The Stonefly Series, Book 1

by Scott J. Holliday

  Like listing what he knew about his father and reciting that blog post, breathing and counting was a calming technique. He had perfected it at Dover.

  After giving birth, Jenna had stopped visiting Motown for a while, though she still sent him letters about how she was doing and how their baby was getting along. Often times her packages included comic books, sometimes paperbacks. The paperbacks were usually to do with self-help and personal psychology. Stuff designed to help Motown find peace. One of the more curious and fascinating books was about the practice of apitherapy, which is when a person with an autoimmune disease, like multiple sclerosis or arthritis, allows bees to sting them in strategic places on their body. The theory is that the disease is momentarily distracted by the bee venom, giving the person relief from the constant destruction of their joints. The article went on to say that most people who use apitherapy get their bees from local keepers.

  Motown felt she'd sent the book as a joke, knowing his plan to be stung and hopefully die.

  Another book had to do with the art of breathing, and how, if you just learn to breathe correctly you can maintain better control of your emotions. The book's assertion was that our emotions dictate our breathing patterns—meaning if we're nervous we breathe one way, if we're angry we breathe a different way, if we're calm yet another way—and that we could reverse the pattern and let our breathing dictate our emotions. If we teach ourselves to breathe like we're nervous, angry, or calm, we can become the emotion in the same way that choosing to smile makes a person feel happy.

  Motown's theory was to start Jake's quickening, let it set in, and then practice breathing like a calm person breathes. It wasn't exactly high philosophy, but they were boys in a nuthouse.

  They tested the theory on dessert.

  At Dover, dessert was always some kind of cobbler. There was peach, apple, strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, and pineapple thrown in now and again—usually whatever was left over from other recipes.

  Motown wanted nothing more than pumpkin pie. "It was the one thing my idiot mom could do right."

  Jake wondered if Motown's mom did it right or if Kroger did it right, but he kept that thought to himself.

  The boys knew it would be difficult to pull the staff off cobbler, and even if they were successful, it might take days or weeks before they'd change the menu. For this reason, Jake wanted to back off the plan. By now he knew the stakes of his game. He knew Motown's life would end if he couldn't deliver pumpkin pie within six days, and selfishly he wanted his friend to stick around. But what could he do? Years had passed and he'd still managed to keep the real cause of Nurse Crane's death from Motown. At this point, any argument Jake made against pumpkin pie would force him to reveal the stakes, which would immediately cause Motown to commit suicide by wishing the impossible.

  It was safer to risk the pumpkin pie.

  Understanding the importance of semantics, Motown chose his words carefully. "I wish I could eat pumpkin pie for dessert."

  The idea was that Jake would talk to the staff about changing the menu, but the wish couldn't possibly be granted until Motown literally ate pumpkin pie, and what's more, it had to be for dessert. Breakfast pie wouldn't cut it, nor would afternoon snack pie. They would wait until the dessert was served, if ever, and meanwhile practice breathing to control the quickening's symptoms.

  The breathing helped, but as the days passed Jake still came to rage. On the fifth day he leapt up on to the nurse's cage and screamed for pumpkin pie. The nuts behind him hooted and hollered while the orderlies peeled him off the cage, dragged him to his room, and threatened him with a helmet and straightjacket. Jake settled as best he could, blinking and twitching. He needed something to occupy his mind, so he started repeating numbers while tapping his thumb against his fingertips.

  The action seemed to work better than the breathing technique. He felt more relaxed, more capable of thinking... but it scared him. He thought of Teapot and Bozo, their repetitive nature. Their cycles never stopped. Was this a gateway into their world? Did they start out by counting when they felt crazy, too, thinking it would keep them sane?

  Jake laughed. Already in the nuthouse, so what the hell?

  On the sixth day Jake stared at Motown through a Salisbury steak dinner. He counted in his head while his lips whispered the numbers, his thumbs dancing with his fingers under the table. He ate nothing and saw nearly nothing, as his eyes were closing to black and his mind was filled with the same madness he felt before Nurse Crane fell dead.

  Dinner was soon over. Motown had wished for pumpkin pie dessert almost precisely six days prior, having just finished off a raspberry cobbler. By Jake's estimation Motown had minutes to live. He shivered and swallowed dryly. He wanted to tell his friend goodbye, wanted to tell him that he loved him, and that it would make him sad to no longer be able to talk with him and laugh with him.

  Jake tried to speak those words, but his jaw was locked, his teeth were clenched. He closed his eyes when dessert came out, not wanting to know what cobbler flavor would kill his friend.

  He heard the plates clack down on the table, the 'oohs' and 'ahhs' of response.

  When he finally chanced a look, Jake saw that dessert was pumpkin pie. Each slice with a whip cream dollop.

  Motown winked and said, "Sometimes the screaming lunatic gets the grease," before he dug into his lifesaving treat.

  Jake was released when his friend placed the first bite into his mouth and smiled through a whipped cream mustache.

  Now, after two more hours of Bud Light drafts, Jake imagined Darnell Collins would stumble drunkenly out of the bar toward his Ram truck. Instead the man strode out into the empty lot seemingly unaffected by the alcohol or the rain.

  Jake felt positive Collins wouldn't see him parked down the road, but he slid down in his seat just the same, watching Collins from the sliced circle of space between the dashboard and the steering wheel.

  Collins hopped inside his truck. The taillights burned red and then faded and blinked as he started the engine. He peeled out and fishtailed into the street, moving fast.

  Jake followed. He thought to use only his running lights so Collins might not see his vehicle, but no. If he saw the strange lights it would make him suspicious. Regular beams were fine. More natural. It's not so odd to see another truck on the road, no matter what time of night.

  Jake opened the mapping app on his phone and brought up the location of Collins's home in relation to the dock on the river. The plan was to follow him until he was sure Collins was headed home. After that he'd split. If Collins headed anywhere else, Jake would stay on him.

  As his eyelids were heavy from exhaustion and whiskey, and as it would prove Collins was more of a family man than he currently believed, Jake hoped the man would just go home to his wife and kid, but Collins drove past the most logical turn toward home.

  Jake slowed, putting more distance between them. The rain steadily pounded, hopefully giving Jake more cover. He had once asked Sergeant Dan about tailing someone, and the policeman said if you're not scared you might lose him, you're too close. Jake had only been driving for a few years, and most of that was in the city or just back and forth to Dover. With the state of the backroads Darnell was now taking, the time of night, the effect of the whiskey, and the downpour, tailing Collins was a challenge. Add in that Jake was checking his mapping app all the while. Never had his inexperience been so obvious.

  Collins took a right down a two-track. Jake slowed to look at the map. The road appeared to come to a dead end about a half-mile up. He drove past the turn hoping Collins would see him in the rear-view mirror and think he was just a good ol' boy passing by, some other late-night drinker on his way home.

  Jake drove another quarter-mile and stopped. He checked his text messages, hoping for something from Lori. An apology, maybe, though he wasn't sure he deserved one. In any case she hadn't sent anything. He considered texting her, but there was no doubt she'd be sleeping. Or in bed, but not ex
actly sleeping.

  Jake threw the phone on the passenger seat, got out, and slammed the door closed.

  He cringed and cursed himself for forgetting the sound it makes.

  At that point he considered getting back in the vehicle and heading home. He told himself Collins was nothing but a small-town brute. He should be working on the kid, trying to get him to see his dad wasn't worth the murderous wish, and that if he searched his heart he'd find something he wanted more.

  But a voice came from inside. It was the voice of Jake's own conscience, although it sounded like Motown—the last voice he'd ever heard.

  "Keep going."

  Jake picked his way through the woods along the dead-end two-track, not wanting to walk right down the center. If Collins came speeding back this way Jake needed to be well out of sight. He imagined his steps were noisy but felt certain the rain masked his movement.

  He checked his watch to find he'd been walking for ten minutes in the downpour. The temperature had dropped and his clothes were soaked through. Ahead there was a silhouette of straight lines and box formations on the other side of the trees.

  Mother nature doesn't make straight lines.

  Collins's pick-up truck.

  Jake crouched and moved closer to the roadside, watching for movement. There was none. He moved closer and crouched again. He was parallel with the truck now, back in the trees. No one appeared to be in the cab. Jake was about to approach the vehicle when he saw a point of light in the woods on the other side of the road. A flashlight. The light moved left and right, up and down. Searching. It seemed to be moving toward the truck.

  Jake waited a few minutes, expecting to see Darnell Collins emerge from the trees and get back into his vehicle. But the light stopped moving closer well short of the road, fifty or so yards deep into the woods. Strangely, the light seemed to rise high into the air, up into the canopy. It stopped after fifteen feet or so and was left pointing down at an angle, like a giant holding it casually at its waist.

  Jake crept across the road to the pick-up. The tonneau cover was up and the lift-gate open. The sugar beets were gone. A trail led away from the truck in the direction of the flashlight. He avoided the trail and moved toward the light on an arc through the trees, stepping carefully, slowly. The air smelled syrupy sweet.

  A body moved under the flashlight beam. Collins. He was chopping up and down with a violent motion. In his hand was a machete. The blade came down hard and Jake saw something big and round roll away.

  A sugar beet.

  Collins stopped chopping. For a moment he stood still, his breath vapor curling in the light. He walked over to the wayward beet and brought it back to the pile, most of which had been chopped into halves and quarters. The escaped beet got what it had coming in one solid whack.

  With that, Collins walked over to a ladder against a nearby oak and climbed up. He snatched his flashlight from the tree stand and came back down. He used the light to find the trail and headed back toward his truck.

  Jake stayed still until he saw the Ram's headlights come on. Collins pulled a three-point turn at the dead end, spraying light through the woods. He drove down the two-track back toward the main road. Once his taillights were out of sight, Jake went over to the sugar beets to investigate.

  It was a pile of sugar beets chopped to bits. Great.

  Jake climbed the ladder up to the tree stand. On the platform was an upside down five-gallon bucket with a heat seat on it. Screwed into a branch near the stool was a metal hook that'd been dipped in plastic. That would be where Collins would hang his bow during hunting season, starting in less than a week on October first in Michigan. The beets would be the bait pile where a deer stopped to eat before getting an arrow shot through it. Collins had chopped the beets in order to create a scent in the air, a sweet smell to lure in the unsuspecting animals.

  Jake felt like a fool. Darnell Collins was a bastard, to be sure, but likely only that. He needed to find the kid and talk with him. Show him his dad didn't deserve the awful fate he'd wished upon him. He needed to get away from Collins before the quickening made him do something he shouldn't.

  A flash of light caught Jake's eye.

  Headlights, and they were coming fast.

  Jake started down the ladder, slipped on a rung, and fell fifteen feet. His body slammed the forest floor like a sack. No breath. His ribs had to be broken. He blinked, but saw only purple and black as he writhed.

  By the time Jake staggered to his feet a flashlight beam was splashing around in the woods, coming down the trail. Jake ran five steps and fell flat on his face, having tripped over a freshly chopped pile of sugar beets. Mud covered his face. He wiped it away from his eyes. The flashlight beam was on him now, blinding him. He imagined a voice asking, "Who is that?" but as always he heard nothing.

  He shielded his eyes from the light and said, "I'm deaf. If you're speaking I can't year you."

  The light came closer. Jake squinted and tried to make out shapes, saw nothing but painful white. He came up to his knees, still shielding his eyes. The light was on top of him now. He looked down to see two boots, coveralls, and a machete dripping raindrops.

  The light pulled away from his eyes, down to the forest floor. Jake blinked and looked up. Darnell Collins stood before him. Jake could barely make out his face, but he could tell the man was talking. A feeling of helplessness racked him. What was he doing chasing a guy like this through a dark, rainy forest without the use of his own ears?

  He deserved the sugar beet fate he was about to receive.

  Collins squatted to Jake's level, his childlike face now clear and hate-filled. "You said you weren't DNR."

  "I'm not."

  "Smart boy, huh?" Collins said. "Institution boy. Eddie told me who you are. I didn't believe him. Thought you was having him on. You followed me."

  Jake nodded.

  "Saw your truck pulling out after me. Followed me the whole way here. Thought that was cute, you pulling past the turn off. Be hard to drive it home on four flats, though."

  Jake imagined his truck looking sad on four flat tires. He would drive it, though. He would drive it a hundred miles on rims just to get away from Collins, to get away from the quickening's surge.

  Collins lifted the machete blade to Jake's chin, tilted his head back with it. "Question is, why are you following me?"

  "It's a long story," Jake managed to say, feeling the sharp edge biting at his chin.

  "I ain't got that kinda time," Collins said. "I see you again, I'll use the other end." He pulled the machete away from Jake's chin and dropped the blunt end on his head like a hammer.

  25

  Sergeant MacDonald stood outside the front of Hear No Evil Tattoos with the edge of his hand against the plate glass, creating a bridge to shadow his eyes. He'd been by the shop once when Jake opened the doors a few years back, had popped in to see how things were coming along and maybe for a chance encounter with Elizabeth. No luck on the second point. Back then the shop had seemed an uninspired place with bare walls and one tattoo chair. Now the shop looked more inviting. Next to the chair was a padded stand and a toolbox reminiscent of the kind mechanics used, plus there was art on the walls, healthy plants here and there, and candles on the service counter.

  Still, it was a tattoo parlor, which meant just enough counterculture to make the old detective consider getting some ink. He smirked to think of himself with a mom heart on his forearm.

  Sergeant MacDonald knocked on the glass, waited a minute, and then remembered there's no way Jake would hear the sound. He called Jake's number and got voice mail.

  "Jake. It's Dan MacDonald. Looking to pick your brain about something. Give me a call when you have a moment... actually, I'm outside your building right now. If you get this message in the next few minutes come on down."

  Sergeant Dan disconnected the call, wondering if the message had been left in vain; how would Jake hear it?

  "Can I help you with something?"

  Ma
cDonald turned to the voice. A black man stood out front of the barbershop next door holding a corn broom. Ray Westerhouse. Sergeant MacDonald would always remember him. The two had met decades back when MacDonald was still a patrolling officer. There'd been a shooting and Ray lost his fiancée, an innocent bystander in the gunfire between rival gangs. MacDonald was one of the first cops on the scene, one of the three it took to hold Ray back when he arrived moments later. He recalled Westerhouse's rage as he attempted to break through the locked arms of the uniformed officers, recalled how quickly that same rage disappeared when Ray saw her lying there, dead. He went limp as a rag doll.

  "Looking for your neighbor," MacDonald said, gesturing to the tattoo parlor, the apartment above. "Know if he's around?"

  "If his truck isn't parked in the alley he's not here," Ray said. "What do you want him for?"

  MacDonald pulled back his jacket to reveal his badge, which was hanging from a chain around his neck.

  "I remember you," Ray said. "What do you want him for?"

  "Just looking for some of the kid's advice."

  "I'll let him know you stopped by."

  MacDonald nodded. He moved past the barbershop to the street corner and looked back. Ray Westerhouse had moved a trashcan to the edge of the stoop and was using a dustpan to collect the piled dirt. MacDonald turned the corner and entered the alley, passed by the dumpster, and came to the back door of Jake's shop. No truck to be found and the deadbolt was locked. He backed away from the door and looked up to see if any lights were on in the window above. It was a small pane of glass, likely the apartment bathroom. The lights were off. Next to the window was the faded old paint indicating the shop had once been Heritus Sweets. MacDonald's mouth watered to recall the nut tarts the old bakery had sold by the dozen. The owner had been a Lithuanian immigrant whose heart was bigger than his business sense. He gave away as many of his treats as he sold, particularly to the officers who patrolled the streets near his shop. That big heart ate him right out of his profits.