The Trees Beyond the Grass (A Cole Mouzon Thriller) (7 page)

CHAPTER 15

COLE TORE OFF
his suit in the building’s first floor gym, crawled into his gym shorts, and hit the pavement outside for a short pre-flight run. Shirtless, he noticed his recent busy schedule was wreaking havoc on his six-pack. From his view, two beers were missing. Traveling down Lincoln Street, he picked up the pace in an attempt to reclaim those beers as he merged onto Speer Boulevard and the Cherry Creek bike path. This routine cleared his mind daily, and the cool wind off the creek that ran down the spine of the path provided needed relief from the heat wave that had descended on Denver. In his ‘running zone,’ Cole thought of his trip. It had been months since he had been back to his hometown, and the trip was a reunion of sorts for his friend Ann and himself to enjoy Spoleto.

Every year at the end of May the Holy City hosted an international arts festival which showed off the most exclusive, preeminent musical, visual, dance, and other art displays. For seventeen days, operas, art installations, jazz bands, and artistic dance descended on the peninsula, clogging its streets and buildings with crowds from around the world salivating at not only the art but the city stage it was being hosted in. As a child, his Granny would take him and the rest of the grandkids to one event, each separately. Each child got to pick his or her event and then go alone with Granny. She always called it ‘our’ time. Cole tended to pick big productions with singing and dancing over any music concert or art display.

Like the city itself, the event wasn’t without secrets and controversy. It had come to Charleston in 1977 when Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti decided to start a counterpart to his Festival dei Due Mondi, or Festival of Two Worlds, in Spoleto, Italy. Menotti chose the city for its charm and the plethora of venues. His lack of understanding of Charlestonians and their innate sense of defiance immediately placed the event in financial and interpersonal turmoil.

Menotti was accustomed to exclusive control of the company’s limitless expense account. Much like the city perceived the North’s actions, Menotti’s attempts to dictate and spend the city’s money was met with a long, heavy thud, followed by revolt. By 1993, Menotti was run out of town, but not without attempting to take the festival with him. Seeing him as a carpetbagger, Charlestonians armed themselves with muskets loaded with lawyers and drove him off, never to return. The festival endured, and had grown ever since.

Thinking about his trip, Cole realized he missed his hometown deeply. Images of his family, Charleston and its marshes flickered in transparencies across his vision of the sidewalk he was jogging. His family was a mix of love and pain like most out there. But he always sought to focus on the love and craziness that made them his own brand of family.

She said ‘romantic
.’ Kathy’s words had unintentionally popped back into his head mid-step. The Peninsula, another nickname for Charleston, oozed romance that rivaled Paris or Venice. Add the tropical, palmetto-studded atmosphere and you had the makings of a Hemingway romance. Cole hadn’t thought much of romance since Atlanta and he had no interest in starting now. He could feel the mental conversation once again crashing against the wall that kept him stable.
Stop thinking about it. You’re damaged goods.
Visualizing his emotions as a dirty rag, he manipulated it in his mind, shoving and packing it into the crevice from which it came until the emotions were back behind the wall. He took a deep breath and focused on the last mile back toward his office.

Seven miles completed and showered, Cole arrived at DIA with ample time to check in and grab two Fat Tires. It had been a long week of depositions, and a couple of beers helped him transition into vacation mode. He ultimately plopped down into the cramped blue fabric seat of the United Airlines flight and set his iPod playlist to ‘Trip.’ He was in the habit of making playlists for every event worthy of music. Hitting play, Empire of the Sun blared, deemed by him as appropriate travel music since discovering them while road-tripping between Sydney and Cairns. He lay back and closed his eyes.

CHAPTER 16

BLADES OF MARSH
grass prickled the tips of his fingers as he walked the line between mowed and undisturbed marsh. Perhaps two or three years old, judging from his size, the darkness engulfed him as he stared on along the artificial line that defined nature from man. Thick, salty air filled his nostrils with the damp, organic odor of the sea. A cinderblock building rested yards to his right, with the marsh grass inches to the left. This place was strangely calming to him in that moment. For being alone, the place was noisy with life in the darkness. Cicadas buzzed in the distant Spanish-moss draped live oaks and top-heavy pines. He took in the busied nocturnal life around him.

His mind was too preoccupied by the nature to hear the approaching steps from behind. As his hands brushed the tops of reed and grass, a sudden need to run came across his body, brewing in his shoulders before lightening down to his feet.
It was too late.
A hand had grabbed his outreached arm and pulled him down, into the marsh. He could feel his throat clench as he involuntarily attempted to scream. No one came.

Pulling, pulling; there was no escape. His eyes turned ahead to see what, who had grabbed him, but all that could be seen was a hand, nothing more. The rest was a blur, like he had entered a dark underpass. It pulled him deeper into the marsh, leaving him looking back to see the brick facade of the school building drifting away. Reed and oyster cut, their sting emphasized by the salty marsh water. Pain and pressure conjoined in his shoulder as he was dragged deeper into the darkness. “Stop. Help, help!” His voice tensed and resisted being heard, as he was swallowed by the blackness and into the trees. “Momma!”

CHAPTER 17

IT WAS EASY
enough to break in. The home adjacent to Mouzon’s hid the view of nosy neighbors. A slip of a knife under the window’s edge and Poinsett was in the house. She had visited the spot the night before to watch as she had done with the others, but his dog barked, requiring her to cut off her observation prematurely. Standing outside again, she had returned to issue her warning, to commence the game with Mouzon, but by looks of the vacant dog bed and the Amazon package on the front porch, he was gone.

Slowly stepping across the pine floors, Poinsett looked for any sign as to where he could have gone. A quick inspection showed no signs of a phone or answering machine. Pictures of him were spread throughout the house, with scenes of the Iron Lung in Sydney, the Gherkin in London, and others with tropical beaches in the background. The thought of him enjoying life at her expense sickened her.
How dare he
. Her rage simmered deep inside her, threatening to boil over into chaos. She hated him. His permitted existence had caused the damnation of her own life. For thirty years he loomed, torturing her without her ever knowing. But now she did know, and the time had come to show him the damage he’d inflicted, to show him how his existence destroyed her childhood and life. Only by ridding the world of those taken and released by the Taker could she find peace.

Poinsett’s heart raced as she ran a hand across an old walnut desk onto the keyboard of Mouzon’s computer, causing it light up. Opening the Safari internet browser, she typed in Facebook.com.
Bingo
. The computer was still logged in. Several clicks away, a picture of her prey filled the screen along with his wall of posts. The latest entry was, “DEN => CHS.”

CHAPTER 18

COLE AWOKE DRENCHED
in sweat again, his heart racing with panic, still seated on the plane. Faint tears lingered in his eyes. It took a few seconds to recall where he was and where he was going. “Fuck
,
” Cole murmured under his breath while trying to regain his bearings and resituate in his cramped seat. His refusal to pay full ticket price for anything frustrated even him at these moments.

He had unfortunately brought two carry-ons, his bag and that stupid dream.
Too bad United didn’t shove that shit into check-in.
He liked the idea of leaving it on the carousel and never claiming it. The dream was on a repetitive loop lately, replayed every night for the past three weeks with no off button to hit. If he fell asleep it was there.

It wasn’t the first time. It had haunted his dreams as a child before being all but forgotten in recent years. Between the ages of three and ten it was a given whenever he slept. The routine was fixed. Fall asleep by nine p.m. Wake up in a panic by two a.m. Then get up and watch black-and-white reruns of
Lassie
and
Dennis the Menace
on Nickelodeon until it was time for a shower and school. That is, if he showered…

Then, like his mind had outgrown it, it stopped without warning. His sleep went undisturbed for years, until three weeks ago when it reappeared in all its dark vividness.
Why?
What was causing him to dream like this? And why now?

Visits to home had never triggered this response
.
The dream always ended like a scratched DVD with darkness at the same point. Sometimes he would get out the last scream for help, sometimes not. He was always left with the consuming feeling that the darkness was death.

What kind of fucked-up kid dreams like that?
The horrific possibilities of where the dream could go were endless in Cole’s mind. Molestation, torture—or worst, being left alone to die a solitary death. None were thoughts or images Cole wished to dream and certainly didn’t think his juvenile mind should have thought up. Yet, awake, he mutilated his thoughts with the imagery of those possibilities.

His limited time in the criminal defense arena had provided fodder for the old dream. The sad reality was that his worst thoughts were supported by the reality of just how cruel and evil humans could be toward each other. He had seen those possibilities played out as a public defender in Douglas County, Georgia. Too many child-molestation clients had burned him out in less than two years. It was a final case, child-on-child molestation, that sealed the deal and expedited Cole’s planned exit.

IN A STRANGE
way, he was grateful for the dream. It had unknowingly hardened him to those situations long before he was personally faced with the very acts he daydreamed about whenever he awoke from the dream’s ‘what happened next?’ In that way, it was a gift of sorts, giving him strength and the ability to shield himself from the allegations, more often than not true, of horrible things done to children. His mind had partitioned itself from the harm of emotion, compartmentalizing the analytics of his daily life from emotional interference long before it was exposed to real horror. He wondered if somewhere deep down it knew he would need a shield, the ‘wall’ to survive in the future.

Prior relationships suggested that the benefits of keeping one’s emotions under lock and key came with the serious disadvantage of coming off cold and calculating personally and professionally.
What was the word used? Not mean, but…simply disconnected, aloof.
He liked the word ‘reserved’ better. It just seemed more prestigious. He couldn’t ever recall that word being used as a negative; rather, it was used to suggest intelligence, success—things he aspired toward. The mental image of him pompously raising his chin flashed before his eyes, making him quietly laugh at himself.

But three therapists had agreed with ‘aloof,’ advising him that contrary to what he had come to believe, one should not stare a crying lover in the face and ask for rational, objective justification about why something had happened. Intellectually, he understood rage, disappointment, and panic, but he felt they were wasteful emotions, unproductive in resolving whatever actual issue existed.

IT WASN’T THAT
he didn’t feel emotions; he did, otherwise he would be classified a sociopath—an idea that certainly had its attraction,
but all that blood…
No, his random bloody noses were enough for him.

It was the wastefulness of it all for him. The forty minutes or an hour of crying could be avoided, and problem would be analyzed and resolved more practically and promptly. Permitting himself to feel freely, letting emotions wash over him like the waves of a sandy tide, subjected him to danger and harm. He couldn’t afford that again, even if his team of therapists demanded ‘homework’ exercises in emotional freedom.

Dixie the dog was his current emotional muse. Her ability to just live without the torment of too many emotions was inspirational. He knew her ultimate death in old age would test the therapists’ credentials, but in the short run the worst he could suffer was puppy eyes when she didn’t get her peanut-butter filled Kong.
Baby steps
. If happiness was measured in empty Kongs, he was set.

Stop it, Cole. Stop. The wall was back, demanding to be raised. His mental exercises in emotion tormented it. You are starting a vacation, going home. You’ve needed this for a while. Salt air and home cooking is just what the doctor ordered to clear your head and return to Denver refreshed. Mind-fucking yourself was not what the doctor ordered. He said his safe words to push out the emotions.
Sweet tea, sweet tea, sweet tea…

PLANES HAD LONG
become a disappointment when airlines started shaving inches from not only the width, but the leg space between the seats. For Cole, trying to fit his six-foot, three-inch frame in economy meant knees pressed hard against the seat in front of him. Travel was utterly miserable if the person in the seat before him tried to lounge his seat. Somehow in this tortured configuration he had figured out how to grab a nap, and a nightmare, on the two-and-a-half hour flight to Atlanta for his connection to Charleston.

An hour later he was back on a plane. He closed his eyes again and tried to ignore the fact that the man next to him reeked of cheap cigarettes and was pouring inches of his flesh into Cole’s personal space. Skin contact with a stranger sucked. Well, at least contact with one he didn’t want to sleep with… His slight buzz from the Fat Tires had worn off, leaving him groggy with irritated emotions and anticipation. The idea of sleeping again on the short connection to Charleston was even more unappetizing when he realized that his fellow traveler’s drool had just dropped on Cole’s striped baseball tee, leaving a growing wet spot in its navy blue fabric. He busied his mind with thoughts of home in hopes of not purging at the sensation crawling over his body as the moistness reached the skin of his arm.
Coach sucks.