The Light at the End of the Tunnel (23 page)

“Hey!” he cried, “I can’t help it that I got
mislead. That girl yelled to the foster mother
‘He reaped
me!’
”

“Well, the little girl just pronounced it
wrong. It’s rape, and, did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Man! You are too stupid! Did you rape
her?”

“No, and I still don’t know what rape
means.”

“Then how did you know she got raped?”

“I heard them in the room. She was screaming,
and she ran out and looked at me, and she was bleeding, and then
she ran in the bathroom, and then the foster parents got home.”

“What about your last foster home? I hear
both you and Jasper raped your foster mother.”

“Not me, and do you know Jasper?”

“Just
of
him, a weenie-ass punk, so I
hear. Well, he won’t be coming here.”

“Where will he go?”

“It’ll be another juvie-place, a tougher
place then this, and Jasper’ll have to learn to stand on his own
two feet in there, but enough about him. How could you both rape
that foster mother but you didn’t?—so you said.”

“I didn’t!”

“Okay, okay, so why didn’t you?”

“Both times I didn’t even get to
watch
!”

Pierce stared at his new little ward, “So you
really don’t know, do you?”

“No.”

“Well, there are no girls here, but it is
possible to sneak out sometimes. When it comes my turn again…,”
Pierce’s eyes got big and he—kind of—smiled, “I’ll take you along,
and, my boy, you
will
learn all about girls. I guarantee
it.”

Chapter
36
The Markums

“Right there!” Nicole pointed to a specific
line on the computer screen, “Just one birth on October 18, exactly
nine months from Les Paul’s execution in January! Click on that
name, Radford. Evan and Leslie Markum.”

The chaplain clicked, came to several
‘Markums,’
clicked again—

“There!” Hand on her man’s shoulder, Nicole
again pointed, this time at a telephone listing, “Evan and Leslie!”
She read the address, “Also right here in Bradleyville!” She
squeezed her man’s shoulder, dug in her claws.

The chaplain reached up to her hand, “You are
getting kind of excited, my dear. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, and I’m heading out this morning
to start tracking that woman—I
know
she’s the mother!”

“I hope so,” the chaplain said, “My warden
friend was not too happy about needlessly getting the DNA from the
Tommerdahls.”

“Fine. We got Les Paul’s DNA, though, we
needed that. I’ll talk to Leslie Markum, establish that she’s Les
Paul’s latest mother, and then she’ll probably offer her DNA,
because I know she
is
!”

He turned and put his arms around his new
bride, and pulled her into a warm hug, and she responded, “Oh, I
love it when you hold me like this, Radford.”

“And I love it when you love it, and when
this is over, you’ll probably want to go into police work
continuously.”

“When this is over?” Nicole leaned back, “Do
you even know what you just said?”

He sighed, “You’re right, my dear, because
our cause might not ever get truly over. Les Paul has to
do
something, and he has to get caught, and…my god.”

Nicole moved back into the hug, “One step at
a time, my husband. I hadn’t thought of it too much before either,
but our goal might just take—as you said in the beginning—a
lifetime.”

****

Leslie Markum was very much different from
Donna Tommerdahl. Leslie also had two other children, a girl eight
and a boy six, but the cuddling warmth just did not seem to be
there. Leslie gave her children all they needed as far as food,
shelter, clothes, but the love, to Nicole, seemed…distant, and
cool, even at times contrived.

Nicole had gotten close enough, twice, to
look directly into the woman’s eyes, luckily without being
discovered, although Leslie did once glance toward her but there
was no true eye contact. What Nicole saw in the woman’s eyes was
sorrow, a gap, something terribly missing.

She understood. She felt that Leslie Markum
missed her first born, and probably feared for what had become of
him, because the poor woman did not know the truth. Leslie kept her
nose to the grindstone. She had a daily, part-time job, and spent
no time looking at nature in the park. So, after two full days of
surveillance, Nicole knew of no way to approach her except
directly, at the front door and as a private detective.

****

At five PM, a half hour since Leslie Markum
had arrived home, long enough—Nicole hoped—to have mellowed out
from her day, she knocked, then stepped back and waited.

Mrs. Markum opened the door. Her eyes had
that same vacant look. Other than that, though, she seemed all
right, “Yes, may I help you?” she asked.

“My name is Nicole Waters, Mrs. Markum, I’m a
private detective.”

The woman’s expression changed. She even
appeared relieved, and stepped back pulling the door further open
but didn’t speak.

“I have some questions,” Nicole said, “May I
come in?”

“Yes, yes, please do.”

****

“And that’s how it went, Radford,” Nicole
said, “That woman was so glad to hear what I said, well, I could
hardly believe it.”

“And the DNA?”

“She had the paperwork right there in the
house, even made me copies. It’s like she has felt this…this
terrible guilt for abandoning her child for over nine years now and
this gigantic weight has finally left her.”

“Does she want to know about her son? What we
finally find out?”

“No, and I was glad to hear that. Mainly she
just wanted to know that he was all right, and how he’s doing. I
didn’t tell her everything of course. Not much at all, really, and
she doesn’t want to…
hug
him, exactly, or anything like
that—can you believe it? As an infant he actually bit her nipple—no
teeth, but he bit hard enough to cause her to bleed, internally,
and she needed help from her husband to get him loose.”

“And that’s when she made the decision to
abandon him?”

“Yes, but that wasn’t everything he had done,
just the worst. She said she told her husband she would not nurse
him again—she mentioned the smirks, how it just totally creeped her
out. For a long time she even refused to believe such a young child
could do such things,
‘But he just kept on!’
she said. So
she made the decision. And they left that very night for Nebraska.
I watched her for two days, Radford. Imagine, living with that hole
in your heart for nine years.”

“A lot of people do it, Nicole. Lost
children, abducted children, street children, children with cancer,
drugs, gangs, the list goes on.”

Chapter 37
His First Sex

Les Paul watched through the cracked open
door as Pierce made his way through the dark to the fence, wriggled
through, then looked back and waved.

He then slipped through the door and closed
it, made his way to the fence then also wriggled through. He felt
fine. He had figured he would be scared or nervous, but he wasn’t.
He was going to learn something this night, finally learn
something.

“Ya ready, little shit?” Pierce asked,
grinning.

“Damned good and ready, big shit.”

Pierce slapped him on the back, “Let’s go,”
and they began not quite running alongside the fence, “It’s about
three blocks from here where we meet the girls.”

“How old are they?”

“It varies. Sometimes they’re young,
sometimes they’re older.”

“How young? I ain’t doin’ no
seven-year-old!”

“Jeeze, man, we don’t do seven-year-olds. Ten
or twelve sometimes but no younger than that.”

“I ain’t doin
any
young girl.” He
could barely believe what he had just said, but it was true. That
time in the house where the older boy raped the
seven-year-old—true, he had thought about it, had at least wanted
to watch, to learn something, but he hadn’t actually wanted to
do
it.

Young girls were simply
too
young. He
didn’t know why he thought that, and if he had any saving grace
from his many reincarnated lives, it was refusing to rape—or have
sex with, whatever one wanted to call it—any young girl. He only
wanted older women, at least in their late teens, and even ten or
twenty years older.

Raping, now that he knew what raping meant,
he felt, was meant for older women. He liked seeing their faces
when he did it—
several frightened faces flashed through his
mind—and where oh where did these thoughts come from?—For cripe
sake! I’ve never done it!

“Well, little shit!” Pierce reached out and,
a little harder than lightly, punched Les Paul’s arm, “It doesn’t
matter what you think or want. Whoever’s there tonight is going to
get fucked! You can do it, or you can watch! I don’t care, but if
you don’t do it tonight, this’ll be the last time I take you
along!”

“Fine!” He didn’t care, either, as he
expected to soon go to another foster family, and he hoped his new
foster mom would be pretty, and he hoped there would be another
bigger boy there to help him use what he would learn this
night.

As they ran a new memory began intruding into
his senses…
He was in that same room, but this time lying
on…what? A hard table, maybe, and he was strapped down, and there
were people facing him again, facing him from behind a large plate
glass window—why the hell do they stay out there? If they want to
see what happens to him they should come and stand close to the
table, close to him.

A man dressed in white coveralls came in,
carrying a needle—a needle? Another man, also dressed in white
entered and walked to a wall where several tubes appeared to be
holding different-colored liquids.

The man with the needle stepped to his right
side. He didn’t smile, “Are you ready, Les Paul?”

Les Paul? Who the fuck is that? Ready for
what?

Les Paul. He had heard that name
before—where had he heard it? Who the fuck was it? And why wasn’t
Les Paul here instead of him?

A prick! In his arm! It hurt!

He started feeling…he didn’t know, it was
like his head was flying away, a loose tightness…drifting….—

“We’re here, little shit! Now I’m first!
Whoever’s here I’m first!”

“Fine, big shit!”

They entered a small, darkened, house from
the back door, to a hall. At the end a door to the right, and light
coming from under it. Pierce led the way as they walked to it, then
he pushed the door open.

Two older women waited in chairs, one maybe
thirty, the other, older, and her left hand held onto a huge purse.
He had never seen such a large purse, and wondered what she might
carry in it. Extra clothes, maybe? Food? Beer? Then he wondered why
he had bothered with such a stupid thought.

They stepped in. A third person appeared. A
young girl, maybe thirteen. Her eyes…he didn’t know. They maybe
looked frightened, or maybe just expectant, as she maybe didn’t
know what was going to happen.

The older woman nodded toward her, “Mandy.”
She pointed to the bed in the corner to their right.”

“What?” Mandy asked. Her eyes changed, got
brighter he thought.

“Go to the bed and take your clothes off,”
the older woman said.

“Take my clothes off?” Mandy asked.

“You heard me.”

This time there was no misunderstanding in
the young girl’s eyes. He saw fear. He didn’t care. That memory of
fear in his older women’s eyes gratified him. But he wondered where
these memories kept coming from, as if they were his.
They
weren’t his! I’ve never done anything wrong!

The older woman motioned to Pierce, who then
walked to her. “It’s her first time,” she said, and stood, and held
onto the purse, “Did you bring plenty?”

“Got all I got, baby.” Pierce nodded back to
Les Paul, “Got his money too, so we got plenty.”

“Is he going to do her too?”

“Claims he won’t do young girls,” Pierce
said, “But that’s what your friend here is for, right?”

“She’ll do him,” the older woman said, “Gimme
your money.”

That settled, Les Paul looked toward the
young girl, who now was naked but holding the bed clothes in front
of her, as before her eyes showing what he loved to see even on the
young ones.
Fear
.

Pierce handed over their pay for the past
month. They didn’t get paid that much, but it appeared they would
get a lot for their money.

“We’ll be back in two months,” the older
woman said, and we’ll plan to have a real treat for you, so start
saving your money.”

“What kind of treat?” Pierce asked, beginning
to unbutton his shirt.

“You’ll have to wait and see.”

Pierce’s face twisted as he nodded, then
started toward the young girl.

Les Paul watched, and
would
watch,
every detail of the sex act, so that when it came his turn he would
know what to do and would do it well. Pretty good for a
nine-year-old, he thought, but he also felt like he had done these
things many, many,
many
, times, before. He just didn’t have
any real memories of them. Just those glimpses that would come and
go, so quickly, like a blink, sometimes two or three blinks that
seemed to go on and on.

Chapter 38
DNA
Disappointment

Upon arrival back at Brentwood the first
person the chaplain and Nicole contacted was Patrolman Sikorsky.
They had DNA from both the Tommerdahls and the Markums, plus from
the original Les Paul.

“They don’t match,” the chaplain said, “I had
hoped…?”

“There might be one similar thread,” Sikorsky
said, “But DNA doesn’t work quite that way. And if the two Les Paul
DNA’s
had
matched…well, I just haven’t heard of that ever
happening, but, the young Les Paul does claim the Markum’s
DNA.”