The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 (11 page)

Kelly's body was moving as if disconnected from thought, but if he could retouch the connections he would begin to speak. He tried to say his name, pointed to himself, failed to speak the word. He shook his head, reached down for the boy. The boy flinched from Kelly's touch, but Kelly took him in his arms anyway, gathered him against his chest and lifted quick—and then the boy crying out in pain as Kelly jerked him against the metal cuffs shackling the boy's feet to the bed, hidden beneath the bunched blankets.

The sound of the boy's voice, naming his hurt into the black air: this was not the incomprehensible idea of a boy abducted but the presence of such a boy, real enough. And how had Kelly come to hold him, to smell the boy's sweat, then the sudden stink of his own, their thickening musk of fear? Because what if he had not left the South. If he had been able to find work instead of resorting to scrapping. If there had not been the fire in the plant so that afterward he worked alone. If he had not met the girl with the limp. If she had not been working today. If she hadn't had another attack the night before, keeping him from drinking so much he couldn't scrap. Providence or luck, it didn't matter. He told himself he believed only in the grimness of the world, the great loneliness of the vacuum without end to come. You could be good but what did it buy you. You could be good and it meant more precisely because it bought you nothing.

Kelly cursed, lowered the boy back onto the bed, felt the boy's heat linger on his chest like a stain. He touched the place where the boy had been, felt the thump of his heart pounding beneath the same skin, listened to their bodies huffing in the dark as he relit the narrow beam of the headlamp, its light scattering the boy's features into nonsense.

I have to go back upstairs,
Kelly said.
I'll be right back.

No,
the boy whispered, his voice swallowed by the muted room.
Please.

Kelly quickly removed his coat and wrapped it around the boy to cover the boy's nakedness, then moved toward the stairs as fast as he could, trying to outdistance the increasing volume of the boy's cries. But there was no way of freeing the boy without his saw, no way of getting the saw without leaving the boy. The basement door opened into the kitchen, and in every direction Kelly saw the destruction he'd brought, the walls gutted, the counters opened, the stove dragged free from the wall, waiting for the handcart. The day was ending fast, the light fading as Kelly moved across the dirty tile, looking for his backpack, the hacksaw inside.

Outside the opened window the wet whisper of snow fell, quieting the world beyond the house's walls, while inside the air was charged and waiting. When Kelly turned back to the basement he saw the door was closed, the boy and the boy's sound trapped again. It was a habit to close a door when he left a room, but this time it was a cruelty too. Back downstairs Kelly found the boy sitting with his bare knees curled into his naked chest, all of his body cloaked under Kelly's coat. Kelly raised the saw so the boy could see what it was, what Kelly intended.
I'm here to help you,
Kelly said, or thought he did, the boy was nodding, or Kelly thought the boy was, but after he switched the headlamp on again he couldn't see the whole boy anymore, only the boy in parts. The boy's terrified face. The boy's clammy chest. The boy's clenched hands and curled toes. He ran the beam along the boy's dirty bony legs, inspected the cuffs, the bruised skin below.

Kelly put a hand on the boy's ankle and they both recoiled at the surprise.
Hold still,
Kelly said. He lifted the chain in one hand and the saw in the other and as he cut he had to turn his face away from the boy's rising voice, speaking again its awesome need.

The boy was heavier than Kelly expected, a dead weight of dangling limbs. He asked the boy to hold on and the boy said nothing, did less. When Kelly looked down at the boy he saw the boy wasn't looking at anything. Out of the low room, up the stairs, into the dirty kitchen. All the noise the boy had made in the basement was gone, replaced by something more ragged, a threatened hissing. The front door was close to the truck but the back door was closer to where they stood, and more than anything else Kelly wanted out of the blue house, out into the fresh snow and the safety of the truck, its almost escape.

Other scenarios emerged. Other uses for the basement, what might happen to Kelly if they were caught there. What might happen to the boy for trying to escape. Outside, the wind was louder than Kelly had expected and the thick wet snow would bury his newest footprints but there wouldn't be any hiding what he'd done. Kelly carried the boy around the house to the truck, adjusted the boy's weight across his shoulder so he could dig in his pocket for the keys. The boy was shoeless and Kelly couldn't put him down. The boy was limp and shoeless in his arms, but Kelly thought if he put the boy down the boy might run.

Kelly lowered the boy into the passenger seat, then stripped off his own flannel shirt. His arms were bare to the falling snow, but he wasn't cold as he helped the boy stick his arms into the shirt, its fabric long enough to cover most of the boy's nakedness. He bundled the boy back into the coat too, but the truck was freezing and the boy's legs were bare and Kelly wasn't sure the boy's shivering would stop no matter how warm he made the cab.

Kelly walked around to the driver's side, opened the door. Without climbing inside he reached under the steering wheel, put the key in the ignition, started the engine. He punched the rear defrost, cranked the heat, hesitated.

I have to go,
he said.
I have to go back into the house, but I will be back for you.

The boy didn't speak, didn't look in his direction. It wasn't permission. He didn't know if the boy understood. This was shock, trauma. The boy needed to go to a hospital, he needed Kelly to call the police, an ambulance. He needed Kelly to act, to keep rescuing him a little longer.

However many minutes it took—moving back into the kitchen to gather his tools into his backpack, then down into the basement for the hacksaw he'd left behind—each minute was its own crime. In the basement Kelly knew the bed was unoccupied, but when he entered the low room there appeared a vision of the boy still chained to the bed, an afterimage burning before him. He knew he'd saved the boy, but when he made it back to the truck the doors were locked, the boy gone. A new panic fluttered in Kelly's chest—but then he looked again, saw the boy hidden in the dark of the snow-covered cab, crouched down in the space near the floorboards beneath the passenger seat—a space, Kelly remembered, as a kid he had called the pit.

The boy wouldn't come out of the pit, wouldn't unlock the doors or turn his terrified face toward Kelly. Kelly waited until he was sure the boy was looking away, then pulled his undershirt sleeve over his bare elbow and shattered the truck's driver-side window. Before he drove the boy to the hospital he had to clear the safety glass from the boy's seat, from the thick scrub of the boy's hair.

When Kelly pulled into the hospital parking lot he maneuvered the truck under the emergency sign, the snow turned heavier than at the blue house, then stepped outside into the unplowed parking lot. He walked around the truck, opened the passenger door, lifted the boy's limpness into his arms, said his own name to the boy for the first time. The snow fell on Kelly's face and on the boy's face, and neither said anything else as Kelly carried the boy across the parking lot. The boy didn't look at Kelly, and Kelly thought he had to stop looking at the boy, had to watch where he was going instead of taking in every feature, every eyelash and pimple and steaming exhale, had to concentrate on making his body move.
A few more steps,
he said to the boy. A few more steps and they would be inside, passing through the bright and sterile and inextinguishable light of the hospital, toward the company of others, where they would be safer than they were now, alone.

BRUCE ROBERT COFFIN

FROM
Red Dawn

B
ILLY
F
IRKIN KNELT
quietly in the dark, steadying himself with his hands, as the container rocked from side to side. The claustrophobic feeling was bad but the odor was far worse. His feet slipped on the barrel's slick bottom.
Three more miles to freedom.

Billy had professed his innocence from the start, lying to his attorney, denying any involvement in the murder of his unfaithful girlfriend Tina and her new beau, even after the cops found his bloody shoes in the trash. Lying had always been second nature, and he was extremely convincing. As a young boy, he'd displayed an innate ability to manipulate others. His mother had cautioned friends, “That boy has the face of an angel. Just remember to check his pockets before you go.”

His string of successful cons ended abruptly the day a Portland jury, comprised of his so-called peers, spent less than two hours deliberating his fate. “Guilty,” they'd said.

During his sentencing, Justice Stratham rebuked him. “Anyone capable of inflicting as much pain and suffering as you did on that poor couple deserves to die. You, sir, are an abomination to mankind. Were it within my purview, I'd sentence you to death.”

Billy caught a lucky break by committing his crime in a state devoid of capital punishment. Stratham sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole. He was shackled and carted off to the Maine State Prison in Thomaston, eleven months ago, in the summer of '61.

On the eve of his planned escape, he'd barely slept a wink. The excitement and promise of the coming day were nearly intolerable. All he could think about was rising early and dressing for breakfast, but he'd forced himself to wait, having learned the value of patience.

“A successful scam artist has to have patience,” his father once told him. “Takes time to gain a person's confidence, son. You gotta earn their trust, slowly. But once you get it, you can do anything, anything at all.”

Everything had to appear status quo. The last thing he needed was for his cellmate to start asking questions or, worse still, some nosy bull like Jeeter smelling a rat. Bull was convict-speak for prison guard.

The seeds of his plan had been sown during his first month inside. One afternoon he'd been out in the recreation yard smoking a cigarette when he saw his cousin—second cousin, actually, and only by marriage—driving a flatbed truck through the prison gates. Cousin Frank was employed by Milo Trucking, a company the State of Maine contracted to remove prison refuse.

Armed bulls, carrying rifles, removed Frank from the truck while they searched the cab, the payload, and the undercarriage using mirrors. After they had finished, Frank drove around to the rear of the chow hall. Billy noted that the back of the Dodge was loaded with both red and white fifty-five-gallon drums, the same white drums that the kitchen detail used to depose of the waste grease from the fryolators. Discreetly, he continued to monitor the event until finally the truck reappeared. When Frank reached the main gate, the bulls repeated their search. They searched everything, everything except the barrels. It was on that very afternoon that he began to plan his escape.

The first step was getting assigned to the kitchen detail, but it hadn't been easy. Prison trustees were required to stay out of trouble for their first six months, no fights, no bad disciplinary reports, and no contraband. Several times he'd turned the other cheek, when what he really wanted was to drive a homemade shiv through the guts of another convict. Six excruciatingly long months of “yes boss, no boss, thank you boss,” until finally his request had been approved. He'd spent the remaining months meticulously planning each and every aspect, even conducting research by reading books from the prison library.

The cost of putting his plan into action had only been six cartons of cigarettes for Mel, the head of the kitchen detail, and a promise of four thousand dollars to Cousin Frank. Billy didn't actually have four thousand dollars “hidden away from a scam,” but Frank didn't know that and had readily agreed to help.

Like all of his best schemes, this one was simple. With Mel's help, Billy planned to seal himself inside one of the waste containers. The barrel in question would only contain a small quantity of grease, allowing plenty of room for him and making the overall weight seem about right, should anyone become suspicious.

The truck lurched over a pothole, slamming Billy's head against the inside of the barrel.
Dammit all to hell, Frank. Take it easy, would ya.
The pavement smoothed. He resumed his shallow breathing.

He'd waited until the other inmates began to rise and prepare for their morning duties before sliding out of his own bunk. Silently he dressed in his prison gray shirt, blue cargo pants, and black shoes. He shaved, brushed his hair and teeth, everything as normal. He stood waiting by the cell door as the bull appeared.

“Morning, Firkin,” Barrett had said.

As bulls went, Barrett was a good one. He'd been professional and pleasant since the day Billy first arrived. The same could not be said of all the bulls.

Barrett's boss Jeeter, a horse's ass of the highest order, was small in stature but big on bullying. Being a bully was Jeeter's favorite pastime, frequently caving in some convict's skull with the hardwood club he carried. He'd even named the club, carving
MABEL
into the side of it. Billy didn't know if “little man's syndrome” was a real malady or not, but if so, old Jeeter the Bull was in the advanced stages. Rumor had it that he was also king of the swirlies, the name given to Jeeter's practice of taking a con's toothbrush and swirling it around inside the toilet bowl before replacing it undetected. As far as Billy was concerned, having Barrett on duty today rather than Jeeter only meant that the god of good fortune was smiling down upon him once more.