Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children (17 page)

Chapter 25

I rolled over, shoulder sopping, the stink of swamp water almost suffocating. The roots of a fallen tree tickled my neck. I shook away the remnants of dream, and tried to place where I was, felt the weight of the pistol in my right hand. Considering myself lucky that I hadn’t needed to use the gun in the vision, and consequently blown a toe, or worse, off in this reality, I let out a shaky breath, fighting the cold of coming fall. Night clung tight to every branch. The earth, cool and damp, gave under the weight soaking my knees.

Feeling for Cat’s phone to check the time, I came up empty. I stood, heard voices and saw light stab through the woods. Someone laughed. Inching forward, putting the gun back in its holster and securing the leather strap that held it in place, I moved from tree to tree toward the pulsating glow.

The undergrowth thickened, stood like a wall between me and the path, and I thought,
Screw it, I’m already wet and cold
, and climbed beneath the brambles like I had as a kid. I saw the cops around the bodies, their arms cocked, hands holding flashlights, faces drawn as a couple men sat on lawn chairs with rainbow-weaved fabric that looked so out of place in the forest, men with clear plastic bags, men filling out paperwork.

Two more men, younger than the rest, slid severed limbs into black plastic bags, one of them with a sharp, angular face scratching his chin with a dead kid’s arm. The other bagger slapped the arm down, said, “Knock that off. Show some respect for the dead.” The cops moved closer, a tighter circle around the hole and the men. The badger-faced one slid the arm into the body bag, but kept grinning like he’d got the satisfaction he wanted from all of their disgust.

I didn’t see Mike or Duncan. Or Rusty for that matter, but that didn’t surprise me. Rusty wouldn’t want to be here. He wouldn’t want to have to face the scrutiny and guilt that came with his participating in this mess and the cover up. But remembering Duncan’s anger, I knew that Rusty was going to get a visit from the state cop.

Knowing that I couldn’t go out there, that they’d have a million questions for me that I didn’t have answers to, I moved back the way I’d come, got on my knees and stood, trying to figure out the best thing to do. My head felt lighter than normal and I shivered in the cold. Even my bones felt weary. Darkness ate at the forest and the swamp to my north. I wanted to find Mike and Duncan, part of me pissed that they’d just left me there.

They might be at Rusty’s.

I took careful steps, trying to avoid calling attention to myself. A branch snapped beneath my weight. I paused, listening for the cops to come tearing through the brush, guns drawn. There was only the rustle of bags, the dead weight placed inside them, the hoot of an owl close by, the raven sitting on a stump. It winked, five feet away. Then it launched itself into the air and flew northwest, toward town, in a flash of oily wings, landing on the ground and tilting its head at me.

You want me to follow you?

The raven nodded and opened its beak. I wanted to shush it, afraid we were still too close to the crime scene. But the bird remained silent. It coughed up a worm that looked like an infant with wings enfolding its sleeping form. When I got to it, I knelt, touched it with my boot, felt the cold seep through my foot, up my leg, my guts in knots.

I whispered, “It’s stillborn.”

The raven lifted a talon and gripped the worm’s head, squeezed until it popped like a zit, blood and gray matter oozing from between its claws.

“What the hell are you doing?”

The bird smiled, whispered back, “The greatest gift in life is death. Get used to it.”

I lunged at the bird but it cackled and flew high into the branches of a peeling birch. “Whose side are you on?”

The bird scratched the branch and unfurled its wings, a signet of black deeper and shinier than that which surrounded it. “Redemption.”

I remembered what Mike had said, something about Angela, what her purpose was—
Redemption
—and it left me empty, because I didn’t understand it. I struggled with guilt, different now than before, when I’d thought Mark had broached my privacy. And now this unsettling knowledge that it was Natalie, and that I’d hit Mark, watched him drown, swept away by the river, dashed against the rocks for no purpose.

No, he said he deserved that paddle smack. Because he sent me something that might crush me come April.

I wrestled fear, more confusion. It slithered through me, brought back the serpent man, and men writhing on burning crosses. Suddenly, I wanted to hear Cat’s voice again, or the innocent giggle Ethan produced when he heard my voice. Something concrete, normal.

Raven wings fluttered. The bird’s feet dug into my shoulders as if branding me. I tried to pull it free but a searing pain shot up my neck, a flash of thick black and red flaring behind my eyes. The bird’s beak nipped my ear. “You need me, cowboy.”

“Let go, you cancer!”

“Keep your voice down or they’ll hear you. Listen.”

My heart slammed, the demon’s claws closed, breaking skin, digging into muscle. I groaned through the pain, and clamped my left hand around the bird’s throat. I squeezed, but the monster only laughed at me. “You work for her. Let go.”

Its voice came out broken. “You got it all wrong. When you gonna learn?”

* * *

Herb flipped on the porch light and answered the door and Mike, looking over the big cop’s shoulder, watched the fear and surprise fly across the mayor’s face, then shift in a split second, taking flight, as Herb slammed the door. Duncan beat his fist against the wood and the door rocked in its frame, the photo album full of missing girls pinned between his left arm and ribs. Mike slipped around the back of the house. It was bigger than most, but still only half the size of the manor. He followed the dying flowers around the back, crossed a yard turning brown, preparing for winter.

Mike pulled the sunroom’s screen door open just enough to slide through. At the back door, he paused.
This is my chance to win favor with Duncan and keep him off John’s back.

Everything, the good and the bad, came back around if you made the right choices and gave it time. Darkness saturated the kitchen. Out in the hall, light from the living room spilled across the wall and Herb propped his hands against the front door, eye to the peep hole. The smell of smoke hung in the air. He scratched his leg and stopped at the living room entrance, peeked around the corner. Mrs. Miller sat on a leather sofa, a blue blanket draped over her legs, left hand holding a glass, cigarette in her right. She stared at a muted TV, her head bobbing slowly to a soundtrack only she heard. Mike hadn’t ever seen her without makeup. The lines in her face ran deep, and her hands seemed to have a constant shake.

She set the glass on the cast iron end table and it chirped as it bumped the half empty bottle of gin. Mike hung his head. This woman’s life was over and she didn’t even know it yet. Or maybe she did. She’d hit a crossroad; violence against her daughter, her husband’s hand in a pile of shit that would never wash off. He wondered if the numbing helped, or if, like most people, she knew deep down that things would never be like they once were.

Duncan yelled, “Open up,” and kicked the door. A decorative plate, head high, shivered against the wall on a black metal shelf. Herb jumped. Mrs. Miller never took her eyes from the television, the ash on her cigarette growing too long. It fell in her lap and she let it lay there.

Mike took a breath, two quick steps past the living room, and saw her head turn right before he lost sight of her, his full attention turned to Herb. He jerked the fat man’s left arm behind his back and covered his mouth to choke his scream. Mike spun him to the wall, brought him off balance, up on his tiptoes against the pain, and slammed his shoulder into Herb’s back—drove his head into the wall. A crack echoed down the hall like birds taking flight. Herb’s knees gave but he caught himself, stayed on his feet. Mike glanced back toward the living room, wondering if maybe Mrs. Miller was grabbing a shotgun or pistol, nearing the hall.

The mayor squirmed. Mike jerked his arm higher along his spine, whispered, “Be quiet or I’ll rip your arm out of the socket. Understand?” Herb nodded. Mike threw the deadbolt free and pulled the door open with his right hand, turned the mayor toward the dark outside, the angry cop, in one smooth motion.

Leaves stirred across the porch, a couple passing between Duncan’s feet. Mike shoved Herb forward and Duncan grabbed him by the arm, crammed the picture of his dead daughter in the mayor’s face. “Remember her?”

Mike didn’t hear Herb’s answer, just shut the door as quietly as he could, as if they’d never been there, leaving only another residue of empty space in the woman’s life. He pitied her and wasn’t sure exactly why. He used to be able to detach himself when it came to doing what needed done.

Herb stuttered, a film of spittle on his lips. Mike felt himself hardening inside, angry with this asshole’s selfishness, his secrets, the way he moved with a smile, donning an image he wanted people to believe but that only masked something ugly, bent. Duncan grabbed the mayor by the scruff of the neck and pulled him toward the cruiser. Mike stepped onto the driveway and looked at the living room window. Mrs. Miller pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders, gray bangs in her eyes, lips a tight line. She gave him one little nod, as if to say, “He told me. He’s dug his own grave.”

Duncan cursed and kicked Herb in the hamstring. The mayor fell forward, but the cop caught him, opened the back door of the cruiser and pulled his pistol, said, “Get in.”

Herb shook his head. “I—”

Duncan cocked the hammer and looked at the picture of his little girl, his sorrow like a storm across his face, rippling through his body. Herb saw it too, and climbed in the back, hands up as if they could take the bullet instead of his face, if it came down to that. Duncan holstered his pistol and slammed the door of the cage. Herb looked out the window at his wife. Mike followed his gaze, watched Mrs. Miller shake her head and turn her back on her husband.

She knows what you’ve done, doesn’t she? And if you make her feel like that, you aren’t going to like what that cop does when you tell him what you’ve told your wife.

Mike stepped over to the passenger door as Duncan rounded the front of the car, slipped in behind the wheel. He raised an eyebrow and slid his daughter’s picture back in the CB’s bracket. The cop let out a long breath that hit the windshield in a cold gray kiss. He looked in the mirror. Herb cowered. Duncan rubbed his face and shook his head. “I’m breaking more procedure here.”

Mike pointed at the picture. “Sometimes you have to follow the laws of your heart.”

* * *

Slop and mud had caked to my clothes. I stepped out from between Red’s Hardware and White’s Veterinarian shop, shivering in the chilly air, hiking boots pooling water around my feet, as I stared at the station across the road. A car sped up the road and I moved into the shadows between the buildings, wanting a shower, rest, Cat—yet knowing I couldn’t have any of those things. Not until I got ahold of Duncan and told him that I hadn’t run.

I crossed the street, muscles stiff, heart heavy with fear that Duncan had taken Mike into custody, thinking he was part of this chaos. And part of me didn’t blame Duncan. He didn’t know Mike. And the cop was hurting, would probably be for the rest of his life, even after he thought he’d moved past it, accepted that his daughter was butchered for God knew what reason, that nothing could ever bring her back.

Down the dark alley, I put one foot in front of the other. The cruiser came into view, facing me, the white sections of paint drenched in moonlight. Angela sat in the passenger seat. She gave me a little wave, then leaned over and started the car. I stopped in my tracks, ten feet from the car. I had the urge to turn around, escape.

She only brings chaos.

My knees trembled. Angela rolled down the passenger window. “Are you ready for it?”

I coughed out, “For what?”

Chapter 26

In the manor’s basement, Herb squirmed in a metal chair, beads of sweat speckling his forehead, hands tied behind his back with dirty nylon rope. His eyes darted from Duncan to Mike to the dark corners, the cobwebs. Mike looked around too, realized that he needed to clean the place. He dusted off the top of the black lacquered box sitting on his father’s workbench—the box surrounded by his father’s obsession: a galore of antique clocks, their constant ticking, deleting what thrusted a man into the here and now.

Duncan moved over to the wall, traced a meaty hand over a monkey wrench. He pulled it from the pegboard and hefted its weight. The Mayor put his head down. His silence surprised Mike—the ride over here, now this. He touched the box, its golden lock. Dad had never shown him what was inside it, and he didn’t know where the key was. He figured he didn’t care, probably just his favorite clock.

Duncan knelt in front of Herb. “You knew about my daughter, Mr. Miller. Why didn’t you call the police?”

Herb shook his head.

Duncan followed suit, then smashed the monkey wrench against Herb’s toes. The mayor screamed and twisted in pain. The big cop looked over his shoulder, met Mike’s gaze, his face grim. He didn’t enjoy it, that much was obvious, and it made Mike like him even more. There was no other way around it. Sometimes you had to make people tell you the truth. Duncan turned back to Herb, said, “Who killed her?”

Herb bit his lip, tears streaking his face. “I don’t know.”

Duncan swung the pipe wrench again, it collided with Herb’s shin. A bone snapped. The mayor sobbed and screamed, “Stop! God, I don’t know anything!”

Duncan’s hands trembled. “I’m going to work up the left side of your body, then work my way back down your right. Tell me what happened.”

Herb’s eyes bugged out, spittle splayed across his lips. His face, red at first, parchment pale now, slackened. His jowls shook as he said, “Please. I don’t know anything. Pat called me and said that he found John out in the forest and these, your daughter, and he told me not to tell anyone. Just said to pick up Rusty Wallace and meet him out there. It was horrible. I—”

“Why did Pat want to cover up the murder?”

“Because John’s family is important to this town. His father was a preacher, and a leader.”

“Not good enough. You’re holding back on me.” Duncan hit him in the knee. Mike watched, noticed that he wasn’t swinging full force, not looking to break anymore bones, maybe roping his rage in, just pushing enough to get straight, honest answers, not just easy ones.

After Herb stopped crying, Duncan said, “What’s the real reason?”

“I swear, I don’t know.” Herb shook his head and sweat flew from his face. “Pat was a bad apple. My daughter is in the hospital right now. I think he attacked her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but you’re getting off topic.” Duncan laid the monkey wrench over his shoulder the way a man will lay a shotgun or an axe. “I’m not buying that you and the coroner would just cover up four murders because a piss-ant sheriff told you to. Why did you go along with it? The next one is aimed at your crotch. Understand? My patience is wearing thin.”

Mike snagged a blowtorch from the shelf along the wall. He lit it and the thing sounded like a mini jet engine. Herb stared at him, face like a hard Pennsylvania winter. “You put this in his belly button, he’ll talk.”

Duncan smiled an ugly smile. The air in the room shifted, must and trapped heat seeped from the bordering darkness. It bothered Mike a little, that smile. The cop pulled the picture of his dead daughter from his shirt pocket and unfolded it. Duncan studied it for a minute, then set the monkey wrench by his knee. He extended his hand. Mike wasn’t sure he wanted to give him the torch. Duncan curled his fingers. “Let me see it. I’ll start with his belly button. Then, if he still isn’t telling me everything, I’ll put it in his ears and his nose.”

Herb said, “I’ll see you go to prison.” His voice trembled, a quarter part anger, three-quarters fear.

Mike handed Duncan the blowtorch. The cop bowed his head and looked at the blue canister filling his hand. The mayor cursed, “Do you want to rot in prison, officer?”

Duncan smiled. “You’ll be there with me, Mr. Miller. And I’m going to make you suffer more than
any
pain anyone else will inflict on me. This is pushing me toward the edge, you know what I’m saying? Pulling my daughter’s body from the ground, mutilated as it was. Then to find out that some men knew about it, and hid her and these other girls, goddamn. You know what I’m scared of? I’m scared I’m really going to enjoy hearing you scream. I’m scared that once I get started I won’t be able to stop.”

* * *

I slapped the car door. “Get out.”

“I’m going with you.”

“You don’t even know where I’m going.”

And it’s not open to debate.

Angela leaned forward, head out the window. She spat on my boots.

I grinned. “They were wet already.”

She smiled. “I wasn’t offending you. I marked you.”

“For?”

“Get in. Let’s go. You want to see how deep things can go?”

I shook my head. “I just want it all to end. Everything to go back to normal.”

“Nothing will ever be normal for you again.”

Though I didn’t trust her, I hadn’t caught her in a lie yet. It bothered me, her charm, her raw fucking sexiness. And her straightforward manner. Before Mark had died, Cat had been that way. Always quick to give her opinion, say what she felt. She’d closed up on me, emotionally, even physically, as much as I had her and I didn’t know how to fix it.

Angela said, “You’re right.”

“What?”

“It’s your fault. Do you want to make everything right?”

I nodded, felt something shift inside me, like a door opening, just a crack.

“Then do what I say, Johnathan. I’m here to help you.”

“And what do you say?”

“Get in.”

At least that’s an easy command. I know they’re not all going to be so simple.

I studied her for a moment and then walked around the car, still unsure of her role in my life, in Mike’s. I didn’t buy that Mike’s mother had hired her. I wondered if Mike had ever asked her.

No. He hasn’t even been in to see her yet.

As I slid in behind the wheel, I stole a glance at this monster. She made my heart hammer, stirred my loins. I hated myself for that. Hated her a little as well, suspected that she knew the power she held, and played it like a harp—long, delicate fingers plucking strings. She said, “You have a lovely mind.”

“Thanks. So, what do you think I should do?”

“What do you think you should do?”

“Are you just trying to fuck with me?”

“No.”

The heater blew against my legs. It felt good. “I need to go home and change.”

She shook her head.

“No? What then?”

“You need to visit your friend.”

“Mike?”

“No.”

I gripped the wheel. “Will you just tell me? I’m sick of this guessing game.”

“Who needs you?”

“No one.”

“Is that what you think?” Her eyes grew larger, a purr dripped into her voice, hands playing with each other in her lap. “Is it?”

“Maybe.” I looked both ways down the alley. “We’re not getting any closer to whatever it is you think I need to do by sitting here.”

“Maybe this is what you’re supposed to do.”

“This?”

She smiled. “Yes. And this.” She grabbed my shirt and pulled my head to her breast. I felt her nipple, growing hard, against my right ear. Angela laughed. “Open my shirt, lick it.”

I tried to wrench my head free, but her strength trumped mine. Shame and surprise burned to anger. “Let go!”

Angela laughed harder, her chest shaking, ramming the side of my head. “You don’t want my titty? How about this?” She drove my head down her stomach—the earthy smell of her, like windswept hills, bothering the hell out of me—until she held my face against her crotch, smothering me. I punched her leg, trying to break her grip. She pushed down harder. My teeth felt like they were going to break under the pressure.

* * *

Duncan ripped Herb’s night shirt, a simple flannel, button-up, open. The Mayor’s fat gut hid the waist of his pants, spilled out over his crotch. He made Mike sick, and though he’d tried not to judge people his whole life, he still did. Everyone did. There were no angels pure. Even God’s closest protectors’ failed and fell. The big cop breathed noisily, set the torch by his foot, flame pointing away as he rolled up his sleeves. A blotch of blood had soaked through Herb’s pants, from his broken shinbone. Duncan said, “Mr. Miller, I owe this fella behind me. His buddy, John, too. In a weird way, even if they don’t realize, they’re giving me closure. And you’re going to talk. You’re going to squeal.”

Herb shook his head side to side and Mike stepped forward as Duncan grabbed the canister and inched it toward Herb’s stomach. “Talk, Miller.”

“I told you the truth.”

Mike said, “Tell the rest of it.”

“There is no rest of it. Unless Rusty knows.” Herb’s eyes grew wider, his mouth a large ‘O’. “Yes, that’s it. Please, ask Rusty. He’ll know. Pat will have told him.”

Duncan set the canister on the mayor’s thigh and leaned the top forward until the curly hairs on Herb’s stomach curled even further and his pale flesh grew red and the basement stank. The flame was six inches away from meeting skin. Duncan looked up and met his eyes. His shoulders drooped the slightest bit, the first sign of failure. Mike knew the man was blaming himself, thinking that he’d failed his daughter yet again, first by letting her run away and die, now with this, unable to follow through in doing whatever it took to hunt down her killer. He grasped Duncan’s shoulder and pulled him back gently, grabbing the torch with his left hand. The big cop sank to his ass and buried his chin to his chest, sobbing silently.

Mike knelt in front of Herb and killed the torch. “Do you want to live?”

Herb studied his face. He nodded.

“What does your wife know?”

“My wife?”

“Yes. And your daughter?”

“Brandy doesn’t know anything.”

“She knows who attacked her, right?”

“She’s in a coma.”

“Not anymore.” It hurt to lie, see the hope there for a second, a father’s love sweep across Herb’s face like sunshine breaking through storm clouds. “We stopped up there before we went to your house, thought maybe you’d be by her side. But you weren’t.”

The mayor hung his head. “Why didn’t anyone call and tell me?”

“That’s how Officer Duncan is feeling, too. Only worse. He’s not going to get to hold his daughter again. In the forest was the last time, after he’d dug her up from where you guys buried her. Who did it?”

Herb shook his head. “I really don’t know. Pat, I believe. But I have no proof.”

“You found John out there, you don’t think he did it?”

“No. John’s a good kid, even if he is stupid.”

“He’s not stupid, just learning still what it takes to be a man.” Duncan’s leather soled shoes creaked. Mike didn’t look back. He wanted to keep the momentum going here. “Why did you cover for Pat?”

Herb choked on some hidden grief as it festered in his heart, worked its way through his blood toward his brain, his mouth. He cough-sobbed. “Can you untie me? Please. I’ll tell you, but I don’t want anyone else to know.”

Mike pulled a K-Bar from his boot and cut the rope. The mayor shook his purple hands, trying to get the blood flowing. “Tell us, Mr. Miller.”

“I…God.”

Mike waited. Duncan too, seeming to be in control of himself, listening.

“I’m kinky.”

Duncan stepped forward. “You like little girls?” Mike held up his hand. Duncan stopped. He had his pistol out.

Mike said, “Let him tell it.”

Duncan turned on his heels, his whole body rigid. He paced back and forth, waiting. Mike pointed at Herb. “Kinky how?”

“I used to, I don’t anymore, but I used to…”

Mike cleaned his nails with the K-Bar, guts turning, hoping Herb didn’t say what he thought he was about to say—all of it leading up to a few hours of cleaning brains off the walls. He looked back at Duncan. The cop stood stock still, Beretta at his side.

“I used to get hookers.”

Duncan let out an audible sigh. Mike could see there was more, swimming beneath the surface of Herb’s eyes, images, pleasure and pain wrapped around his heart, memories he may have suppressed but never eliminated. “And?”

“And Pat followed me all the way to Philadelphia, a few times he said. He had pictures.”

“Pictures of you and various hookers.”

“Midgets.”

“Midget hookers?”

Herb played with a loose button on his shirt. “Yes. I don’t know why that’s what did it for me back then.” He wiped his mouth. “It was ten years ago. Pat said I’d do what he said or my wife would know, my daughter, the whole town. My life would be sucked dry. I didn’t know what to do.”