The Last Child (37 page)

“Circle,” he said.

And Johnny pulled the gun.

Hunt was late getting home. The dinner was cold in the bag, but Allen made no comment. They ate in the kitchen, together but silent, and tension came off them in waves. At the door to his son’s room, Hunt apologized. “It’s just the case,” he said.

“Sure.”

Hunt watched his son kick off grungy shoes. “It’ll be over soon.”

“College starts in three months.” He pulled off his shirt and tossed it after the shoes. Fine hairs textured his chest, rose from the hollow place at the base of his neck. His son was all but grown, Hunt realized, as close to a man as a boy could get and still have boy in him. Hunt paused, knowing that there was nothing he could say that would make this better.

“Son…”

“She never calls.”

“Who?”

“Mom,” he said, and there was nothing but boy in his face.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything.”

Hurt, angry boy.

“Allen, I—”

“Just close the door.”

Hunt could not move.

“Please,” Allen said, and the look on his face was a blow to the gut, a hammer stroke. A stone settled on Hunt’s heart and it carried the weight of a million failed expectations, the certainty that it should not be like this for his son.

“Please,” Allen said again, and Hunt had no choice.

“Good night, son.”

Hunt closed the door, then went downstairs. He stuffed cartons and paper bags into the trash, then poured a slug of scotch that he knew he would never finish. The day was all over him: death and despicable men, the lives of children cut short, and a host of still-unanswered questions. He wanted a shower and ten hours of sleep. Under his fingers, his face felt like an old man’s face. He walked into his study, unlocked the desk drawer and pulled out the Alyssa Merrimon case file. He stared for a long time at her picture, glanced over the notes, the jotted questions, but his mind was on Yoakum. He replayed the moment that Meechum had died, the smell of gun smoke and Yoakum’s steady hand, his eyes, so glassy smooth and still.

The call came at twelve thirty. “You awake?” Yoakum asked.

“Yes.”

“Drunk?”

Hunt closed Alyssa’s file. “No.”

“I am.”

“What is it, John? What’s on your mind?” Hunt knew the answer.

“How long we been doing this?” Yoakum asked.

“A long time.”

“Partners?”

“And friends.”

A silence drew out, Yoakum’s breath on the line. “What did you tell them?” he finally asked.

“I told them what happened.”

“That’s not what I’m asking and you know it.”

Hunt pictured his friend, saw him in his own small house, a glass in his hand, in his living room, staring at the ashes of a long-dead fire. Yoakum was sixty-three. He’d been a cop for over thirty years; it was all he had. Hunt didn’t answer the question.

“You’re my friend, Clyde. He was going for you with an ax. What was I supposed to do?”

“Is that the reason you took the heart shot?”

“Of course.”

“It wasn’t anger? Not payback?”

“For what?” A different anger was waking.

“You know for what.”

“Tell me, Clyde. You tell me for what.”

“For those kids. For seven graves in a patch of muddy woods. For years of bad shit in our own backyard.”

“No.”

“All this time, Yoak. All this time and I’ve never seen you do personal. Today looked personal.”

“A killer came after my partner with an ax. He came after my friend. You could call that personal, but you could call that the job, too. Now, what did you tell them?”

Hunt hesitated.

“Did you tell them it was a clean shoot?”

“We stuck to the facts. They asked for my opinion, but I didn’t give it.”

“But you will.

“Tomorrow,” Hunt said. “Tomorrow, I will.”

“And what will you tell them?”

Hunt reached for the scotch. In the low, cut-crystal glass, a small light kindled in the liquid. He replayed the moment in his mind, the ax starting down, Yoakum stepping into the room. What
had
his angle looked like? Did he have to take the kill shot? The computer was off to the side, but by how much? Hunt put himself in Yoakum’s shoes. He thought he could see it, the way it could have looked.

But Yoakum spoke before Hunt could. “Have you filed that obstruction charge against Ken Holloway?”

In the aftermath of Meechum’s shooting, Hunt had almost forgotten about Holloway’s phone call. “No,” he said.

“But you will?”

“I will.”

A silence invaded the line, and it was an ugly one. Hunt knocked back the scotch. He knew where this could go, and prayed that it would not.

“None of this would have gone down if we’d left Holloway out of it,” Yoakum finally said. “We’d have taken Meechum clean at the mall. No shooting. No burned discs. That was you, Clyde, your call.
That
was personal.”

The phone seemed to hum in Hunt’s hand. “Good night, Yoakum.”

A heavy pause. “Good night, Clyde.”

The line went dead.

Hunt poured another scotch.

Freemantle stared at the gun. It shook in Johnny’s hands. Johnny’s voice shook, too. “Where is she?”

Jack pushed closer, alarmed. “Johnny, what are you doing?”

“Where’s my sister?”

“I don’t know your sister.” An ember popped in the stove. “I don’t know you.”

Johnny stooped for the scrap of cloth with Alyssa’s name on it. He held it out. “This is my sister. Her name is Alyssa Merrimon. This is her name.” Freemantle kept his eyes on Johnny’s face. “Look at it,” Johnny said.

Freemantle shrugged and looked. “I can’t read.”

“She was taken a year ago. That’s her name.”

“I don’t think he knows,” Jack said.

“He has to.”

“I would tell you if I knew.”

“He doesn’t know,” Jack said.

“Where did you get this?” Johnny shoved the bloodstained cloth at Freemantle. “Where? When?”

Giant shoulders rolled, muscles tight under the skin. “I got that from broken man. Right after you bit me.”

“Who?”

“Broken man.” He said it like it was a name. “Broken man was by the bridge. I got that from broken man’s hand. He was holding it.”

The gun dipped. “After you picked me up?”

“God told me to see what you was running from, so I did.”

“David Wilson,” Johnny said. “Was he alive when you found him?”

Freemantle’s head tilted, and he closed his eyes, thinking. “Put the gun down,” Jack whispered. Johnny hesitated. “You really think this man has Alyssa? You’re going to get somebody killed.”

Johnny let the muzzle settle until it pointed at the dusty floor. “Was broken man alive?”

Freemantle’s eyes stayed shut. “There was voices in the river. Whispers. Dandelion words.” He made a floating motion with his fingers. “I was so tired…”

“Voices?” Johnny keyed on the word. “Did the broken man say something? Anything?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You have to.”

The big hands turned palm up. “The crows was coming. I was scared.” They were a foot apart, the boy, the man. “I’d tell you if I could.” Freemantle lay down on the warm stone. “Maybe I’ll know in the morning. That happens sometimes.” He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry about your sister. I’m done now.”

Johnny stared at Freemantle. He stared until his legs went numb. He felt despair, like hunger, and when he finally turned, Freemantle was snoring.

Johnny put the gun on a shelf. He looked at beams and posts and bits of sharp-edged metal. He turned his face to the roof as a dark pit opened in his chest. He was torn, and then he was empty. The pit was a vacuum.

It was Jack who broke the silence. “Why is he scared of crows?”

“I think he hears the devil when the crows get close.”

“The devil?”

“He hears one voice. Why not the other?”

“What if it’s true?” Jack put his arms around his knees. He rocked on the trunk and couldn’t meet Johnny’s eyes. “What if he really hears God’s voice? What if he really hears… You know.”

“He doesn’t.”

“But what if?”

“Nobody does.”

Jack pulled his knees tighter. Dirt rimed his face. “I don’t like crows, either. Been scared of them since I was little. What if that’s why?”

“Come on, Jack.”

“You know what they call a group of crows?” His voice was small and strained.

Johnny knew the answer. “A murder,” he said. “A murder of crows.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that.” Jack looked at Freemantle. “What if God sent him here for a reason, too?”

“Look, Jack. This guy killed two people because they let his daughter die in a hot car. If thinking God told him to do it makes living with that fact any easier, then I guess that’s what he had to do. The crows, the other voice… that’s just guilty conscience catching up.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” They both stared. “But he knows something.”

“I’m scared, Johnny.”

Johnny’s eyes glittered. He watched Freemantle by the fire, nodded as the night grew thin.

“He knows something.”

Jack fell into a fitful sleep as wind sighed through the cracks, a small voice that, twice, gusted into something terrible. The fire burned low. Johnny moved from anger to grief to unwanted sleep that took him down hard. He dreamed of stinking wood and sharp, yellow eyes, of a hard fall through shattered limbs and of his sister’s hopeful smile. She squatted in the dirt of a low cellar: filthy skin, tatters for clothes. A single candle burned, and she looked up, startled.
Is that you?
she said, and Johnny bolted up with a scream trapped behind his teeth.

For that instant, he did not know where he was or what had happened, but he knew that something was wrong. He felt it in the close, hot air.

Something was wrong.

Levi Freemantle sat in the dirt, cross-legged, not three feet away. He was sheeted with the same sweat, shadows gray on his black skin. His hands were cupped in his lap, the pistol in his hands. He was staring at it, tilting it toward the stove. His finger found the trigger.

“It’s loaded,” Johnny said.

When Freemantle looked up, Johnny had the sense that his sickness had spread, that little awareness remained behind the vacant eyes. He turned the gun and gazed into the muzzle. The moment drew out. Johnny held out his hand. “May I have that?”

Freemantle ignored him. His hand swallowed the grip. “I got shot once.” Johnny could barely hear him. Freemantle touched the bullet scar on his stomach. “Little boys shouldn’t have guns.”

“Who shot you?”

“My wife.”

“Why?”

He looked at the gun. “Just ’cause.”

“May I have that?” Johnny leaned closer and Freemantle handed him the gun. It could have been an apple. Or a cup of water. Johnny took it, pointed it at Freemantle’s face. He was scared. The dream still had him. “Where’s my sister?”

The muzzle was eighteen inches from Freemantle’s eyes.

“Where is she?” Louder. Twelve inches. Ten. The gun, this time, was deathly still, but Freemantle was as unconcerned as an ox facing a bolt gun.

“When she shot me.” His voice was low. “She said it’s ’cause I was stupid.”

Six inches. One hand cupping the other, finger tight on the trigger.

“You shouldn’t call people stupid,” Freemantle said. “Calling people names is mean.”

Johnny hesitated, and Freemantle lay down. The gun still pointed at the empty place his eyes had been, his yellow-stained, bloodshot, slaughterhouse eyes.

Hunt woke at five, restless, still tired. He showered and shaved, moved through the small house, paused at the door to his son’s room and listened to the sounds of his deep and steady breathing. It was a bad day coming. He felt it in every fiber, every bone. For this day to end well, he thought, it would take a miracle.

Downstairs, the kitchen was overly warm and smelling of scotch. Hunt rarely drank. He was hungover and disappointed in himself.

Screw Yoakum.

Screw that phone call.

But that was not fair. As much as he’d hated to hear it, the man was right. Hunt put events in motion the second he stepped out of the elevator and into Holloway’s office. Meechum’s death was his fault. He might as well have pulled the trigger.

Hunt flicked the curtain and looked out. No stars shone, but there was no call for rain, either. The medical examiners would be back in the woods in a matter of hours. They’d get the last bodies out today. Maybe one was Alyssa. Maybe not. Maybe Johnny would turn up. Then again…

Where are you, Johnny?

Hunt opened the window to let cool air spill across his hands, his feet. A damp breath licked his face, and for a moment the hangover faded. He looked once more at the soaking grass, the water that stood in shallow, mirrored pools. Then he made coffee and waited for the sun to find itself in the troubled skies of Raven County.

His son still slept when he left.

Pale mist gathered in the black trees.

The Chief had set the meeting for nine o’clock—late in cop terms—but Hunt could not wait that long. The sun still hung below the courthouse as he drove down Main Street, then turned left and rolled past the police station. Already the curb was lined with news trucks. Cameramen stamped their feet. Reporters checked makeup. They knew the cops would move soon. They would make the long, slow roll to the black woods at the edge of town, where the last bodies would be culled from the damp, grasping soil.

The story would grow.

The day was ripe with opportunity.

Hunt drove around the block to the small parking lot at the rear. It was not yet seven, but Yoakum was there, waiting. He sat on the edge of a concrete barrier at the south end of the lot. His back pressed against a chain-link fence and bowed it out. Behind him, weathered-looking men in hard hats drank coffee and ate fast-food biscuits while dozers and cranes idled, damp and dull in a gray light so weak it made the turned earth look frozen. A bank would rise, Hunt thought. Maybe an office building. Holloway’s probably. And the wheels of commerce would turn.