Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children (15 page)

I hope you don’t judge me for what I told you.

I couldn’t be sure of what Mike thought, how things had changed between us in the years we’d been apart. The ones who knew your secrets were the ones who could hurt you the most. Mike opened the passenger door and looked at the hood, then the house. I nodded to Duncan as the woman moved away, pulling Morgan’s arm as the child cried, “I want my mom!” Duncan stared at her, grief plastering his face, maybe thinking about his own child, lost now forever. His brow knitted. The big cop strode over to Morgan, picked her up, and squeezed her to his chest. She buried her head in his shoulder, gulping air, lips trembling. He stroked her back and cooed, “It’s going to be okay, it will.” Maybe for both of them. I looked away. The woman stared at her shoes, eyes glimmering with a responsibility I wouldn’t wish on anyone, yet knew was necessary. Mike looked at his watch.

Duncan set the girl down, gently rubbed her shoulder with a meaty hand and nodded to the social worker. She led Morgan to the car and opened the back door, slid her inside. The child laid the doll’s head on her shoulder like Duncan had done with her a moment before. My eyes burned, hot and wet, and I clenched my hands. Her parents had done this to her with their insecurities, their selfishness, their rage.

Mike pulled something from inside his jacket pocket and held it out. I shook my head. “I don’t smoke.”

Mike shrugged and offered it to Duncan. The big cop stared at it a moment and shook his head as well. Mike smiled. “You guys need some vices.” His smile turned into a frown as he lit up. He said to Duncan, “What’s going to happen to the kid?”
“Who are you?”

Mike offered his hand. “Michael Johnston.”

“You think it’s wise bringing other people into this, McDonnell?” Duncan pulled a pack of gum from his shirt pocket and popped a piece of Juicy Fruit onto his tongue, took a step to the side, out of the smoke trailing from Mike’s cigarette. “Well?”

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Mike is my best friend. I trust him.”

Duncan sighed. He opened the passenger and back door of his cruiser. I saw Pat’s photo album in the middle of the front seat. Duncan’s voice had a click in it, like there was a broken valve inside his heart. “You guys can ride with me. Move your Jeep out of the way.”

Mike frowned. I hesitated, unsure what to say, how to go about driving my Jeep without making Duncan angry, or untrusting. I wanted to ask Mike what he thought we had to do after, but didn’t want to bring it up in front of the state boy.
One thing at a time.
Advice Father had always offered but seldom followed.

“I’ll drive my Jeep, sir. Mike’s right, we’ve got to do some other stuff as soon as we leave the forest.”

“Stuff that has to do with my daughter and what happened to her?”

“Maybe. I don’t know yet.”

“You’re going to tell me everything.” He turned his head to Mike. “You, too. Whatever you know.”

Mike tossed his cigarette on the ground and twisted the ball of his foot over it. “You wouldn’t believe everything.”

“We’ll see.” Duncan slammed the passenger doors. “Let’s go.”

* * *

John pulled to the curb in front of Red’s Hardware. Mike rolled down the passenger window and waited for John to get out. “I’ll go back and talk to him for a sec while you run inside.”

Moving with a lethargic gait, John crossed the sidewalk. Mike stepped out of the Jeep. Duncan had a book in his lap, tears in his eyes, fingers working a picture free from the album. Mike tapped his knuckles against the glass. Duncan hit the button and the window went down in a soft whir. “Yes?”

“I wanted to have a word with you.” Mike squatted down on the sidewalk and scratched his knee. “I’m sorry about your daughter.”

“Me, too.”

“John didn’t have anything to do with it. I’m sure your gut is telling you that. He’s a good guy. But he told me that the mayor and the coroner knew. I think after we deal with this, you might want to question them. Did he tell you about them?”

“He told me about the mayor. Wallace is the coroner, right? I’ve dealt with him before, a few times. I always thought he was a nice guy.” Duncan shook his head, worked his fingers against his temples as the wind blew soft along the back of Mike’s neck. “Did McDonnell tell you why he thinks they covered this up?”

“No.”

Duncan lifted the book. “The man who was probably responsible for all this heartache is dead. I feel like I need someone to blame. Somewhere to direct my anger, my grief. It’s a helluva thing.”

“If you want we can go talk to Rusty while you pick up the mayor.”

“I want to see my little girl first.”

Mike nodded. “I understand.”

“You have kids?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t understand. Not completely.” Duncan looked out over the street. Mike turned his head, saw John come out of Red’s with three yellow-handled shovels. “McDonnell doesn’t have anything to worry about. I don’t blame him. Even though he should have stepped forward when he found them. I want to know it all. Do you think he’s going to tell me?”

Mike stood as John threw the shovels in the back of his Jeep. “He will. You’re going to have a hard time believing it all though.”

“Believeable or not, I need to hear it all.”

“I agree.”

“I ran your name.”

Mike tilted his head and John looked back, his hand on the Jeep’s door. “I see.”

“You’ve got a record. I can’t crack the information though. The CIA has a red flag on it. You wanna tell me about that?”

“No. That’s all a long time ago.”

Duncan pulled the CB receiver free and sat it on the floorboard, slid the picture of his daughter into the bracket screwed to the dash. He wiped his eyes. “I never thought I’d lose her like this. Old age maybe, or a car accident with a bunch of drunk and stupid friends, but not like this.”

Mike thought of his mother, rotting away, fighting a slow death, wrapped in the arms of a lifetime of bitterness. The gates holding his emotions in check felt like the hinges were buckling. “I am really sorry. It’s got to be the hardest thing any parent ever faces. All the little mistakes your kids make are just minor annoyances, right? But there’s no chance left for them now. No chance to hold onto disappointment, or those proud moments when they impress you.”

Duncan sniffled, ran his hand under his nose. “They make you smile and break your heart. It’s life. You deal with it, take it in stride. Her mother is going to be a wreck. I’m going to have to take some time off work to help her and get my own head on straight again.”

“You seem like a good man. I’ve known your kind before.”

Duncan snorted and chuckled through a sob. “I’m going to miss her so much. It seems unreal.”

“Allow yourself to grieve.”

“It’d be easier to grieve if I had some way to dispense this pain. Someone to blame. Someone alive.” His lips trembled, eyes wandering over the dash, coming to rest on the picture. “You’re right. After this, we’re going to drag the Mayor and Mr. Wallace out into the woods and let them fill us in on all their secrets.”

“One thing at a time.”

Mike tapped the roof of the car and walked back to the Jeep.

Chapter 22

Life buzzed with movement and white noise that you lost track of if you didn’t listen for it. As we walked the path into the woods, eyes scanning the ground for any signs of a disturbance—freshly turned soil, half hidden bits of dead flesh—Mike pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it over his nose and glanced over one shoulder and then the other.

I worked my way beneath a stand of dirty white birch trees to my far right, while Duncan took up the track to Mike’s left. To a casual observer it’d look like we searched for something simple and innocent—a fallen deer to fill the freezer, or a bed of morels to fry in a skillet slicked with butter. It reminded me of how off people were when it came to guessing the rambling chaos or pinpoint precision of other men’s words and actions.

Mike’s right boot sank to the ankle in earth and something snapped, muffled by soil. Pulling his foot free, he set the shovel down next to him and knelt over the depression—a mixture of sand and spruce boughs. “I’ve got something here.” He shielded his eyes to the setting sun slanting through tree tops as he turned his head, watched me disappear behind a group of trees to either drain my bladder, or because he thought I found something else.

Looking over his left shoulder, Mike smelled Duncan before he saw the broken man dive to his knees beside him. The cop dug into the soil, barehanded, and threw it into the air like a dog, scrambling, his breath sharp, sweat standing out on his forehead, eyes crazed.

Mike wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve and started digging, too.

* * *

I stood at the head of a clearing that sank knee deep into the earth, covered in rich grass. A ring of trees lined the perimeter, rocks beneath them, as tall as my waist, wedged in the earth, slick with moss and water. A perfect circle of bare black soil sat in the center, a ring inside a ring. I didn’t understand what purpose it would serve—off the main hiking trails the way it was, with no bench to sit and rest. I eased down three stone steps, into the bowl; feet squishing over a thick carpet of green, almost translucent in texture, as if its third dimension lacked completion.

I took a deep breath, fingers itching. I studied the doll house that seemed to have grown organically from the soil, its windows opaque in the day’s dying light, tiny shingles damaged by time and neglect.

The manor.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. A slow vibration thrummed against the soles of my hiking boots and branches rattled like bones tossed into a fifty-gallon drum. I pulled my collar away from my throat, knelt in front of the miniature manor.

What the hell is this?

* * *

Duncan cried out as he jerked a girl’s arm free of the soft soil. He studied it, running his hands over the shape of its elbow, down to its fingertips. He closed his eyes tight, the muscles in his jaw bunched. Mike pulled another arm free, but it didn’t look like a match, darker skin than the arm the cop held. Brushing dirt off graying flesh, he laid the arm tenderly on the mound of soil edging the knee-deep pit they’d carved by hand.

Goddamn. This poor sonofabitch.

The big cop swallowed a heart-wrenching sob and Mike looked over as Duncan brushed dirt and dark hair off a young girl’s face poking out of the ground. He dug his fingers into the dirt hiding her shoulders and shook her lightly, grains of soil falling from her brow, sticking to her open blue eyes.

“Here, let me help.” Mike knelt next to him, part of him worried they stood on other hidden body parts, dead kids. An old nursery rhyme his mother used to sing, after Natalie had gone missing, dripped like dark water into his thoughts:

A wise old owl lived in an oak

The more he saw the less he spoke

The less he spoke the more he heard.

Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?

Mike looked at the dead girl, his heart sick with the image of his mother leading Natalie away into the woods, the nursery rhyme that followed, one he’d never understood, forgotten like so many things. The image staggered, folded upon itself until he and Nat sat on the pool, smiling on a warm summer night.

She’s always wanted me to keep quiet. This fucking situation is bringing it all back. Goddamn it.

Duncan shoved him away, eyes frantic. “I got her. Get out of the hole and give me some room.”

Mike climbed out, glanced over his shoulder at the spot where he’d seen John disappear. Looking back at Duncan, the damp soil caked on their hands, he said a silent prayer he feared would never reach God.

Give these families comfort. Closure.

He tried to remember the last time he’d prayed, realized he hadn’t even done it for his mother, who rotted away, inside out, while he roamed the hall beyond her room, afraid to face her, afraid the dam would break and his anger, the questions, would spill forth. It made him wonder what that said about him, his own buried grief.

Mike wiped tears from his eyes—knowing what he needed to do, but unsure if he could follow through.

Duncan hugged his daughter to his chest with his left arm, stumbled from the hole, and cradled her head in his right arm. He laid pieces of her on the forest floor. He ran his fingers over her cheeks, snorting like a mad bull. Mike kneeled at the edge of the grave and worked more body parts loose of the soil.

* * *

The manor, made of wood and glass and granite, creaked in the wind. I took another step forward, the key burning the skin over my heart. In the pale dimness of the upstairs windows, I saw a flicker of movement. It receded into the dark depths contaminating the interior, reminded me of when I’d been too young to understand the toxicity of what had happened when I stayed there, the sudden move of a hand beneath my blanket, hot breath against my shoulder.

I shivered, convinced the little man inside the house was me, in that other life—the trapped boy, confused, never free. I looked around for a broken branch to break the manor wide open and let the boy out, but everything was perfect here, like a little Eden. No death, only growth, brilliance. I pulled the pistol.

A light hummed inside the belly of the childhood beast; shadows flickered up walls half glimpsed through tiny windows. A raven beat its wings around my head and lit on the roof’s peak. It studied me from glossy black eyes, its beak half open, as if preparing to speak.

A woman spoke, a voice I knew and dreaded, “Are you ready?”

I turned. Angela sat naked on the stone steps, her back to the forest. Sunlight flared across red hair that barely concealed pink nipples. “You know what you have to do?”

I shook my head, fingers knotting from holding the pistol so tightly, unsure if I should trust her or give her what she wanted in All Saints when she’d called me Dark Man, put the barrel against her lips and pull the trigger. But I couldn’t because she knew so much she wasn’t willing to share yet. For some godforsaken reason she wanted me to figure everything out for myself.

“Listen to your heart, Johnathan. What does it tell you?”

I touched my chest. Mark’s key vibrated against my fingers. Pulling it free, I knelt down and leaned forward, looked at the manor’s door. It was a lock, a keyhole like an eye glaring from the center of the polished mahogany. Angela’s hair brushed my shoulder and I jumped. She whispered, “We have to hurry. Chaos is building its case against you.”

I barely heard her, but something cold and wet slithered inside me, as if someone had tried on my body like a new set of clothes. I pushed back against the force as the little man in the window winked at me, teeth gleaming in the failing light, and the raven cawed overhead, wings ruffled by a gust of wind, its talons tapping the roof.