The Last Child (18 page)

A raw and sudden fear flared in the man’s eyes. Tension put new creases in the hollowed-out cheeks. “It’s okay,” Hunt told him. “No problems.” He took out another bill and the old man’s head bobbed as he cackled, a rasp of noise that ended in a hacking cough. Something brown hit one of the gleaming rails. Hunt had to look away, and when he did he saw the bottles scattered down the bank. Cheap wines, forty-ounce beers, a few pint bottles of inexpensive bourbon. “Did you see what happened here?” Hunt asked, pointing at the house.

The man looked vacant, then lost and afraid. He turned away and Hunt caught him by the reed of his arm. He kept his voice soft. “Sir. You motioned to me. Remember?”

The old man shifted in place, fingers curled and yellow at the tips. “Sh…? sh…? she liked to walk around naked.” He gestured to the bathroom window. “She was laughing at me.” One eye twitched. “F… fucking bitch.”

Hunt spoke with care. “Are you referring to Ronda Jeffries?”

The man’s chin made a violent twitch, but he didn’t seem to understand the question.

“Are you alright?” Hunt asked.

Both arms rose. “Ain’t I king of the world?” He made as if to walk off, and Hunt put two fingers on the hard bone of his shoulder.

“Sir, can you tell me what happened here?”

The man’s left eye closed. “I just saw the shovel,” he said, and stood on one foot to scratch his calf with the front edge of his shoe. “He got that shovel.” He pointed. “Got it right out of that shed.”

“Do you mean Levi Freemantle? Black male. Three hundred pounds.” Hunt looked at the shed. When he looked back, the man’s face had gone slack again. “Sir, you were saying?”

“What do you want?” He waved a hand as if chasing flies from his face. “I don’t know you.” He turned and shambled off down the tracks, looked back once, then swatted at more imaginary flies.

Hunt sighed. “Cross,” he called, and waved him up the slope.

“Yes, sir?” Cross appeared on the tracks.

“Go get him,” Hunt said. “He may have seen something. Maybe not. See what you can get, but go easy. When you finish, call Social Services and the veteran’s hospital. Get them out here to help this guy.”

“Veteran’s hospital?”

Hunt gestured at the back of his right hand. “He has a tattoo. USN. The guy’s a sailor. Show him some respect.”

“Yes, sir.”

When Hunt made it back to the front porch, Yoakum stuck his head out again. “I think you ought to see this,” he said.

“What?”

“You remember the empty room on the southwest corner?”

“The bedroom?” Hunt asked, picturing it in his head. It was a small bedroom, stripped bare. A yellow shade in the window. Tape marks on the wall. It was remarkable only in its emptiness. “What about it?”

Yoakum’s voice dropped. “You just need to see it.”

Hunt followed Yoakum through the house. He pushed past technicians collecting prints, a photographer in a police jacket. Two uniformed cops made room for him as he approached the room. “It’s in the closet.” Yoakum opened the closet door and flicked the switch. Light spilled out, filling the closet, making its white walls seem brighter than they were. The picture, drawn with crayons on the back wall, was seven feet tall, childish and distorted. The man was outlined in black, had red lips, wide purple pants, and tremendous, stick-finger hands. The brown eyes were perfectly round, as if traced around the bottom of a mason jar. A series of lines rippled across the right side of his face, but looked sinuous and nonthreatening. He clutched a little girl to his chest and waved one hand, as if at a friend in the distance. The girl had oval eyes and a ribbon in her hair, a speck of pink almost lost against his wide chest. She had one hand up and wore a yellow skirt. Her smile was a violent gash of red.

“What the hell?”

“Exactly,” Yoakum replied. “That is exactly what I said.”

Hunt scanned the rest of the room. “No other drawings?”

“None.”

“Somebody has to know something.”

“We’ve canvassed the neighborhood, but they won’t talk to cops. Not on this street.”

“Is there any sign that a girl was held in this house?”

“The room’s been cleaned,” Yoakum offered. “That’s odd in itself. The rest of the place is disgusting.”

Hunt played his eyes over the bare walls, noted the spots where tape had been ripped off. The marks were angled, as if to hold sheets of paper by the corners. Hunt started in one corner and moved slowly along each wall. He studied the stained Sheetrock, the floor. He found crayon marks on the walls. There was not another picture, no kind of design. He found random squiggles and short, hard lines, like someone had drawn off the paper’s edge. He looked behind the yellow shade, then stooped for something in the far corner. He picked it up by the edges, and Yoakum came over to examine it. “Is that a button?” he asked.

Hunt tilted it, squinted. “It came off a stuffed animal.”

“What?”

Hunt looked closer. “I think it’s an eye.” He held out a hand. “Give me a bag.” Yoakum passed over a plastic bag. Hunt placed the plastic eye in the bag and sealed it. “I want this room dusted.” Hunt stood.

“Where are you going?” Yoakum asked.

“I’m tired of this shit.”

Hunt stormed out of the house and onto the porch. People still stood in tight knots, captivated by the sight of cops who presented no actual threat. Looking at them, at their complacence and their disregard, Hunt felt his anger boil into rage. Pitching his voice to carry, Hunt said, “I want to talk to someone who knows what has been going on in this house.” People froze. Blankness dropped into every single face. He’d seen it a million times. “People are dead. A girl is missing. Can anyone tell me what has been going on in this house?”

Hunt’s eyes found those of the angry woman with a child on each hip. He focused on her because she was a mother, and because she lived right next door. “Anything might help.” The woman stared, face cold and distant. Hunt panned the crowd, saw the anger and distrust. “A girl is missing!”

But he was a cop on the wrong street. He saw a paint can at the corner of the porch, label gone white, lid rusted shut. With a violence that surprised him, Hunt kicked the can. It arced into the yard, struck dirt, and exploded in a belch of gray. Hunt stared at the splatter, and when he looked up, he saw the Chief standing at the curb. He was fresh at the scene; his car still idled. He stood at the open door, arms crossed, frowning, his gaze intent on Hunt. Their eyes locked for a long second, then the Chief shook his head. Slowly. Resignedly.

Hunt counted two heartbeats, then turned for the open door.

The smell of death rolled over him.

Burton Jarvis left the shed at twenty minutes past six. He’d been up all night, strung out on tequila and speed, and now a fuse burned behind his eyes, something hot and bright. Something like fear. He was angry and unsatisfied, full of sharp regret that had nothing to do with right and wrong. His mind spun on ideas of consequence and risk, the knowledge of things he probably shouldn’t have done. Things that could get him caught.

But still…

He swayed in the damp gray space beneath the trees, felt the slash of grin spread on his face.

But still…

The smile wilted as he manipulated the big lock, died when the sweat sprang out on his skin. He staggered down the path from the shed to the house. His eyeballs itched, and it felt like somebody had poured wax into his sinuses.

Jar was not a nice man. He knew this about himself, but did not care. In fact, he took a perverse pride in watching young mothers drag their children into traffic just to avoid passing him on the sidewalk. After nine arrests and thirteen years behind bars, caring for his own needs had become his religion. He was sixty-eight, with bristled hair, two loose teeth, and eyes like raw oysters. Three packs a day kept him lean; the drugs and booze kept him out of prison. They dulled the edge, took the sting out of the places his mind liked to travel. With enough dope, he could get through the day.

Usually.

Jar kept a ramshackle house on twelve acres at the edge of town. The two-lane slithered past on its way to the landfill. In the front yard he had trees and dirt, a nineteen-year-old Pontiac, and a truck that spewed black smoke. In back, he had barrels of empty bottles and a ditch filled with trash.

And he had the shed. It sat on the back of the property, in a patch of woods so deep and dense he could have grown it just to serve this one purpose: to hide his shed. It was not on any tax map or plat. There was no permit. There was the shed, two miles of woods, and then there was the river.

Jar had seen the kid before, of course: a flash in the window, a blip of color in the deep brush. He had no idea what the little shit wanted, but had almost caught him once. He’d seen the boy at a rear window, then slipped out the front door and come up quiet and slick. He got a handful of hair but the kid tore free before he could snag a meaty part. Jar had chased him for a quarter mile before his lungs revolted. He remembered the moment, though: on his knees in the dirt, yelling with what breath he could find:
Come back here again and I’ll kill you. I will fucking kill you.

But the kid had come back, twice that Jar knew about. He never expected to see him like this. Not in broad daylight.

The car was what caught his eye first. It was parked along the side of the road, its leftmost tires all but in the ditch. Jar saw a slice of dull chrome through the trees and stepped out onto his porch. He was in underwear, stretched around the legs and old, but he didn’t care. This was a barren street, the nearest neighbor more than a quarter mile away. Cars came by on the way to the dump, kids dragged loud cars, but that was about it. This was his patch of heaven, and he did whatever the hell he wanted to do. Besides, it was early. The sun hadn’t even cleared the trees.

What the hell was a car doing parked in front of
his
house?

Most people knew better.

He reached inside and caught the bat where it leaned against the doorjamb. It had dents and scars from a time he beat the television to death over a fumble in a playoff game. Jar staggered when he hit the bottom step, his lower back full of dull pain and the odd sharp needle. Trees leaned into him as he walked. A branch took a swipe and peeled some skin off his cheek.

Fucking tree.

He hit it with the bat, almost fell down.

The car was an old wagon: yellow paint, wood-grain panels. It had bald tires and weather stripping sprung from two of the windows. It looked empty. Jar stopped at the end of his dirt drive and put bleary eyes up the road and down. Nobody coming. Nothing on the road but the wagon. The blacktop was warm and smooth, the bat busted up and full of splinters. It scraped against his leg and drove slivers of wood under the skin. He stopped and saw pinpricks of blood that looked as bright as candy on the white, hairless meat of his calf.

Fucking bat.

The car windows were down, the boy curled up on the front seat. He had on filthy jeans and ragged sneakers, feathers or something around his neck. That was weird. His chest and shoulders were bare and streaked with what looked like soot. His face was the same as Jar had seen at the window, smudged and thin and up to no good. He lay on his side, asleep, and Jar could already feel his fingers around the boy’s bony neck.

This was the kid. The sneak that had Jar looking over his shoulder every other night. Jar flicked his gaze up and down the road, looked back into the car. He saw binoculars on the floor, a half-empty bottle of water and a goddamn camera. What the hell was the camera for? The kid had a knife in his hand, a pocketknife, folded open.

Jar would have laughed, but he was too busy doing the math.

Nobody in sight. Thirty seconds to get the kid out of the car, another minute to get him behind the house.

It was doable.

But he was drunk and sloppy, worn-out; and people like Jar did not do well in prison. Plus, there was the car to worry about. He’d have to ditch it fast and untraceable. If the kid put up a fight, it would get ugly. Jar had a temper—he didn’t deny that. There was the risk of somebody on the road: a random driver. The way the road bent, cars could pop up plenty quick. If somebody saw him dragging some boy out of a car, they’d call the cops for sure. And the cops were already riled up about the missing girl.

And luck only went so far.

A battle raged in Jar’s mind. This was the kid, and he knew something. He had to. Otherwise, why’d he keep turning up? Just the sight of him made Jar’s skin itch. There was something about this kid…

But Jar had a good thing going. He had liquor and space, long nights to remember other days. He had his shed and the occasional opportunity. Two good miles of empty woods.

But only if he was careful.

He rocked on the smooth tar, felt the fear begin to win. There was too much going on. He was drunk and unsteady.

But it was the same boy.

Jar realized that he’d been staring at the kid for over a minute, standing and staring in his underwear on a public road. That’s what made up his mind. His thoughts were ticking slowly, and that made for trouble. He’d learned that one the hard way. Nine arrests and thirteen years, all from stupid mistakes. Forget that. He’d get the plate number and find the kid later.

But the boy opened his eyes. He blinked once, started screaming.

Jar went through the window like a rat down a hole.

Johnny woke to a nightmare stained gray. He saw the sky through glass, then dishwater eyes dashed with blood, fingers tipped with yellow plaster. He knew it was a nightmare because he’d seen it before—same face, same broken nails. Johnny blinked, but nothing changed. The dirty man stood there, fingers going tight, and Johnny realized where he was. The scream tore out of his throat and Burton Jarvis came through the window so fast Johnny barely had time to move. He shoved himself away, but bone-hard fingers caught an ankle. Johnny screamed again and Jar grunted, the sound coming from the same deep, foul place of Johnny’s dreams. Another hand closed around his ankle, and Johnny flew across the seat.