The Angel of Death (22 page)
Read The Angel of Death Online
Authors: Alane Ferguson
This paper is technically masterful, and I feel it shows, as always, your intense ability. On that merit alone I have marked you an A.
Cameryn smiled, because Kyle was a straight-A student in all his classes. It made her proud to see his talent acknowledged by a teacher.
There is, however, a troubling disconnect between intellect and emotion in your work. You have structure, yes, but your protagonist is strangely cold throughout the prose. In fact, all of your characters are without emotion altogether. This is a story about death. Your writing would be much deeper if you allowed yourself to plumb the depths. Draw from your life, Kyle. You have your own tragic life story concerning the death of your mother. Use that pain. Writing can be cathartic, and I encourage you to release the emotion inside on the safety of the printed page.
Cameryn’s eyes widened. As she read the sentence through again and again, her heart began to pound in her ears.
The death of your mother!
Hadn’t Kyle told her his mother had left, just a few years before? And yet Mr. Oakes was clearly addressing a death. It made no sense. Why would Kyle lie? Especially to her?
The death of your mother!
Hadn’t Kyle told her his mother had left, just a few years before? And yet Mr. Oakes was clearly addressing a death. It made no sense. Why would Kyle lie? Especially to her?
Puzzled, she picked up another paper, and another, carefully rifling through them for more written comments, but all she found were bills and letters addressed to Donald O’Neil. There were no other papers of Kyle’s. She chewed her fingernail and read the comments again. There it was, in black and white:
the death of your mother.
Still there. It had not moved. It became clear to her that Mr. Oakes had been mistaken. That was it—he’d tried to help Kyle and he’d gotten it wrong. It was an odd mistake, but mistakes happened. Or Kyle might have described his mother’s leaving as a death in and of itself. She nodded to herself. Yes, that could have been it. Having a mother disappear was
like
a death, as she knew only too well.
the death of your mother.
Still there. It had not moved. It became clear to her that Mr. Oakes had been mistaken. That was it—he’d tried to help Kyle and he’d gotten it wrong. It was an odd mistake, but mistakes happened. Or Kyle might have described his mother’s leaving as a death in and of itself. She nodded to herself. Yes, that could have been it. Having a mother disappear was
like
a death, as she knew only too well.
She shouldn’t be snooping through the O’Neils’ papers anyway. It was wrong. It got her thinking sideways, misinterpreting things. Blotting up the last of the water, Cameryn pulled down the rolltop and replaced the damp towel. Hannah was coming and she needed to prepare herself, to focus on that one all-consuming fact.
But it drummed in her mind:
Kyle lied to me.
Kyle lied to me.
If his mother really was dead, there must be a reason he hadn’t shared the story with her. She went to the couch, sat down, and crossed her legs. Maybe it had to do with his father, Donny. Maybe Donny had forbidden Kyle to tell the truth to anyone.
Her knee jiggled. Placing her hand on her knee to quiet it, she sat for as long as she could, then stood, realizing she would have to move or she would burst. It was dark outside—what if her mother missed the turnoff to this place? What then? Pacing, she went to the television, to the wall studded with heads, then wandered back to the picture. For some reason it drew her. There was something compelling in that picture, but whatever it was skittered along the edge of her consciousness. She stared at it again, searching it for . . . what?
Leaning so close her forehead almost touched the frame, she studied the photograph. Inside the truck cab were what she guessed to be wrappers and some empty cans. Her eyes focused on Donny’s face, then back to the cab’s interior. At the face, at the hat, then the dog. The face, then the dog. Intense, she studied not the man, but the animal. It was a German shepherd. A German shepherd with a double notch in its ear. It was hard to see in the grainy photograph, but there it was, two slices that almost came to a point, like the letter
V
. Only a week before she’d seen another German shepherd with a notched ear, and with a start she realized that that dog’s carcass from the side of the road had had the identical tan-and-black markings of the dog in the photograph. There was no doubt:
The dog in the picture and the dog left at the side of the road were one and the same! Donny had told his son the dog was eating steak, but this was the animal she’d seen dead on the road, which meant— Donny O’Neil was a liar!
V
. Only a week before she’d seen another German shepherd with a notched ear, and with a start she realized that that dog’s carcass from the side of the road had had the identical tan-and-black markings of the dog in the photograph. There was no doubt:
The dog in the picture and the dog left at the side of the road were one and the same! Donny had told his son the dog was eating steak, but this was the animal she’d seen dead on the road, which meant— Donny O’Neil was a liar!
As her mind captured this fact, a chill crept down her skin, snaked inside her to pool in the pit of her stomach.
Brad Oakes. The dog. A man who lied to his son. A man who didn’t like Mr. Oakes. Scorched tissue
. In her mind’s eye she saw the same grayed flesh, the pewter-colored muscles, the same empty eye sockets. Her father had blamed the dog’s missing eyes on scavenging animals, but what if he’d been wrong? What if there was another reason for the dog’s bizarre condition? And what if it had something to do with Kyle’s own father?
Brad Oakes. The dog. A man who lied to his son. A man who didn’t like Mr. Oakes. Scorched tissue
. In her mind’s eye she saw the same grayed flesh, the pewter-colored muscles, the same empty eye sockets. Her father had blamed the dog’s missing eyes on scavenging animals, but what if he’d been wrong? What if there was another reason for the dog’s bizarre condition? And what if it had something to do with Kyle’s own father?
Hardly daring to even consider it, she imagined the possibility. If there was a link, there had to be a mechanism to bring it about—that explosion of the eyes and the cooking of the flesh without burns had to come from a real machine. If that was true, then a mechanism like that might still be here, in the O’Neil home.
No!
She shook her head, hard. She was thinking crazy and she had to stop. But what if . . . ?
She shook her head, hard. She was thinking crazy and she had to stop. But what if . . . ?
Cameryn looked at the picture and thought of calling Justin, but reconsidered when she realized what might happen if she did. Donny getting grilled by Sheriff Jacobs and Justin. Kyle’s father would easily figure out the tip came from her. Maybe he’d tell Kyle he could never speak to her again! No, it was too risky. She couldn’t gamble on evidence as tenuous as a spider’s thread. There was only one way to answer her questions, and that was to find the answers herself. She’d look through this house to see if anything tied Donny back to Brad Oakes. Most important, she’d have to look for some kind of instrument that could destroy tissue. And she’d have to hurry.
Doing a swift mental calculation, she figured Kyle would be gone for maybe half an hour more, but her mother might arrive sooner. There wasn’t much time.
Moving quickly, Cameryn began at the desk. Opening it once more, she hastily went through all the papers, not only the ones on the desktop but those inside the drawers, trying to disturb them as little as possible. Nothing. Next, she went to the kitchen, opening the cupboards, which were almost bare, aware that anything could be hidden anywhere and the safest thing to do was methodically check it all, inch by inch, room by room. The refrigerator, as Kyle had mentioned, was empty, save for the pizza box and a dozen eggs. She opened cabinets, checked beneath the sink, then returned to the living room and the hall closet. Inside were two coats and some heavy boots, a hat, and a box on a shelf. When she pulled down the box, it contained only gloves and some knit caps.
Faster now, she went up the stairs to Kyle’s room. It was sparsely furnished, with a bed made smooth and tucked with hospital corners and a plain wooden desk with a Dell computer. Scouting manuals, schoolbooks, binders, wood carvings, a football trophy—things any normal kid would have. Relieved, she realized there was nothing.
Adrenaline surging, she went to the second room, Kyle’s father’s. A long, heavy flashlight, the kind that policemen carried, lay on the nightstand. A reading lamp had been left on, and there was a circle of light beneath it, like a halo. More careful now, she pulled open the drawer. Inside was a manila envelope, sent from the California Department of Health and Human Services. With trembling fingers, she opened it. Inside was a white sheet of paper, bordered in blue. The California state seal had been stamped in the bottom right-hand corner, and before she read it she knew what it was. A death certificate. A death certificate with the name Sherrie O’Neil. Cause of death: gunshot wound to the head. Manner of death: suicide.
Stunned, she put the death certificate back into the drawer, her mind reeling. No wonder Kyle had lied to her. Nothing could be worse than death by suicide. Hannah had left Cameryn, that was true, but death—that was a permanent separation. What kind of secrets had been buried in this home? Could Donny O’Neil have killed his wife and covered it up? Could he have been killing all along?
She saw a photograph of Donny and Sherrie on the nightstand, their hands entwined. As she lifted the picture frame, guilt once again washed through her. What was she thinking? It must be the pressure of Hannah’s arrival that was making Cameryn’s thoughts so tangled. Her irrationality had allowed her to rifle through her boyfriend’s house, and she was suddenly ashamed—the O’Neil family had gone through enough tragedy without her weaving theories out of wisps of fact. Cameryn knew she needed to pull her thoughts together, to focus on Hannah.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the picture before setting it down. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I must be losing my mind.”
Donny stared back, silent, accusing. She was about to return to the couch and wait patiently for her mother when she looked again at the flashlight. Almost against her will, her mind began whirring once again. . . .
Just stay away from the chickens in that back coop.
Those were his dad’s orders, Kyle said. It was odd, really.
Those were his dad’s orders, Kyle said. It was odd, really.
Why would Donny demand that? Biting her lip, she picked up the flashlight. Crazy, irrational, the accusations against herself pelted her mind, but one overriding thought was loudest of all. She knew if she didn’t check that chicken coop, if she didn’t answer this last question, she’d always wonder.
The flashlight was heavy, at least five pounds, but the shaft of light it made was twice as bright as any she had used before. Like a lighthouse beam, it cut through the darkness as she made her way to the one place he’d told her not to go.
Circling past a pen with two goats, she crossed to the wooden structure. Large for a coop, it looked more like an outbuilding, with the same green metal roof as the house. It had a fence around it, and feathers scattered against a crust of snow. She saw the stump of a felled tree, and on the stump, in a pool of dark blood, was an ax, its blade still embedded in the trunk. White feathers had made a mound at the base of the stump, blown by the wind like a miniature snowdrift. The gate squeaked as she opened it, and for a moment she thought the sound of it might scare the birds.
Then she realized a strange thing. There was no sound. Just the wind sighing overhead, whispering softly through the pine, lifting her hair and wrapping dark strands across her face. She pulled them away impatiently and put her hand on the metal knob. Pushing it open, she stepped inside.
It was dark, but with the flashlight she located a light switch and turned it on.
Planks had been nailed across one wall, dividing it like the score sheet of a tic-tac-toe board, but the coops were empty. Again, it didn’t make sense. The dirt floors had been churned, and at the end of the building was a dog kennel and a workbench crammed with tools, tin cans, kerosene, saw blades. There was a smell in here that was hard to identify, making Cameryn raise her hand to her nose as she moved toward the workbench.
Since it was darker there, she kept the flashlight on. The beam danced across a myriad of tools, sharp and bright.
She saw a glass tube, a foot high. Next to that, a miniature rosebush whose petals had turned to dust. And the last items, set carefully along the workbench like curled fingers. They were ribs. Ribs that had been cleaned and dried and set carefully in place.
The ribs of a human.
Chapter Sixteen
HARDLY DARING TO breathe, Cameryn picked up the bones and held them high, examining them closely. They were curved and smooth to the touch, like ivory. At first she’d thought they were human, but on closer examination, she wasn’t so sure. Pulling out her phone from her back pocket, she hit speed dial. A moment later, Dr. Moore’s gruff voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Dr. Moore. It’s me, Cameryn Mahoney.”
“Are you aware what time it is?” he asked tartly. “It’s long past business hours.”
“Yes, I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “But this may be important.”
“Your voice is shaking, Miss Mahoney. All you all right?”
“I don’t know. I found some bones and I—I don’t know what to think. I want to know if they’re human. I’d like to send a picture over my phone to your computer. Could you please tell me what I’m looking at?”
There was a pause. “What kind of bones?”
“Ribs. They’re just lying here, on a countertop, and I can’t tell what kind they are.”
“If you think they might be human, then I suggest you call the police.”
“No!” she cried. And then, softer, “I can’t do that. I don’t want to start anything, not until I know.”
Dr. Moore exhaled noisily. “Miss Mahoney, I’m going to have dinner with my wife. I’m already running late—”
“
Please,
Dr. Moore! Just a quick look,” she begged. “I can send the picture right now. Please! ”
Please,
Dr. Moore! Just a quick look,” she begged. “I can send the picture right now. Please! ”
She heard what sounded like the squeak of a chair. Then a deep sigh. “All right, send it now and I’ll take a very quick look to appease you, and then we’re done. You should be aware that I’ve got a life outside this office.”
“Thank you, Dr. Moore!”
He gave his e-mail address, and Cameryn, with trembling hands, set down the bones and turned her phone to snap a picture. As soon as she sent it she asked, “Did you get it, Dr. Moore?”
“Not yet,” he said. “For Pete’s sake, give it a moment. Young people are so impatient and they think everything’s accomplished in an instant—oh, here it is. Now let me see. . . .”
As she waited for the answer, Cameryn felt her pulse thudding in her ears like a metronome set on high. Finally she blurted, “Can you tell anything?”
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