Set in Stone

by David James Warren

  He’s simply rocking, a creak on the floor from his weight. I swallow, and the sound is deafening in my head.

  “Hello, Detective.”

  I flash my light at him, just to make sure, and he puts up a hand, wincing. I hold it there. “How long have you been here, Leo?”

  He puts his hand down, like he doesn’t care about the light anymore, and looks at me, his gaze even. “Were you looking for someone else?”

  Everything inside me goes cold.

  “She’s not here.”

  I don’t react.

  “I mean, she was here, but…she left.”

  “Where is she, Leo?”

  He continues rocking. “She’s very pretty. I can see why you married her. And smart. A crime scene investigator? I looked her up while I was waiting for you.” He holds up a phone.

  It looks like Eve’s, with the Bones cover, from the television show, one of her favorites.

  Maybe she’s still in the house. I turn off the light, but as I do, I text 911 to Burke. Slip the phone into my pocket and hold up my hands. “Leo, this doesn’t have to end badly—”

  “Doesn’t it?” He stops rocking. “You didn’t have to come to Florida, did you? You could have left me alone. Believed me when I said I didn’t hurt those girls.”

  “Did you hurt Eve?” My voice doesn’t shake, but it wants to.

  He lifts his shoulders. “Dunno yet.”

  I close my eyes. Please, God. Open them. “Just tell me where she is, and you walk away. Just disappear.” I’m holding up my hands. “I won’t come after you.”

  He shakes his head. “I think we’re past that.”

  “We’re not—”

  “Johnny says we are!” He shouts it, a quick burst of heat and fury that grabs my bones and shakes hard.

  Then he sucks in a breath, shaking his head, as if he’s even scared himself. “Johnny says Eve knows too much. That she has to die. And Johnny knows what to do. He always knows.”

  “Leo—”

  “And that you have to be stopped.”

  He gets to his feet.

  My breath is in hitches. Worse, I’m not carrying.

  I hold up my hands. “I’ll stop, Leo, just—”

  He rushes me.

  Maybe I learned more than I thought from the MMA fighters in my gym, but I sidestep him, turn and pounce on him, slamming him into the floor. I try for a submission hold, but he’s fast and he rolls, throwing me off.

  When I crash into a table, a lamp takes the hit, shattering on the floor.

  I stagger to my feet, but he’s faster. He takes me down and sends a ringer into the side of my face. I see gray, but I’ve got him by the throat, and I pull him down and slam a left into his jaw.

  He headbutts me and now I’m fighting blind, blood in my eyes, pain dissolving through my face. But I don’t let him go.

  I’m never letting him go.

  He’s my only connection to Eve. So I curl my legs around him and continue to beat his ear even as he does the same to me.

  My head is ringing, and he’s grunting. And then, behind the rush of pain and adrenaline, through the thunder and onslaught of rain, sirens pierce the night.

  He hears it too, and pushes off me, finding his feet.

  I do the same. “Tell me where she is.”

  “You’re not taking me,” he says, his eyes hot. Then he picks up my fireplace poker.

  Aw. “Put it down, Leo—”

  “I didn’t kill those guys in the jail.” He lunges at me, and I slap it away.

  “Yeah, then who did?”

  “Johnny.”

  Right. He lunges again, and I grab the poker and pull him in, slamming my elbow into his face. His nose explodes and now we’re both bloody. He goes down and I pounce on him, and sure, he’s bigger than me, but like I said, I’m not letting him go.

  He’s trying to pull me off, but I have him in a choke hold.

  Somehow, he’s grabbed the poker.

  He slams it against my head, and the world turns white.

  Next thing I know, I’m on the floor.

  And Leo is on top of me, the poker against my neck.

  Again, I’m drowning, the last of my air squeezed from my lungs.

  I’m struggling, but with my head spinning, I got nothin’.

  Leo’s not moving, and another ringer to my jaw has me nearly out.

  But I refuse to give up. I get my hand around a shard of the broken lamp.

  I’m all about adrenaline. Instinct.

  I swing the shard into the side of Leo’s neck, deep.

  He reels back, his hands going to his wound.

  I’ve hit the carotid.

  He falls back. Pulls the impalement from his neck, slaps his hands over the wound.

  It clicks in, then.

  I don’t know where Eve is. No, no—

  Rolling to my knees, I scramble over to him, put my hands over the gush of blood, trying to seal it up. “Leo, where is Eve!”

  His face is whitening, and he’s lost his anger.

  He’s afraid. I see it in his eyes, and now I am too. “Eve. Tell me where she is.”

  His mouth opens. Blood spittles out. “Johnny took her.”

  Oh, God. “Leo—where did you take her!”

  Voices, and my front door bangs in. “Police!”

  “Here—I’m here!” I shout. “Get a bus, now!”

  “C’mon, Leo.”

  He looks at me, blinking, almost in disbelief. “Johnny did it. He takes what you love.” His face crumples. “He takes everything.”

  What? “Where did he take her?”

  Leo’s eyes widen and he takes one last breath. “Home. He took her home.” Then he’s gone. I grab him by the shirt. “Leo, stay with me!”

  Burke is on his knees next to me, reaching for the wound, trying to help. “What happened?”

  Leo is unresponsive, his blood a lake on my wooden floor. Burke takes his pulse, puts his hand over his mouth. “He’s gone, man.”

  “No, no—give him CPR.”

  “He’s got no blood to circulate. It’s done.”

  I stare at him, and slowly pull my hands away. They’re shaking, and there’s so much blood, from him, from me, the room is helter skelter. I sit back, trying to breathe. “Maybe it was a bluff. Maybe she’s okay. Maybe—”

  “Who?” Burke asks.

  I lean against the wall, just needing something to hold me up. I look at Burke. “Eve. He took Eve.”

  19

  “He said he took her home.” I’m standing in the great room of Danny’s house, the sky ravaging the yard, the lake violent as it throws itself on shore.

  I’m drenched, bloody and injured and I don’t care. Because Eve isn’t here.

  “Rembrandt, you look awful. You need to get that contusion looked at,” Bets says, but I glance at Danny and see I have an ally.

  He’s nearly white with horror, especially after Burke has briefed him on what went down at the house.

  “Bets,” he says. “Let’s give the guys room to think.” Danny puts his arm around her. “Maybe make some coffee.”

  I know it’s just so she’ll have something to do because I’m not sticking around here long enough for a cup of coffee. And I’m not going to the hospital either.

  The police searched my house—no sign of Eve. Not that I expected any, but it took up time while I gave my quick statement to Burke.

  While I called Danny to see if Eve had indeed, come home.

  I followed up his no with a look-see for myself, stymied.

  The only home we’ve ever known is the one Leo died in.

  Burke hands me a towel for my now swollen nose. It contains ice and I hold it there while I think. He took her home.

  I look at Burke, then. He’s as wrecked as I am, bloodied from both Leo and me, his eyes red, and I can tell he’s worried.

  Once upon a time, remember, he was married to Eve. And while they never went down that road in this lifetime, I know he loves her.


  “What if he means my home,” I say suddenly. “You know, because of the bodies.”

  Danny has come to join us, and now frowns. “What bodies?”

  “We found five more Jackson killer bodies in Rembrandt’s backyard a few days ago, all of them Jackson murders,” Burke says.

  “But I never lived there. It hasn’t been my home since—”

  “Since those bodies were found, about ten years after your brother went missing.” Danny says. “Your parents moved to Florida.”

  I look at him. “What bodies?”

  “It was the biggest news item in the decade. And it got picked up again when a body of another missing kid was found in the lake where your brother was, well…”

  “Left. I get it.”

  Danny is thinking, and I can see the old cogs moving. “I remember that Booker was beside himself. He’d caught him dumping your brother’s body. He’d been investigating five other murders, the boys’ bodies still missing, and when this body was found, he was furious.”

  Five other kids. I look at him.

  “The guy who killed your brother—Donald Simmons—was doing time in Stillwater, and we went to get him, and we took him to the lake. Then we drove the road where your brother was taken, trying to get him to confess to the other murders.”

  “Why,” Bets says from behind us.

  “Because serial murderers like to return to the place of the crime,” I say quietly.

  She looks a little horrified.

  “What does this have to do with Rem?” Burke says, and I can tell he’s getting impatient.

  “You know that serial killers have groupies, right? Groupie boards? And Michelangelo Stone’s case was the biggest to hit our state in years, and it got replayed in the press over and over. Maybe Fitzgerald was on one of those boards. Maybe he lifted Rem’s address from there,” Danny says.

  “Maybe his dumping of the bodies had nothing to do with our fight in Montrose, and everything to do with a crazy memorial to the killer he admired.”

  Bets chimes in. “Like flowers in memorial at highway accidents.”

  “Get a squad out there,” Danny says to Burke, but he’s already on the phone.

  And I’m headed to the door. But Danny grabs the keys off the counter. “I’m driving.”

  Burke has his squad car, but I hop in with Danny. He’s out of the driveway before Burke leaves the house.

  Never mind the speed limit.

  I’m silent in the darkness.

  “We’ll find her,” Danny says, and I glance over. His knuckles are nearly white on the steering wheel. I wish he’d added the word, alive.

  The rain pelts the windshield, the wipers on full, a harsh rhythm as we fly past Excelsior, toward Waconia. The pavement is shiny and slick, but the truck is heavy and we flatten out as we leave the city limits.

  It occurs to me then, “Why was Booker on my brother’s case? It’s outside the Minneapolis city limits.” I don’t know why this question never hit me before.

  “It’s because the first victim was in the city limits, a boy about ten. Simmons drove an ice-cream truck, and would target kids, then follow them, and kidnap them—you don’t want to know this.”

  I probably don’t, but I’ve read enough of my brother’s case to understand the rest. “I don’t remember an ice-cream truck the day Mickey went missing.”

  “He’d taken the decals off his van, but he’d been in town earlier that day. That’s how Booker connected him.”

  Right. What Danny doesn’t know of course, is that I have no recollection of any of this.

  “Did he ever confess to the other murders?”

  Danny nods. “Yes. I thought you knew all this.”

  I say nothing. “Hurry, Danny.”

  He cuts west on 41, then hits Highway 5 and I’m counting the miles.

  We pass Lake Auburn and the last development and then hit the countryside, farmland, occasional homes, open fields, barns.

  A crackle of lightning fractures the sky, followed by the low roll of thunder. The swift and brutal memory of Eve in my arms as we huddle under the table hits my chest and I just barely keep from crying out.

  Please. God.

  It’s more of a primal instinct than a real prayer, any faith I had scrubbed out of me with my brother’s death. But I’m desperate.

  I see the lights circling, turning the night blood red as we approach my house. The sky crackles again, and I spot the barn, the old house, a broken windmill, the blades stripped off.

  Danny slows, and pulls in.

  There are only two cars here, two men out with flashlights. One is staring through our sagging front door. The other is standing near the yellow tape in the field, still a working crime scene.

  I get out, oblivious to the rain and run up the porch, into the house.

  The officer turns and I say, “Chief Stone,” and move past him. “Eve?” I check the kitchen, then our small family room, my father’s empty den, then run upstairs.

  I stand in my childhood bedroom, looking down, watching as lights splash through the yard. More cops arriving.

  She’s not in the bathroom, or my parents’ room or the closet. Or, even, Mickey’s room. The memory of him catches me as I poke my head in. Hey Rem, can I go with you to the lake?

  I can’t be here.

  Please, let this not be the place my wife dies, too.

  Downstairs, I hear voices, and I find Burke talking with the first cop. “She’s not here.”

  “We’ve got guys in the field, but we don’t see anything fresh.”

  My stomach drops. Fresh.

  “Like a grave? What do you think—that he killed her and buried her? Oh man—” I push past him, out to the porch, and then to the yard and grab my knees, just trying to breathe.

  Lightning again, and it illuminates the barn, the open door, shuddering in the breeze. Darkness lies inside.

  I let out a breath, and head toward it.

  “Rem, wait!” Burke is behind me, but I ignore him. Maybe deep in my bones I know, already.

  Or maybe it’s just my fear. I push the barn door aside, and it screams on its old hinges. The place smells of oil and grease and dirt and a thousand hours with my father fixing my old Porsche, my first real love.

  He takes what you love.

  I stand in the middle of the barn, the rain pounding on the slats of the roof. “Eve.” It’s not a shout, just a breath.

  The lightning flashes again—the storm is roiling up—and in the flicker of light, I see it.

  Something shiny and gold in the wooden floor and packed dirt.

  I walk over and pick it up.

  Her necklace, the one with the heart charm. The one her father gave her for her sixteenth birthday. I close it in my palm.

  Eve.

  “Rem?”

  “I need a light,” I say to Burke, and he hands me a flashlight. I take it, my hand shaking because even in the darkness, I can see signs of a struggle. The dirt kicked up, the mud on the floor.

  Footprints.

  “Rem—” Burke reaches out to me, but I push him away and follow the steps.

  The barn used to house our few dairy cows, a horse, a pen of goats.

  Stalls that my father eventually filled with auto parts.

  “Rembrandt—”

  “Shut up!” I reach the stall.

  Hands are on me, grabbing my arms, but I break away, fall to my knees and crawl over to her.

  She’s laying with her back to me, her beautiful red hair grimy and wet, tangled. Her shirt is ripped in back, as if he had a hold of her and yet she got away.

  “Eve?” I reach out to her, and Burke has stopped trying to intervene. Her body is limp, and I roll her over.

  I know bodies after the life has left them, the feel of them, boneless yet unbearably heavy, their spirit departed.

  Eve’s body is leaden.

  Her face is ashen, bruising on her neck, and her eyes are puffy and bruised.

  Closed.

>   Oh. God.

  “Eve,” I say, and I can feel myself fracturing. Strange, I’ve delivered terrible news to dozens, maybe a hundred people in my career, and I’ve never really understood how the realization of our news travels over them.

  See, in my original life, my true life, we never truly embraced Mickey’s death. And Ashley, well I still haven’t accepted it, if I’m honest.

  I pull Eve to myself, just trying to hold on. And when I pull the twenty-dollar bill from her staged, frozen grip, I know it’s no use.

  Eve is gone.

  And so am I.

  20

  They say I picked her up, and clung to her, held her in my arms, tried to breathe life into her. They say I guarded her body, even after the EMTs showed up, refusing to hand her over. They say Burke and Danny, who were also wrecked, had to wrestle her away from me.

  They say I didn’t speak for hours, even after they took me to the hospital to check my head. I had a concussion. I didn’t notice, not with my world already fractured.

  They say I’ll be okay, someday.

  They don’t know me.

  He takes everything.

  Leo’s words are an anvil in my head as I stand at the window, staring out into the yard. It’s still raining.

  Behind me in the kitchen, Bets is busy, cleaning up after the funeral reception. It’s what she does, tragedy becoming a task she can manage with food preparation, funeral arrangements and thank you cards.

  Burke and Shelby are still here. Shelby is trying to figure out if she should appoint a new chief. Maybe Burke.

  I’ve destroyed his plans to retire. Fate, at work, course correcting, again.

  Danny is helpless, frustrated, and doesn’t know what to say to me after he found me on the dock last night, in the rain, staring down at the murky lake water.

  He didn’t say what he was thinking, what I was thinking.

  This is not my life.

  Eve doesn’t have a gravestone yet, but we buried her beside Ashley. I stood at the edge of the draped hole—they make it look like it isn’t a cement box they’re going to seal her in—and stared at Ashley’s white stone.

  Her handprint is crafted into it, tiny, brave, permanent.

  I wanted to press my own into it, remind myself that she was real. But I didn’t.