eric off to stay out of the fenced areas. Further up North the docks start, and they're fenced off and guarded. Eric has to be here somewhere."

"If he's here at all", Henry said, but was cut short when suddenly Shawn brought the car to a screeching halt and got out without even killing the engine.

In a short moment of astonishment that followed, Henry barely had time to notice the black SUV parked on the other side of the road, the only car parked for blocks. Then his eyes followed where his son was going and Henry broke into a run.

Shawn was running towards the nearest pier, because in the dim light he could just about see a large figure running out onto the water. Maybe ten feet ahead of the large figure, a much smaller figure was running out onto the pier. Henry started running.

But it was Shawn who was a few steps ahead of his father. He couldn't see either figure clearly, but to him there was no doubt that the smaller person was Eric, and that the guy chasing him had to be the second man from the warehouse. What worried him was what would happen if Eric reached the end of the pier. They were pretty far out in the water, the sea wasn't exactly calm, and it was dark and cold.

Shawn ran faster.

But he wasn't fast enough.

Eric stopped when he reached the end of the pier, first staring down into the water, then turning back towards the man who was chasing him.

"Stop!", Shawn yelled, hoping to stall the man. But he acted as if he hadn't heard, which over the wind and the sound of the sea might even have been a possibility. "Stop!", Shawn yelled again, still running hard, but he was still too far away. There was nothing Shawn could do as the man lifted the struggling Eric up as easily as if he didn't weigh anything and tossed him over the railing of the pier. All he heard was Eric's scream, then a loud splash, and then nothing but the wind and the waves.

"No!"

He didn't even know if Eric could swim. Shawn heard his father's steps running a short distance behind him, but it was as if he couldn't think clearly, for the first time in a long while. He still didn't hear Eric calling for help, and he didn't want to consider what that could possibly mean.

The man had been staring down into the water after tossing Eric in, but now he turned towards Shawn. The light was still bad, but Shawn was sure it was the same cop he had seen earlier, in front of the shelter. But he didn't care about that right now. Jules and Lassiter would be here soon, let them handle this guy. Shawn needed to find Eric.

As Shawn had nearly reached him, the cop reached for his handgun on his belt, but before he could pull it Shawn had closed up to him and rammed into him at full speed, as hard as he could. They both lost their balance and stumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

It was only a matter of seconds before the cop would catch his bearings again and make another try for his gun, but Shawn needed to find Eric now. His father was right behind him, and he had far more experience in disarming people, anyway.

As quickly as possible, Shawn scrambled to his feet, hurried over towards the railing, put a foot up on top of it and jumped down into the ocean.

The water was icy. As it closed over his head, Shawn felt its icy chills pressing his lungs together and making his skin tingle. It wouldn't be long before his arms and legs would start to get numb, he knew that. He didn't have much time to find Eric.

Kicking to the surface as quickly as he could, Shawn started to look around. But there was nothing to see on the surface besides the rising waves. It was too dark to see for very far, so Shawn quickly drew a deep breath and dove down again. Just as his head was vanishing beneath the water to blindly grab around for Eric, he heard the sound of a gun going off.