Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children (3 page)

I kept walking, mind as numb and overburdened as my body, a thought tapping away like a leaky faucet. I thought of my sister Connie when she’d been that age. Thought of Mike’s sister too, and how families need closure.

Every step hurt.

I thought,
I’m not letting you guys bury those girls out here.

Chapter 2

I climbed out of the shower and wiped steam off the mirror. I knew what I had to do and didn’t like it. Pat, Herb and Rusty had let me down. Rusty mostly. The coroner had always been one of Dad’s best friends, back before he retired and moved to Arizona—sick of the church, his flock, and God’s hand in his life. Rusty had been over a lot when I was younger—Rusty and my father sitting in the den nipping whiskey and discussing whatever it was men who dealt with physical and spiritual death talked about.

Rusty always treated us good, the whole family. He wasn’t blood, but I had always thought of him as my “favorite non-related uncle.” Most of the boys in Division had ’em. Eight hundred people trapped by mountains, hot thick summers and cold pounding winters. Everyone was your family in the end. Everyone turned to ash. Despite the secrets and the random chaos, it seemed like everyone grieved for each other when the chips were down. Everyone scratched your back and expected you to do the same. But this here bullshit with the dead girls was different. I didn’t give a fuck about my family name or Mark’s reputation if it meant their ghosts would always haunt me, if it only added to the guilt I already carried. I took a long look in the mirror and hated how selfish I’d become. So many things happen in such small increments we barely notice them. Divorce and broken hearts. Jobs lost to overseas competitors. Bills that seemed at least slightly manageable so thick now that we can’t see daylight. And we pass the buck, we blame our problems on someone else.

I wiped my eyes, sick of
myself
.

I grabbed my pants from the closet and pulled them on. Looking in the mirror on the back of the bedroom door, I rubbed my fingers over the lump on the center of my forehead, winced, and let my fingers trail over the lines in my chest, the slanted scrawl, clean now. I pulled at the skin and the lines widened. Meat showed between the gaps. My stomach turned. I’d never liked the sight of anything gruesome, especially when it pertained to my body or that of someone I loved. After I released the damaged skin, I stared at the cuts for a moment. Looking down, it resembled chicken scratch in the sand. The mirror turned it into something more, showed it for what it was.

Repent.

My pulse sped, chest thick with unease. I looked out the bedroom windows and wondered if someone was out there now, watching me. If a naked red-head danced among the trees, at peace with herself, ready to give me the answers I needed to stay on course and do something right for once, things I doubted I could face on my own.

I shrugged into a polo shirt and grabbed my socks. I took a deep breath and finished getting ready for what lay ahead, at the time not knowing things were going to get so much worse.

* * *

Pat said over the phone, “You think that’s wise?”

“I’m fine.” I rubbed my chest and shifted my feet on the side porch of the doublewide. “I want to start today.”

“Doesn’t seem you’re in the shape to.”

“I’ve had worse experiences. We’ll need the money. Cat’s hours have been cut back at the hospital because of the budget.”

Pat laughed. “What about those romance novels you were writing? Got some writer’s block?”

“No.” I’d never had writer’s block. But the industry was in a rough place and everything seemed fragile. I realized that Cat’s insistence that I get a regular job wasn’t a lack of faith in me, but a safety net, and a good one. Her common sense was sharp, and something else I sometimes took for granted. I looked up the hill at All Saints and the Johnston Estate. A shiver broke loose and scuttled across my skin as I climbed in the Jeep. “Did you get those girls buried?”

“You care about that all the sudden?”

“Yeah.” I had to work at it to keep myself calm.

“You didn’t act like it out there by the Devil’s Garden.”

“None of it feels real. Ever since Mark died I’ve felt like I’m walking through fog.” The truth. I didn’t mean to say it, but there it was. “Now with this, it’s made it ten times worse. I just want to forget everything,” I lied. “And move on.”

“You can’t be walking through a fog with a gun on your hip and a badge on your chest.”

“The job will help me clear my head.”

“Catherine tell you that?”

“Listen, Pat. I understand what you guys were saying in the woods, about my family, the girls, all of it. I felt shook up, but I want you to know that I appreciate it, what you’re doing to look out for my family name.”

The line went silent for a moment. I started the Jeep. Pat’s voice came across softer than I’d ever heard it. “You feel up to it, come on up to the station. It’s not like your job is going to be hard, shit, mine isn’t either. Not much happens here.”

Other than last night.

I nodded and realized he couldn’t see it. “I’ll be up there in an hour or so.”

“Sounds good.”

I wanted to mention Wylie finding me out in the woods, but held my tongue. Wanted to mention the naked redhead too, and the man in the graveyard. All of it unsettled me.

“Thanks, Pat.”

“No trouble. See you in a while.”

I hung up and looked in the rearview mirror, ready to back out onto the road and do what I had to do even if it made me a traitor to everyone I’d ever known, but something flickered like light exploding from the core of an impossibly black shadow in the backseat.

Then it was gone just as fast and there was only the road I’d always known, since my parents first house stood there and my father yelled his sermon’s late at night, me just five years old and frightened to death by his volume and conviction, listening and shivering as he built himself up to wow and scare the congregation to repentance, proud of himself and unaware maybe that God didn’t view him the way he viewed himself.

I took a deep breath and sat there a moment before I slid the Jeep into gear with an unsteady hand.

* * *

Wylie’s old Ford pickup sat in front of the post office, black paint peeling. I parked next to it and looked down the street, at the place I’d grown up; a town surrounded by mountains and offering simple pleasures. At thirty, I didn’t feel like I’d accomplished much and I wondered if anyone else around here felt the same about their lives. I let my creative urges get the better of me, believing it set me apart, or made me weird because everyone else was happily miserable just working and watching TV. When you looked at everyday life too long it could make you want to put a gun in your mouth.

Wylie came out the door of the Post Office, stepped into the sun, hands shuffling through his mail, the muscles in his thick forearms flexing. No one had ever messed with me in school. Wylie was one reason. He’d been best friends with my brother. Slabs of muscle, accumulated over a lifetime of working in the woods, draped his medium frame, belying his gentle nature.

He met my eye and smiled. I got out of the Jeep. It bothered me, Herb Miller saying that Wylie found me in the woods. I just didn’t realize why until that moment when Wylie grinned and approached me.

He wouldn’t take off and leave me there bleeding.

We shook hands and I felt the quiet power in his grip.

“What happened to you?” he asked. Nodding, his gaze on the horn-like lump protruding from the center of my head.

I pointed at the goose egg and grinned back. “This? I’m practicing to be a unicorn. What do you think? Am I pulling it off?”

“Catherine do that to you?”

“No.” I laughed. “She’d never hit me.”

“You get in a fight?” Wylie clutched his mail in his left hand. His eyes were a soft brown, puppy dog eyes in a way. They didn’t fit his face or his body. It always looked like there was a hopeful boy trapped inside him. “I hope you didn’t let him get away with that.”

“I’m not a fighter.”

Wylie nodded. He pointed at my chest. “Is that what I think it is?”

“What?” I touched my throat. I felt the chain, pulled on it.

“Wasn’t Mark buried with that?”

I didn’t even remember stringing a chain through the skeleton key.

“It’s a copy.” I hated lying to him. I cracked my knuckles and looked across the street as Connie, walked out onto her porch, sat in the swing and sipped a cup of coffee. She waved and we waved back. Everything seemed as right as rain. So
normal
. It was sickening. My sister was growing up too fast, in her early twenties now, pretty as sunshine, living in the house the church had built our family when I was twelve years old. I slapped Wylie’s shoulder, wondering why him and my sister never hooked up. “How’s your love life?”

Wylie shrugged. “What love life? All I do is work, sunup to sundown.” His feet shifted, dragged a toe across the concrete as if drawing a line. He’d always done it when he lied. I wasn’t sure if he was even aware of it. “I’m not interested in anyone anyway.” His toe dragged another line.

It’s a shame we have to lie to each other.

“What about Connie?”

“What about her?”

“She’s always liked you. And she needs a good man.”

“No, she can do better than me.” Wylie repositioned the mail in his left hand and looked down the street, his eyes looking more like a sad puppy dog than ever. “I’m sorry about Mark. It’s a damn shame.”

“Thanks.”

“He was like my brother, too. Before he moved away. We were like you and Mikey used to be.”

“I know.” A bead of sweat slid down my spine. “Things happen. At least he lived a full life. He made our dad happy. More than I ever could.”

Wylie opened his mouth, shut it. He leaned against the hood of the Jeep and frowned. “How are things with Catherine?”

The weight on my shoulders lessened. I smiled and it hurt my face, the damaged skin stretching taut. “She’s my diamond. I don’t deserve her.” She’d picked me, walked into my life a year ago and made me want to be the best man I could be. I failed at that aspiration more times than not, but without her I wasn’t sure I’d even try. She was my muse. The reason I had any success at all. Usually one person is the glue that holds things together. All we can do is love them like they deserve. Appreciate their heart and honesty. I grinned at Wylie, feeling like we were both kids in Junior High again. “I bought her a ring.”

Wylie laughed, his eyes saying he wasn’t sure I was serious. “That’s great, man. Congratulations.”

“That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, too.”

“What’s that?”

“If you’d be my best man.”

Wylie looked at his feet and blushed. “Hell yeah. I’d be honored.”

I slapped his arm. “Are you sure you don’t want to ask Connie on a date? I’m thinking Cat will ask her to be the maid-of-honor and she’d treat you just as good as Cat does me.”

“I’m too busy to get involved with anyone.” He ran that toe underneath the front end of the Jeep. “I appreciate you trying to do that though. It means a lot.”

I wanted to tell him about the girls in the woods, the weird vibe I got from Herb and Pat and Rusty. Wanted to tell him,
I think my brother’s ghost is watching me
. But I couldn’t. I still wasn’t sure that any of it was really happening.

I tapped the hood with my knuckles, trying to sort it out, make the right choice. A quiet voice, one I hadn’t heard in a while, whispered,
No, you need to ask him, find out what he knows.

Wylie said, “What else is on your mind?”

“You don’t know about the girls, do you?”

“Is this headed into a joke?”

“No.” I rubbed my neck and watched his feet. “You didn’t hear this from me…”

“Okay.”

I opened my mouth and the words poured forth and it felt like I couldn’t control them. After I finished we stood there with the sun heating our skin, making the hood of the Jeep too hot to touch. Wylie rubbed the corners of his mouth. I said, “I don’t know what to do besides go to the state police.”

“You’ll do fine.” Wylie yawned. I studied his face, a bit annoyed, but saw the dark bags under his eyes, the way his tan had faded some. Wylie said, “Tell Catherine I said hello. Let me know what she says to your…”

It irritated me that he wasn’t listening. That he thought I was running a fucking story idea or something by him to see his reaction.

“You didn’t find me in the woods this morning, right?”

Wylie shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Pat said…”

Wylie pushed himself off the bumper. He slapped my shoulder and backed away. “I gotta get to work.” He frowned. I nodded and waved him off, knowing that he had some of his own shit going on, and he wasn’t taking me serious. Wylie hopped in his pickup and started it. A plume of black smoke jetted from the tailpipe.

I climbed in my Jeep.

I knew they were lying to me.

Something moved down the bank, twisted pale and white in the thick of the woods behind the Post Office. A flash of red hair and long legs. I sat there waiting for her to show herself, unsure if she existed or only represented something my heart yearned for. Maybe I wasn’t ready to settle down. Maybe it had to do with the worse crush I’d ever had.

I started the Jeep.

Go meet Pat. Then you better drop by Our Lady of Mercy and kiss your future wife, asshole.

I backed out onto the street and tapped the horn. Wylie honked back and Connie waved from her porch. The redhead stepped out into the open and waved as well, the trees standing in dark contrast behind her ivory body, her hair and eyes dancing like fire in the sunlight.

Chapter 3

Wylie threw his mail on the old Ford’s bench seat as John drove away. It took him a minute to wrap his head around what John had said. “Four girls were murdered.” He looked in the rearview mirror. His hand shook, so he sat there a minute, waiting for it to pass before he got on the road. Times like these he wanted a drink and at the same time was glad he’d quit. It took things from a man, brought more pain than pleasure when you were drowning in it.

Feet scraped concrete. Wylie looked up. Connie grinned at him, holding two cups of coffee. She handed him the one that said ‘Angel’ in chipped gold lettering through the open window. “Morning, mister.”

He smiled and checked the gauges to make sure his damn truck wasn’t overheating. He didn’t have the extra money for the new radiator, so he turned off the ignition. “Thanks. I could use some black mojo.”

A slight breeze kicked up, threw a stray paper down the street behind her, pushed her hair across her face. She wiped it away. “Working hard?”

Wylie sipped the coffee. Good stuff. He nodded. “If you call what I do working.”

Connie looked up the road. “I was hoping John would have stopped over. He’s in a hurry today I guess, ‘cause of the new job, huh?”

“I guess.” He took another sip, John’s offer worming its way through his mind. Part of him loved a woman who had an inclination to drink coffee on a hot morning. Wylie studied her a moment but all he saw was the mousy little girl he’d known when she was a kid. Looking at her reminded him of the past, when times were easier, things less complicated.

She pointed at his mail on the seat. “Anything good?”

He picked up an envelope and waved it. “Ed McMahon says I’m the next finalist.” He set the cup on his dashboard.

“I think Ed’s getting your hopes up just to dash them to pieces.”

Wylie grinned. He loved using junk mail to light the woodstove in his house. “Me, too. Ethan must be sleeping, huh?”

She looked across the street, back to Wylie, her hand toying with her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “Yep. He ate and I put him down about ten minutes ago. It’s all he does. Eat and sleep. And he cries when he doesn’t get either of them when he wants them.”

“Sounds like a man. He’ll be fine.”

“I’d say he got it from John, but you’re probably right. It’s probably all men.”

Wylie laughed. “Be nice to your brother. He loves you.”

“I am nice.” Connie rubbed her finger. “I always watched the kid while he was playing on the river and Catherine was at work.” She looked off at the woods behind the Post Office. “It’s not him I have a problem with.”

Wylie waited, understanding that women would talk about what was on their mind if you just gave them the room to open the door to their heart. He sipped his coffee and itched his back against the seat.

“What kind of woman latches on to a man when she’s pregnant and tries to brainwash him to accept some other guy’s kid as his own?”

Things aren’t that cut and dried, girl.

He thought about his own situation and wiped his lips. “He’s happy.”

“He’s stupid sometimes. Especially with women.”

Me, too. But a man has to follow his heart, come hell or high water.

“He’s always been like a little kid. He likes to live in his own world, we all do.” Wylie put his hand on the steering wheel. “Nothing you say is going to change that. Don’t sweat it. How are you doing? It’s nice to see you.”

“Are you trying to change the subject?”

“No.” He smiled.

Connie slapped his arm. “You’re sneaky.” She set her coffee on the hood and leaned against the door, the scent of her shampoo floating around the inside of the truck. “It’s different with Mark gone. Not that I was used to seeing either one of them every day. It’s just…”

“Yeah. I understand.”

She wiped a tear away. “I know you do. That’s why you’re one of the good guys.”

There was weight to her words, some sub-text that told him she meant more than just in general. She let out a long breath. “It doesn’t seem like Mark’s really gone, even though I saw them lower him in the casket.” Connie shifted all of her weight to her left leg. “It’s weird how the place John loves the most, The Loyal Sock, is also where Dad used to baptize people and then Mark died in it.”

He wanted to wipe the tears out of her eyes. It hurt to see her breaking like that. Wylie didn’t know what to say or how to go about it though. He had his own problems when it came to family and lacked any remedies.

Connie put her forearms on the door and sat her head on them. “Maybe I’m losing it.”

“You’re too young to lose it.”

She wiped her eyes and leaned back. He waited, seeing a flash of twisting emotions, one over top of the other move inside her.

Connie rubbed the back of her hand. “What are you doing this Saturday? There’s a singles dance at the church. And I thought that maybe if you weren’t doing…”

He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t single, but didn’t know how to go on explaining the rest of it. It left a man feeling like a child sometimes, afraid of the repercussions if adults knew what you were up to. Wylie shook it off, tucked it back in his head. He bit his lip and said, “I have to work on the house some. The leaves fill up the gutters pretty fast. Been really windy lately.”

“Yep.” Her shoulders fell, her chin as well. “That’s okay. I thought I’d ask. I have stuff I need to do anyway.” The look on her face saying,
Like maybe slit my wrist, thanks for breaking my heart again, thanks for giving me the chance to embarrass myself.

“I appreciate the offer.” He handed her the cup back. Her hand trembled as her fingers closed around it. “I have to get to work, Connie. Good talking to you though. It always is. Take care of yourself.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks for the coffee.” He wanted to say more, tell her that she need not worry, she’d find a nice guy who filled that hollow spot in her chest. But he knew there were no guarantees in life and you seldom got what you deserved. Lots of good people suffered and died lonely. He shook his head and put the Ford in reverse.

Connie backed away. She waved, said, “If you change your mind…”

“Don’t worry, I’d let you know.”

She looked fragile, like cracked glass.

Open the door and give her a hug and tell her you understand, you know what it’s like when you want to bleed for someone and your love comes back to you bruised and broken.

He gave her a half-assed smile instead, and waved as she bowed her head, the two empty cups chiming in her hand as they clicked together.

* * *

I parked in front of the police station off Main Street on the east end of town. A glimmer of the four dead girls’ faces pressed against the passenger window, all of them standing on the sidewalk, their whispers like a building wind. The car rumbled as they mumbled words my brain couldn’t decipher. I closed my eyes, thinking,
They’re not real
.
It’s just stress
. When I looked back out the window they faded to a pale gray and sat on the curb next to the passenger door, all of them crying loudly. Beyond them, a plump young blonde sat at a desk inside the building, chewing gum, her jaw working like she was yelling at someone.

I opened the door and got out, the tarmac hot beneath my shoes. The building was old, one story, and industrial gray. If the ghosts hung around too long they’d strip away the rest of my sanity. But I knew what they wanted.
Find out who they were. If Pat’s not here you can probably use his computer to search the internet for missing kids in Sullivan County.

The girl behind the front desk looked about nineteen, built like a marshmallow. Dark mascara around her eyes clashed with the pallor of her cheeks. She laughed. “Nice egg on your head. You must be John. Mr. Andrews said your pistol and badge are over there.”

She pointed to the back wall where a wooden rack sat full of four shotguns, and hanging from a corner peg, a black belt holding a dark revolver.

Stupid, this girl telling a stranger,
Hey, here’s a bunch of guns, go to town. I’m not gonna ask for identification, so what if you might be a mass murderer.

“Yeah. I’m John McDonnell. Though I could be anybody, right?”

She shrugged.

“You’re not a people person, are you?”

“People suck.” She looked at the laptop in front of her. I glanced at a desk in the corner by the weapon rack. No computer there. I didn’t see this kid letting me use hers to look up anything.

She tapped a black fingernail on the desk. “Do I have something in my teeth?”

I grinned, wondering where she planned to take this. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Something on my tits then?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re looking at my chest.”

“No, I was looking at your laptop.”

She nodded her head. “Yeah. That’s a new one. The bullets to your pistol are in Mr. Andrews’s drawer. You can leave anytime.”

“You’re a miserable kid, huh?”

“It’s not by choice. It’s the world around me.”

“That’s all we have in life, our choices. You can bullshit yourself and blame everyone else all you want. It doesn’t change the fact that you—”

“Are you done preaching, Grandpa?”

“I’m 30.”

“And?”

I laughed. “You need help.”

“You keep coming up with all these amazing insights.”

Part of me enjoyed her angst. It was kinda funny, and a distraction from everything else. I smiled, trying to let her know that she was alright in my book, but she only frowned. “Nice talking to you. What’s your name?”

“What? Are you going to tell Mr. Andrews that I was mean to you and try to get me fired?”

“Maybe. But I don’t need your name to do that.”

She closed her laptop. “Beth Ann.” She sighed, a look of disgust twisting her face like her parents had given her the name from hell. “The Caprice’s keys are on the desk over there. He wants you to drive it. Will you leave me alone, please?”

I wondered how often she said that last word and if she felt it destroyed her to be nice.

“Thanks, Beth. Life gets better.” I rapped my knuckles on the desk.

“Maybe for you.”

Drop it, get going. She’s not your problem.

I strapped on the pistol; the unaccustomed weight tugged at my right hip. I had the odd sensation that Beth Ann studied my back. Ignoring it—knowing whatever she thought about me didn’t matter, only what she thought about herself—I grabbed the keys from the desk and waved as I went out the door.

The Caprice was an old model, mid-90s, a layer of dust on it. Pat had driven it around since I had been a teen, until the sheriff had gotten the new Dodge Charger.

I kicked the tire. I’d rather be home writing or down by the river, letting my mind run over possible story ideas without me getting in the way. I didn’t know how I could get back to the life I’d once had, or if it was even possible. But Cat wanted me to work as deputy. And being on the inside would help me help the dead kids.

Hand on the door, I thought,
Repent. Bleed your sorrow across the cold, wet ground of God’s indifference.

I didn’t believe in ghosts. I didn’t believe my brother could hurt me when Death had pulled him into a darkness so vast he could never find his way back.

The dead girls cried in the back seat of the car.

I rubbed my sore eyes, touched the pistol at my hip.

When I opened the driver’s door, they disappeared.

I looked around, expecting them to be right behind me, the one with the door cut in her chest toying with it, open, shut, over and over until it shattered my mind. The onyx key between my fingers like a crucifix, I slid in behind the steering wheel with goose flesh cold on my arms and neck.

Across the street, in the alley between Jim White’s Vet Hospital and my uncle Red’s hardware store, a girl stood in the shadows, only visible from the neck down, her red dress stirred by the wind.

Who is this chick?

She took one step forward into the light. A mask resembling a giant raven covered her head. She pecked the wall with her beak and the darkness moved along behind her, farther up the alley. I sucked in a hot breath and caught a glimpse of Mark, smiling, hand outstretched as if he could reach past the woman and stroke my cheek from thirty yards away. He used to smile like that when he was proud of me. When I’d done something that impressed him. But I knew that this time it was fake, it was a trick, and I wondered if some of the other times, when we were younger were false praise too, if he took something from me while I beamed stupidly, thinking he truly cared that much for anything more than his own interests.

Something brushed my flesh, like the legs of a spider. I recoiled and wiped my face with my arm.

I started the car and threw it in drive. Pedal to the floor, I drove away watching the rearview mirror and the girls sitting quietly in the back seat, heads bowed as if in prayer.