Rag Doll Bones: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

  “I should have taken Nicholas and left. I wanted to. A few times I’d started to say let’s go to a movie to give your dad a few hours alone, but I knew Denny would have gone into a rage.”

  Max imagined the man drunk, and getting drunker as his wife searched for any escape for her and her child.

  “When he sent Nicholas for the beer, I was relieved. I thought he’d drink until he passed out and everything would be fine. But then Nicholas didn’t come back. It was cold that day. Nicholas had left in his snow boots and winter coat, but he hadn’t taken his gloves. After I went to the store and found out he’d never been there, Denny went nuts. He drove to the arcade and screamed in George Kassum’s face. George is one of Nicholas’s school friends. George looked terrified. No one had seen Nicholas. Denny drove all over town like a maniac, squealing in and out of parking lots, driving a hundred miles an hour on the back roads.” Joan paused and closed her eyes. She put her fingers up to her lips.

  “Did you call the police?”

  Joan shook her head.

  “Not until the next day. I tried and Denny ripped the phone out of the wall. I had to go downstairs and borrow Mr. Shafer’s phone. He’s a vet on disability who lives beneath us. A nice man. He used to give Nicholas bubble gum. The police came out, but honestly, they took one look at our place and wrote me off. We’re poor. My husband’s a drunk. They know him at the station. Denny’s been brought in more than once. They figured Nicholas ran away. They wouldn’t blame him if he did. Neither would I, I guess.”

  She tucked her fidgety hands into her lap.

  “Do you think he ran away, Joan?” Max asked.

  She shook her head.

  “What do you think happened?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “I think someone took him,” she whispered.

  26

  Sid sat cross-legged on Ash’s bed, pulling at the fringes on a pillow. He gazed at Ashley’s backpack slung over the back of the chair at her desk.

  The desk was not a usable workspace. It was covered with paperback books, homework, cassette tapes, clothes not yet put away, and a scattering of pictures Ashley insisted she was organizing into a scrapbook despite the book itself never having made an appearance.

  The doll lay inside the backpack, and Sid couldn’t shake the feeling it sat in the claustrophobic little pouch, listening to them.

  “Why can’t we just call 9-1-1 from a payphone and report an anonymous tip? I mean people do that, right? They can’t tell it’s us from our voices.”

  Ashley shook her head. “Sid, you said yourself, your parents would tune you out if you mentioned weird stuff at The Crawford House. They won’t listen. If we don’t do something soon, that monster will get another kid.”

  Sid frowned and pulled one of the tassels free.

  “Hey,” she snapped, yanking the pillow away. “My Grandma Patty made that for me.”

  He looked at the tassel in his hand, shocked. He hadn’t even realized he was pulling on it. “Oh shoot, sorry, Ash. I swear I didn’t mean to.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, flinging the pillow across the room where it landed on a papasan chair. “By the time they do anything, it might be too late. We can go during day and set a trap.”

  Sid groaned and leaned back on her bed. His head hit the wall with a thump. “This sounds like a terrible idea from a scary movie. We go out there to set a trap, and two days from now our pictures are on the back of milk cartons.”

  “It only attacks at night,” she reminded him.

  “You don’t know that. Warren went missing during the day.”

  “I have a theory about that. I think he messed around in the woods after school. He and Travis were arguing that day. Maybe he didn’t want to go home, so he walked around in the woods. He lives like five miles from school. If he walked home, that would have taken him ages.”

  Sid crossed his hands on his stomach and stared at the glow in the dark stars attached to Ashley’s ceiling. He didn’t want to agree. The summer vacation he’d imagined when school let out had been swallowed by Ashley’s growing obsession with the monster in the woods. If left up to Sid, he’d pretend he’d never encountered it. And maybe they hadn’t. It had been so dark that night.

  “What if it’s not real, Ash? What if it’s like Travis playing an epic joke on us?”

  “Then who killed Simon? And who took Vern, Warren, and Melanie?”

  Sid sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Ashley’s dresser was covered in pictures of her mother and Grandma Patty. Sid had liked Patty too. She had called him Bear because he was Ashley’s best friend, and since she’d nicknamed Ashley Pan when she was a baby, she’d said it was only fitting Sid be Bear like in the Jungle Book.

  He liked the nickname Bear; it sounded strong, fierce. It made his size something powerful instead of embarrassing. Unfortunately, he made a better comparison to a teddy bear than the real thing.

  “I’ll go with Shane then. Or by myself,” she said.

  “With Shane?” Sid scowled, wishing Shane Savage would disappear. “Fine, I’ll go. But how are we going to trap it?”

  Ashley picked up a snow globe and shook it.

  Sid watched the tiny white flakes drift over a Christmas village.

  “I’m not sure, yet. I told Shane we’d meet him at the willow over at Denmore Park. We’ll make a plan there.”

  * * *

  “Are you serious, Max?” Jake demanded. “She’s not an abandoned puppy. She’s a grown woman with an abusive husband who’s probably roaming the streets with a shotgun as we speak.”

  “He doesn’t have a car,” Max said, knowing his comment would only infuriate Jake.

  Jake’s eyes bulged, and he sucked in his cheeks and bit down, his signature trying not to say something he’d regret expression.

  “You’ve gotta stop, Max. You’re not the hero, okay? You’re an English teacher at a middle school. You’re playing with fire and you know who’s going to get burned? Mom and Dad. Why would you bring her to their house? Why didn’t you just go to the police?”

  Jake was right, but Max’s own anger had arrived at the party, and it wouldn’t be quelled.

  “Jake, don’t put your bullshit on me. I get it. You’re stressed having to play domestic dad and all, but the man was ready to cave in her goddamned skull. Would you prefer I left her there to get her brains splattered on the kitchen table?”

  “No, Max,” Jake sighed, his anger giving way to disappointment. “I would have preferred you take her to the police and left our parents out of it.”

  He said nothing more, but he turned and gazed into the living room, where their parents sat cooing at the baby.

  “Hi, Eleanor,” Max grumbled when he noticed her watching from the kitchen.

  She gave him a sympathetic smile and a half wave.

  Max had taken Joan to a women’s shelter in town after first stopping at the police station so she could file a report against her husband. The officer who took photos of her face seemed busy and distracted, snapping the shots quickly and only half listening as Max and Joan described what had transpired earlier that day.

  He’d returned to his parents' house to find Jake, Eleanor, and the new baby. Jake had not been pleased to see him.

  Maria stepped into the hall. “Stop arguing this instant,” she scolded her adult sons. “Look at the beautiful baby boy in there. Do you want Matthew to hear his daddy and uncle fighting?”

  “Mom,” Jake muttered.

  “Mom, nothing,” she interrupted. “I’m grateful your brother brought Joan to us. He saw a woman in need, and he helped her. And he trusted us to help her too. I hope you will be so lucky to have such a compassionate son, Jake. Now both of you go play with that baby.”

  Max tried to engage with his new nephew, but his frustration at Jake’s comments got the best of him. After an hour, he excused himself with a fake appointment and slipped from his parents’ house.

  Halfway across town, h
e spotted Ashley Shepherd ducking beneath a large weeping willow in Denmore Park.

  He pulled his bike over and hopped off, following the path she’d taken.

  He found Ashley, Sid, and Shane Savage sitting at a picnic table tucked within the willow branches, as if they’d pulled the table into the tree canopy for cover.

  Something lay on the table between them, a doll of some sort, though it looked like something Miss. Cutler would have the kids make in home economics with its crude stitching and weird misshapen arms and legs.

  Shane glanced up and spotted Max.

  He grabbed his backpack and dropped it on top of the doll, his eyes sending a silent warning to his friends as he nodded toward where Max stood.

  Sid looked up and blanched.

  Ashley, ever the stealthy one, turned slowly and gazed at Max. Her expression revealed nothing. “Hi, Mr. Wolf,” she said.

  He watched her slide the bag from the table, and when she removed the bag, the doll disappeared with it.

  “What are you guys doing out here?”

  Ashley shrugged. “Hiding from Travis Barron.”

  Max nodded.

  He knew enough about Travis Barron to find the story believable, though he doubted its truth in that moment.

  * * *

  “Do you think he saw it?” Ashley asked after Mr. Wolf left.

  “Even if he did, he doesn’t know what it is,” Shane offered.

  “Neither do we,” Sid said, crossing his arms over his chest and looking irritated.

  “True,” Shane agreed, though his confirmation didn’t mollify Sid, who looked grumpily toward the branches Mr. Wolf had slipped through moments before.

  “Maybe it’s a voodoo doll,” Sid interrupted excitedly. “Like in Trilogy of Terror. What if someone made a voodoo doll of Vern to kill him!”

  Ashley cocked her head to the side. “Possible, but even so, figuring out the doll isn’t the priority.”

  “What’s Trilogy of Terror?” Shane asked.

  “I think the only way we can trap it,” Ashley continued, ignoring Shane’s question, is with bait.”

  Sid wrinkled his forehead.

  “Like earthworms?” Sid asked. “I don’t see how-”

  Ashley cut him off. “Not fish bait! Monster bait. With kids. With me.”

  Both boys stared at her with mingled confusion and horror.

  “No, no way,” Sid said. He uncrossed his arms. “You’re mental, Ash.”

  “There’s no other way,” Ashley insisted.

  “Okay, let’s say we try it. How would we use you as bait?” Shane asked.

  Sid glared at Shane, but Shane ignored him.

  “We find the birds,” Ashley explained. “That’s the key. Once we find the birds, I go into the woods, make a lot of noise, and ride like hell to The Crawford House. We rig it so I can run through the front door and jump out a window in the back of the house. As soon as I’m in, you guys secure the openings so he can’t get out. We call the police and say one of us fell and got hurt at The Crawford House. The police come and they find him inside.”

  “That’s a terrible idea,” Sid said.

  “It could work,” Shane mused.

  “And it could also not work. The monster could catch you and rip your throat out like Simon Frank’s.”

  Ashley frowned, but refused to imagine Simon dead in the woods.

  “He won’t catch me. I’m getting my bike in two days.”

  “You saved enough money?” Shane asked, face brightening. “That’s so awesome.”

  Sid cast him an incredulous look. “Are you both insane? This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard!”

  “You’ve got forty-eight hours to come up with a better one,” Ashley challenged him. “In the meantime, we’ve got to board up the other windows and doors at The Crawford house. Sid, you’ll have to steal more nails from your dad.”

  27

  “Max?”

  Max looked up from the bench where he sat watching two other guys stick fighting on the padded blue mats.

  Joan stood just inside the glass door, smiling hesitantly.

  “Hi,” he said, standing and striding over to her. “How are you?”

  He hadn’t seen Joan since he’d left her at the women’s shelter three days before. He’d spoken to her once on the phone to ensure she’d settled in, and she reassured him they were treating her well.

  “I hope you don’t mind my showing up like this. The shelter comes into town on Fridays, and I saw your motorcycle.” She pointed toward the window where his bike was parked near the curb.

  “No, it’s great. I’m happy you stopped in.”

  “Is this where you learned to use your stick things?”

  “Tonfa,” he told her. “That’s the name of the stick things. This is my dōjō. I’ve been practicing martial arts here since I was a kid. My parents wanted to minimize how frequently I was getting beat up.” 

  “You got beat up?” she asked, genuine concern in her eyes.

  “Not anymore,” he promised.

  Joan looked beyond him to the men on the mat. One circled the stick around his head and brought it to rest against the other man’s neck. They laughed and bowed to one another.

  “Seems like very peaceful fighting,” she said.

  “It’s less about fighting than mastering self-control. Though the sticks can come in handy when fighting is necessary.”

  “I remember,” she murmured, and her hand lifted to the yellowing bruise on her cheek.

  She looked different from the first day he’d met her. She had replaced her thinning blue dress with form fitting jeans and a purple t-shirt that read Go Bobcats in large yellow letters. She glanced down at her shirt and smiled.

  “Martha, the director at Ellie’s House gave me some clothes.”

  “You look nice,” he told her, and he meant it.

  She did look nice. She’d brushed out her long auburn hair, and it fell in a wave down her back. Her blue eyes looked brighter, the red mostly gone now.

  “I’m finished here for the day. Can I take you to lunch?” he asked.

  Across the street, several women left the Village Market, grocery bags clutched in their hands. They walked toward a blue conversion van.

  Joan saw them and she took a step toward the door.

  “I can drop you off at Ellie’s House,” he assured her.

  She watched the woman and seemed to consider his offer for another minute. “Okay, yeah. Let me tell Martha.”

  As Max gathered his gym bag, he watched Joan jog across the street, her hair blowing out behind her. A strand caught on the branch of a flowering magnolia tree and she laughed, batting at the branch as another woman joined her. The older woman smiled and helped Joan disentangle her hair. She plucked a pink blossom and pushed it behind one of Joan’s ears.

  He was struck again by how young she looked. Had he met her on the street, he would have pegged her for a college girl, bright-eyed and tackling a degree in elementary education or social work. She had the fresh-faced sparkle of a woman standing on the precipice of a transformation.

  Max watched Joan talking. She pointed toward the martial art’s studio, and the woman gazed at the building, a tiny furrow wrinkling her brow.

  He slung his bag over his shoulder and pushed through the door, waving at the women as he walked across the street.

  “Hi, I’m Max Wolfenstein. I thought I’d take Joan to lunch.”

  “You’re the man who helped her?” the woman asked, her eyes kind but weary. She had long silver hair pulled over one shoulder and wore an outfit not unlike Joan’s, jeans and a t-shirt advertising Kramer’s Auto Supply.

  “Yes. And thank you for helping her.”

  Martha nodded, glancing back at the women who’d piled into the van.

  “Joan, I generally advise against social engagements so soon in the process.”

  “Oh, it’s not like that,” Joan said quickly. “Max is investigating the missing children.”

/>   “Missing children?” Martha asked, eyes widening.

  “Yes, several from here in town, and I’m discovering others. Including Joan’s son, Nicholas.”

  “That’s terrifying,” Martha said, resting a comforting hand on Joan’s arm.

  Joan nodded and patted the woman’s hand.

  “I’ll bring her home in an hour, two at the most,” Max promised.

  “Please do,” the woman told him. “And I’m Martha Page. Nice to meet you, Max.”

  “You too, Martha.”

  He and Joan walked down the sidewalk.

  “Pizza?” he asked her after they’d covered half a block.

  “Sure.”

  “Uncle Leo’s makes a killer Hawaiian. They also have great subs if you’re in the mood for a sandwich.”

  “Nicholas used to say pineapple on pizza should be illegal,” she laughed.

  Max smiled.

  “I’ve always been a rebel.” He winked at her. “Have you talked to Denny?” He hated to ask, but couldn’t stop the question running through his mind.

  She tucked her hair behind her ear and frowned at the sidewalk.

  “No, Martha coordinated the delivery of a restraining order through the police in Mesick. I… I’m afraid to know what he’s thinking right now.”

  “He has no idea where you’re at?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “That’s good,” he murmured, pulling open the door to Uncle Leo’s and gesturing for her to go first.

  The hostess sat them in a half-moon booth near the salad bar.

  After they ordered, Joan wrapped her hands around her plastic cup of lemonade. “Have you found out anything more, Max? About the kids?”

  He sipped his tea and nodded. “I think so. A twelve-year-old boy went missing from Lake City three months ago. Another kid in the area was approached by a man in a black van.”