Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children (27 page)

“The smoky glass blade.”

“What is it for?”

“It’s got a long history. I don’t know why my dad had it. When I die, it’ll be one of the first questions I ask him.”

“And we’ve got to protect them now, don’t we?” The sun hurt my eyes. I hung my head, muscles in my neck stiff.

“I don’t think they’re coming back from wherever you sent them.”

“I need to ask Red.”

“When you heal up. I’ll go with you.”

“Good. And thanks.”

Mike clapped his hand over my forearm and squeezed.

“Life is pretty good after the bad goes away.”

Mike spat to his right. “Even the bad teaches us things about ourselves.”

“And each other. I remember her trying to get you to kill me.”

“We’ll get it all straightened out when you’re better. You gotta learn to take it easy and stop gnawing on a bone that’s buried.”

I smiled. It felt good.

A car sped into the lot, coming to a stop with a squeal of brakes. I started to turn in the chair, fingers digging into the warm plastic arm rests, but pain shot through my side and turned the ground black. I looked back to the river as a car door slammed. I heard a man huffing cold air, the creak of a leather belt as Duncan plopped down between where me and Mike sat. The old cop wore street clothes—dark jeans, a tan polo shirt, matching tan jacket, and a brown baseball cap. Duncan cradled a six-pack of Arrogant Bastard Ale and pulled two free, handed one to Mike who nodded and popped the top off on the edge of his chair then handed it across to me. Mike took the second beer and opened it, inhaled a long swig. Duncan cracked his knuckles and said, “These seemed fitting. I’m glad you two are alive. I’d ask how it went but I really don’t want to know.”

I stared at the water, at a black bird with dabs of red mid-wing jumping branch to branch in the bramble across the river. “I couldn’t tell you anyway.” I leaned my head back and let sunshine wash over my face. “I think the drugs are wearing off.”

Mike shook a bottle of pills. “You ready for a dose?”

I shook my head, letting my mind wash clean in the pain, my scar tissue itching. “I’m okay. I can handle it for now.”

Duncan popped a beer open and draped his thick fingers over each other, between his legs. “I’m sorry about the girl you loved, John. I knew she was cracking up when you were up there, she was talking to herself a lot, getting manic. She took some sleeping pills to relax.” I listened, scratching my scalp. “You still planning to be deputy? Or you going to try to fill Pat’s shoes and be sheriff?”

“I don’t want to do either. I’m unsure right now. I just want to heal up, I guess.”

“I have a friend that works at Child Protective Services. I could give her a call. You’d make a good agent. You have the right heart.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Do that.” Duncan ran a hand down his pant leg and fixed the cuff over his hiking boot. “You missed the big funeral, all week long. They buried Andrews, White, Wallace, Andrew’s wife, Michael’s mom.”

Mike cleared his throat. “I let everyone know what she’d done to Natalie. No one showed. It made my day.” He shifted his feet and opened a new pack of cigarettes, stuffed the wrapper in his coat pocket. “I expected to find my dad buried with Nat, but he wasn’t. He could be somewhere else on the property though. Or maybe he just couldn’t handle the guilt and ran away.”

I didn’t know what to say, didn’t have any idea what he was talking about at all, so I said nothing. I let my chin touch my chest. The wind whipped at my hair and crawled over my skin, I wished it could wipe the past away, take everyone’s heartache with it, but I knew now that our scars were important. Looking over at Duncan, I said, “How have you been, sir? Is Angie in the ground? At rest?”

“Doug,” Duncan said. “My friends call me Doug. And yeah, she’s with Jesus or something. Her mom is taking it better than I thought she would. She hasn’t shot herself in the face.”

Mike said, “What about you?”

Doug frowned. “I’m okay. Nothing I can do about it.” He took a swig and wiped his lips with the back of his hand, then leaned to the side and pulled a folded paper from his back pocket. He opened the paper and passed it to Mike. The beer felt cold and heavy against my thigh as Mike looked over the paper and said, “He didn’t know what the hell he was doing with Cat. Jim expected her to be at work, thought he’d go right in your house and steal the bag of clothes, take the evidence out in the woods and burn it. Says he liked her. Liked the kid especially. He was a fucked up dude.”

I coughed and put a hand over my heart, felt mucus slip from the tip of my nose. “I figured as much. What about your daughter, Dun—Doug?”

The big cop shook his head and pushed his baseball cap farther back, wiped a hand over his forehead. “Pat used to rape girls over in ‘Nam. He made Jim, who’d been a medic, help him, hold them down. One day Jim snapped over there, started killing them off, hoping that he could end their suffering, make Pat worry he’d get caught. But Pat wasn’t worried, I guess. He started doing it here, God knows why. Angie and her friends were camping. After he did what he did, Pat left it at that, left them with the fucking shame and Jim did the only thing he knew to do, and this time he left a message. The story in his journal was graphic and sickening, I’d thought I’d lose my lunch. I still might.”

I saw the word on the forest floor—
Repent
—among the rocks in the river. I squeezed my eyes shut until it faded, wishing I could wrap an arm over Duncan’s shoulder but unable to reach him and lacking the strength to stand. “I’m sorry.”

Doug said, “It’s a fucked up world.”

Mike said, “It is.”

I opened my mouth, closed it. I saw Red pulling his gloves off, only trying to help, and only making things worse. I set the beer between my legs, grateful for it, but not sure I’d be able to finish it. “It’s a fucked up world, but there’s still good, still miracles. Have you heard anything about Herb?”

Doug nodded, took another sip. “He tried to frame Pat after he killed Rusty Wallace, left one of the sheriff’s cigars in the wastebasket beneath the sink, but the mayor was a fool and took the hammer home, put it in a box of Christmas lights in his garage. He’s sitting, waiting for his pretrial right now. Doesn’t look good for him.”

“What about Brandy, his daughter?”

The cop rubbed his forearms as if to warm them. “Nice kid. I talked to her a couple days ago. She asked if you got the flowers she sent to your room.”

Mike smiled at me.

I nodded. “I did.”

“Good.”

Yeah
, I thought.
But how messed up is her world right now. What did she do to deserve the upheaval?
Life throws us curve balls; it’s how we handle the decisions, the pressure, that forms us into someone we respect or hate.

Doug tapped my knee with his left hand. “She’ll be fine. Stop in and see her when you feel up to it. It’d make her day.”

“I will.”

Mike said, “It’s nice out here, with friends.”

Duncan wiped a tear out of his eye. “It’s beautiful.”

I agreed and took another swig of beer. The river wound through the countryside, the barren trees, water, a course timeless, unstoppable. I had many good memories there, and an awful one, but I thought that one stain, one trauma, no matter how severe, couldn’t cover the joys unless we allowed it.