Libertyville Chapter 1

Here is a first look at the story and some of the characters from our new series.

[The following is a novelized version of an excerpt from our upcoming series Libertyville. We will publish more selections in the coming days and weeks, so please subscribe to keep updated. Also, we desperately need your support to finish producing the pilot. Learn more and invest here and here.]

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Adam Clark loved this town. Snowboarding in the winter, kayaking and rock climbing in the summer. Plenty of excellent coffee shops, restaurants, and clubs, and best of all, a never-ending supply of girls funneling through on drunken bachelorette weekends and ski getaways. Libertyville was everything the single 33-year-old could want.

At least that’s what he told his mom during their weekly check in calls. Well, he left out the part about the girls. The fact is, Adam Clark wasn’t introspective or thoughtful enough to realize what he loved or didn’t love. Adam just lived; he didn’t think about living. And as he sat in his police cruiser just off Main Street gobbling down a spicy Italian sub and staring at porn on his iPhone, the only thing currently on his mind was being swept up into the dopamine driven euphoria these sessions always produced.

A knock on the window snapped him out of it, and he was instantly overtaken with the wave of shame that also never failed to arrive after the viewing ended. This, in turn, forced him into a panic that he could only vaguely disguise. Franticly trying to close his screen, he succeeded only in fumbling the phone into the air, and he watched helplessly as it flew out of his hands and landed on the car’s passenger side floor. Face up, video still playing, audio still on. In the millisecond it took to decide how to proceed, Adam briefly considering putting up an offended, angry front at being disturbed on his lunch break, but instead turned somewhat sheepishly to the window, hoping his visitor hadn’t seen anything incriminating.

The visitor turned out to be a preteen girl, and her tear-filled eyes gave no indication that she cared about the phone at all. She knocked again as Adam leaned over to try to retrieve his device while simultaneously pushing the down button on his driver side window. The phone emitted one more loud moan before he was able to silence it, which the girl ignored.

“Please, sir, I need your help,” she began, breathing heavily.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Brad. I think he’s dead. I think I killed him.”

Adam slowly opened the door and stepped out. He wasn’t a big fan of children; the only kids he ever spent time with were his sister’s brats at Christmas, and no matter what kind of expensive presents he brought for them, he never got the “what a cool uncle” vibe from them that he felt he deserved. Even so, the girl was starting to hyperventilate, and he was worried she might faint, so he gently grabbed her by the hand.

“It’s OK, sweetie. Who is Brad?”

“He’s…our friend,” she gasped.

“Whose friend?” replied Adam, trying to get a grasp on the situation and suspecting he might be dealing with a playground accident and an overgrown imagination. That thought rushed from his mind, though, when the girl replied.

“My mom and me,” she said in a whisper. “He was watching me while she was at work.”

“How old is Brad?” Adam prodded with new concern.

“I don’t know. Older. Twenties?”

“And where is he now?”

“He’s at my place. It’s just like two blocks. I ran as fast as I could.” The girl was about to collapse on the ground, but Adam held her up.

“OK, you’ve done great,” Adam said calmly, “and what is your name?”

“I’m, …I’m Amanda,” she stammered between giant breaths and new tears.

“OK, Amanda, let’s get in the car and we’ll go over to your house and check on Brad, OK?”

She nodded, then broke down and bawled loudly. “Mom is going to be so mad,” she cried.

=-=-=-

Libertyville’s Main Street was aptly named, as the long straight boulevard contained almost every major business in town. The city had been founded by a small group of religious outcasts in the mid nineteenth century, then exploded when gold was found nearby a few years later. Having gained a reputation in the mid twentieth century as a haven for beatniks and free thinkers, it was now primarily a destination resort for outdoor adventurers, as well as a place for Silicon Valley tech magnates and Hollywood A-listers to buy up property. Built on a grassy meadow beside a river and nestled in the shadow of an 11,000 volcano in the Sierra Nevada range, Libertyville was perfectly suited for attracting utopians and pleasure seekers.  The store front signs on Main Street reflected its diverse history, displaying everything from REI to Gucci to Madam Benoit’s Tarot Card Reading and Psychic Healing. There were also many excellent restaurants, and so noon hour traffic tended to be busy. Adam and Amanda cut through the parking lot at Freedom ATV Rentals and down a back alley to get to her single level run down duplex.

“He’s in the bedroom,” she instructed as Adam jumped out of the car and surveyed the area for any signs of danger. “We are the door on the right.”

“Where is your mom right now? he asked.

“She works down at Juan’s  - the taco place.”

“Did you call her?” Adam queried as he motioned for Amanda to stay in the car.

“No, I just freaked out and ran. I wanted to get out of the house as fast as possible,” she whimpered.

“OK, hang tight, I’ll go check it out and be right back.”

Adam put his hand over his gun and slowly approached the door.

“Libertyville Police!” he yelled. “Anyone in there?”

There was no response, so Adam slowly opened the door and entered. The house was silent, and he moved quickly through the kitchen and living area to the first bedroom. The door was open, and Adam could see a young man sprawled out on the ground. After checking the room for other occupants, he rushed to the man’s side and checked his pulse. There was none.

=-=--=

The police team set up a perimeter and treated the house as a potential crime scene, but their initial investigation yielded no evidence of foul play. Adam was settling Amanda into the back seat of his cruiser when Sergeant Roger Andrews arrived. The Sergeant got a quick briefing from another officer, then waved Adam over to his car. The two generally got along, although sometimes Adam felt that the forty-nine-year-old disapproved of his lifestyle. Andrews had never said anything directly, but there were hints; an eye roll here, an extended sigh there, usually when the younger officers were discussing their weekend exploits. Most likely it was disguised jealousy, Adam told himself, just a middle-aged guy with a wife and four kids who doesn’t have any time for himself. I bet he’s miserable, he thought, as the decidedly not miserable looking Andrews gave Adam a smile as he approached and handed him a Starbucks coffee.

“No forced entry. No sign of struggle. No scratches or bruises. No weapons. Michael thinks probably a heart attack or something like that. How’s the girl?” Andrews asked with genuine sympathy in his voice.

“She’s been pretty quiet. Lots of holding her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth,” Adam explained as he nodded thank you for the coffee and took a sip.

“OK, well keep trying to see what you can get out of her. And what’s the story with the mother?” Andrews reached into his car for another Starbucks drink, this time some sort of blue iced concoction in a clear plastic cup.

“So far all I know is that she had a shift at Juan’s and the kid didn’t have school, so I’m assuming she was left with the boyfriend.”

At the word “boyfriend” Sergeant Andrews raised his eyebrows and seemed to pay closer attention. “Have we IDed the guy?”

“Geoff Wolf,” Adam responded. “California driver’s license. No warrants or record. He’s been around for a couple of months, I guess, one of a long series of guys through the house, according to the neighbor.”

“Hmmm. All right, well, you know what I told you about boyfriends, so follow up that angle, please. That means keeping the girl and the mom apart until you’re clear on both their stories.” Andrews placed a straw in the colorful iced drink and handed it to Adam. “And see if the girl would like this.”

“You got it,” Adam responded. “Thanks, Sarg.”

As Adam walked backed across the parking lot, he noticed Officer Kaylyn Mitchell struggling to direct a woman towards her to a police cruiser. “I want to see my daughter!” the woman screamed.

“You will, ma’am” Officer Mitchell yelled through the window, “we just need to ask you a few more questions first. If you can have a seat in my car for a minute we’ll get this all straightened out.”

Mitchell finally succeeded in her task, stepped back from the car, and nodded to Adam. “I didn’t take you for a Passion Tango Tea kind of guy, Clark,” she smiled.

Adam laughed and rolled his eyes playfully, a move that he had always found quite attractive to women. It had never had the desired effect on Kaylyn Mitchell, though, much to Adam’s frustration. “It’s for the girl. What did you find out from the mom?”

“Not much yet. Looks like a pretty typical case. Single mother, struggling to keep things afloat. She claims there were no problems with the guy, but you know...”

“How long has he been living here?”

“Well, get this, the mom claims that he isn’t actually her boyfriend. She says he helps with the kids ministry at the church they attend. Comes over to baby-sit sometimes.”

Adam’s mind flashed back to his own youth group days. It wasn’t a part of his life that he talked about with anyone, but Adam had been heavily involved in an evangelical church in his teens. After his dad left the family when he was 13, his mother had found religion, and Adam had gone along for the ride. He recalled the “Christian rock” concerts, the purity talks, and t-shirts that pasted a “biblical” message on a mainstream corporate logo with a with a mix of nostalgia and embarrassment. There was no doubt that he had found a supportive church “family” when his own family had imploded and that this had likely saved him from some of the drugs and depression and violence that had ensnared so many of his generation. However, the corniness of it all had become clear in college, not to mention the inconvenience, shall we say, of remaining chaste while living in the dorms of a state university. Then, when his professors promoted the entertaining screeds of the “new atheists” that had become famous after 9/11, Adam rode that wave as well, and hadn’t thought much about it since.

“Huh. Did she say what church?”

Kaylyn looked down at her notepad. “The Mountainside.”

“Alright, well, we can follow that up I guess, but it looks like death from natural causes. I’ll like to know more about why the girl thinks that she killed him, but otherwise doesn’t seem to be much here. We should be able to wrap this up pretty quick.”

=-=-=-=--=

Amanda Giesbrecht had never experienced Passion Tango Tea, but after some gentle prodding from Adam, she took a sip, and then another. It seemed to calm her down a bit, and Adam asked again: “Amanda, what were you doing when Geoff died?”

Amanda was now seated on the trunk of Adam’s car. She apprehensively took another sip. “Is my mom here? Can I see her?”

“She is, and you’ll be able to see her soon. We just need to get a few questions answered first. Don’t be afraid. You are not in any trouble,” Adam offered her some Kleenex. He thought he noticed the girl recoil slightly as he did.

Amanda took a deep breath, wiped her nose, and began. “We were just hanging out, and then Geoff wanted to play a game.”

“What kind of game?” Adam interrupted, “Like checkers or cards?”

Amanda paused, looked at the ground, then continued slowly. “No, it’s kinda like pin the tail on the donkey, you know where you get blindfolded.”

Adam tensed. He didn’t like where this was going, but kept his voice calm and encouraged her to continue. “Yes, I know that one.”

“Well, Geoff liked to blindfold me, and then he would put one of his fingers in my mouth and I would suck on in, then if I guessed which finger it was I would win some candy or something.”

Adam felt rage building within him. “And did he ever put anything else in your mouth, Amanda?”

The girl nodded her head and started to cry when a deep voice thundered from behind Adam, “What is going on here?”

It was Chief of Police Brian Calhoun, a man who never showed up at crime scenes. And for some reason that Adam couldn’t fathom, he was irate.

“Why is this girl being kept from her mother? What are you trying to do here, officer?”

“Just asking a few questions, Chief,” Adam stammered.

“So you’re a detective, now, Clark, is that it?”

“Um, well, we were just…”

“Just nothing. We are wasting time and resources out here.” Calhoun waved at the yellow caution tape keeping people out of the area. “Pull that down and send everybody home. There is no crime, and there is no need for any more fooling around here.”

Adam was speechless, and looked around for support. He caught Sergeant Andrews’ eye for a moment and gave him a questioning look but Andrews just shrugged slightly and raised is eyebrows as if to say, “I have no idea what is going on, either.” For her part Officer Mitchell was leading the mother in the opposite direction. Adam was not one to rock the boat with his superiors, but he took that as an opportunity to try to ask Amanda a few more questions.

“Alright, Chief, you got it,” he said, grabbing Amanda by the hand. “I’ll walk her over.”

The Chief grunted and moved on, and Adam slowly guided Amanda across the lawn. She was still on the verge of tears.

“It’s OK, sweetie,” Adam whispered. “It’s not your fault.” He wished he had been there to kill Geoff himself. “So did you play the game with Geoff today? What happened?”

“He wanted to play, and I told him I wasn’t feeling well, which wasn’t really true, but I was trying to figure out some way to not have to play. Anyway…” Amanda choked back some tears so she could continue. “Anyway, Geoff put the blindfold on and squeezed my arm really tight, and said, ‘We’re going to have extra fun today’, and all I was thinking was, ‘Please God, stop him, please God, stop him,’ and then…”

Amanda paused and stopped walking.  

Adam urged her on. “And then what happened, Amanda?”

“Then there was some rustling and he let go and I heard a thump, so I jumped up and took off my blindfold and he was just lying there on the floor. I reached down and shook him a few times, but he didn’t respond.”

“What happened next?”

“I ran out of the house towards Main Street and saw you. I killed him, Officer Clark! I’m sorry!” Amanda buried her hand in her face.

“You didn’t kill anyone,” he whispered gently, “Did you see anyone else in the room, or hear a door close or anything like that?”

The girl nodded no.

At that moment Amanda’s mom swooped in and gave her a big hug. Kaylyn’s stalling tactics had reached their limit.

“Are you alright, honey?” the mother cried.

Amanda nodded yes and gave a questioning look to Adam as her mother whisked her away. Adam tried to give her an assuring look and mouthed “It’s going to be OK” to her as she went. He also noticed that her mom’s hug had pulled up Amanda’s sleeve, exposing a deep blue bruise that about the width of a man’s hand.

=-=-=-=-=-

Adam sat at his desk, still troubled and distracted over what had happened with Amanda. In the week that had passed, his request for an autopsy had been denied, his attempts at interviewing the girl and her mother further had been rebuffed, and the case had been officially ruled death by natural causes and closed. Even though he had repeatedly shared Amanda’s story of abuse with his superiors, the Chief had ordered that the matter be dropped. The official line was, “Even if Wolf was abusing the girl, he’s dead now so that’s that. Nothing more we can do.”

Adam opened a folder on his computer labeled “Amanda” but then quickly closed it again as Officer Mitchell approached the desk.

“You gotta let that go, Clark,” she warned with a smile. “You are already skating on thin ice here. You want to keep your job or not?”

“I know, but something is off about this whole thing.”

Just then the door of the police station flew open and a woman’s voice pierced the air. “I had nothing to do with this! The man was dead when I got there!”

Adam and Kaylyn moved toward the front desk and asked another officer what was going on.

“They found her hovering over the body of a dead guy at some church.”

“Oh, what church?” Adam asked.

“Some place called The Mountainside.”

[Read Chapter 2 here, and subscribe to stay updated as we post more installments. You can learn more about this project and support Libertyville here.]