by C. E. Nelson
Trask flipped the picture of Libby over. He had written notes there – her hair and eye color, height, weight – and the contact information for her parents. He did not want to find out if their number would still be good.
Larry Stoxon sat cross-legged in front of Trask’s desk again. Trask had called for him, but now sat staring at a photo, saying nothing. Stoxon was about to ask if he should come back later, when Trask pushed the image across the surface of his desk, twisting it as he did.
“I’d like to get this image handed out to the people who live on either side of Purgatory Creek, upstream of Eden Prairie Road, and have it posted in the parks too. Have Minnetonka PD do it. Put a description of it on the front, and then see if you can get a number at Minnetonka PD where anyone with information can call. Dimensions are on the back of the photo. I know Minnetonka won’t be too happy about this, but tell them the image is only being distributed to a small area so the number of calls should be tiny. If you get pushback, let me know.”
Stoxon looked at the image. “A pink dinosaur?”
“Yeah. It was the constant companion of Libby Carlson.”
“The color will probably have faded considerably by now.”
“Good. Put that on there too.”
“I have arranged for a helicopter for Seton in two days.”
“Two days? Why so long?"
“The state patrol helicopters are being used north of Brainerd for the fires there, and the superintendent has loaned our helicopter to the governor. He will be touring the fire areas.”
“Are you shitting me? I thought that idiot wasn’t going to run again?”
“My sources tell me the man is uncertain at this point, depending on whether he can get the nomination for the Senate seat opening up next year. He has scheduled media people to accompany him on his tour.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Well, this may work out for us. It will give the water time to recede, and the ground may dry some. No rain is forecast.”
“OK. Have you told Pike?”
“Yes, sir. I do not believe Mr. Seton was too enthralled at the prospect. Anything else, sir?”
“No, thanks,” said Trask as he waved his assistant away. He surveyed the other items on his desk needing his attention – reports to complete, investigations to review, personnel problems to deal with – all of it now seeming unimportant. Libby was calling to him, Daniel mocking him.
Chapter 6
He was being bad. It’s not that he wanted to be bad, he just had no choice. Mama was upstairs sitting on the couch, watching television and drinking wine. She did the same thing just about every night. She was supposed to be watching him but she rarely checked on him once she started drinking wine, usually just yelling down the stairs that it was time for him to turn off the lights and go to bed.
He had tried wine before. Mama fell asleep on the couch one night, and he had come upstairs for a drink of water. He tried to wake mama, but she wouldn’t wake up. The glass of wine was on the table in front of the couch, and he was very thirsty, so he thought he would have a drink. The wine was a beautiful shiny gold apple juice color, and he was very thirsty, so he drank the entire glass at once. He wasn’t sure that he liked the wine after he drank it. It had a funny taste, not sweet like his apple juice, and it made him feel funny.
His house was built into a slope, the creek and adjacent lowlands behind the home where it was two levels, sliding doors opening onto a deck from the main level, a door below and just to the side of the deck allowing entry to the lower level. The yard sloped gradually away from the house toward the creek for fifty yards where it met the woods surrounding the creek. A swing set he used as a child sat in one corner of the yard, a sandbox close by. A line of trees ran up to the slope on each side of the yard, roughly ten feet across, separating the house from its neighbors.
Michael Little was supposed to be playing on his computer or watching television. It was what he did every night when his mama drank wine. He liked playing games on his computer; he was very good at it, but he was just too worried to play tonight. His favorite cartoon failed to hold his attention too. Michael walked to the window and looked out at the backyard in the evening light. There had been water in his yard two days ago it had nearly come up to the back door, but now it was gone. The rain had left leaves and branches in the yard, and the grass was still lying on its side, and his father said someone would come to clean the yard in a few days.
Mama told him that he needed to stay out of the yard until it dried. He asked how long that would be, but she had only said that she would know when it was time, and she would let him know. Michael liked to play in the yard, to run, kick his ball, try to catch butterflies, so he was not happy that he couldn’t be outside. But what was most upsetting to him was that he could no longer go into the woods. Mama had told him he might not be able to go into the woods all summer. This had made Michael furious and last night, when mama told him, he had yelled at her and refused to eat his dinner, and she had sent him to his room for the night.
But Michael wanted to go into the woods very badly. He had built a fort in the woods, just on the edge of where the woods met the weedy open area next to the creek. It was his secret place. Michael could sit in his fort and pretend that he was invisible, or that he was in a spaceship and flying to another planet like in his video games, or just play with his special toy he kept hidden there.
Michael quietly let himself out the back door, closing it behind him. The thick moisture-laden air outside enveloped him like a sauna, but he did not notice, he was running as fast as he could across the yard to the woods. The grass was slippery under his tennis shoes and he fell, landing on his butt, sliding through the grass. He got up, brushing off the back of his shorts, feeling they were damp, and then running again. At over six and a half feet tall, Michael’s strides were long, and he soon reached the woods.
Michael’s parents knew about the trail into the woods, but not his fort of large branches assembled in a ‘V’ shape over a piece of plywood he had found. They had walked the trail with their son, using it to get to the park when he was younger, letting him take the path himself when he had a job there one summer. His trail to his fort went in the opposite direction, not far, but not easily seen in the thick brush.
The receding water from the storm had left a greasy sheen on the leaves and debris, the ground soft underneath. His large shoes sank in the mud, deeper with each step, the mushy ground trying to grab his shoes and pull them from his feet. Broken branches, bent limbs, and newly deposited sticks of various sizes obscured his path, confusing him. Panic gripped the boy. Shadows were getting longer, hiding things, bad things, as Michael’s eyes darted back and forth at each sound, tears welling in his eyes. Maybe he should go home? He was perspiring now, the mosquitoes starting to find him, biting his neck and arms. And then, to his left, a dark shape. His fort.
The branches and logs he had used to make his A-frame fort had shifted with the movement of the water but remained in place, though all had received a coating of leaves and grass and smaller sticks and branches. A large dead branch blocked the opening to the fort, and Michael easily moved it to the side, but one of its branched poked him in the chest, cutting him. The boy ignored it; he was intent on seeing if his treasure was still where he had hidden it. Water remained on the ground here, filling low spots, Michael stepping directly into a puddle as he ducked to enter his fort, the water and mud below climbing above his ankle. He fell forward, trying to catch himself with his hands, but they only slid forward in the mud, and he landed on his side before his face hit the swampy floor. The ground refused to release his foot, holding it like a creature from below had reached up and grabbed it, and his ankle twisted as he fell.
The boy let out a yell and began to cry, the pain in his ankle intense, sniffing to slow his running nose. There was a strong smell here. He’d noticed as he approached, but now it seemed to fill his nostrils. It was a rotten smell, more than just the stirred-u
p decomposition of dead plants and leaves and drowned worms. Something dead. Sealed in the dirt and peat but now released. His stomach lurched.
Pushing himself up, he moved backward and sat, grasping his leg below the knee and pulling, the foot finally coming free with a loud sucking sound. It was dark in the fort, darker than Michael ever remembered, the debris sealing out much of the light. Michael had never been here at night. The darkness scared him. He slept with a nightlight. Crawling forward now, the mire oozing between his fingers, he moved to the back of the fort.
The roof of the fort sloped down as he crawled. He had used the trunk of a large leaning willow as the main support for the leaning logs and branches of his fort. The tree was dead, its bark gone years ago, its surface smooth. Reaching out with his right hand he found the surface of the tree, his hand sliding up the trunk as he rose from a squat, still on his knees, until the surface fell away. A hole in the tree. The top of his head pushing up against the tree, Michael’s hand moved inside of the hole.
He thought it was gone. Wet leaves had been packed into the hole by the water and rotting wood from inside the tree had fallen away creating a boundary to what was below. His arm went further into the hole, his fingers digging their way deeper until he felt the firm surface. His hand moved slightly further down the inside of the trunk until his fingers could wrap around his treasure, and he pulled it out. Michael brushed the debris from his prize, mostly by feel. It was too dark to see. Holding it to his chest with one arm he crawled back to the opening.
Cheryl Little struggled to a sitting position. Her hands were folded in her lap, her head down, eyes closed, looking like she was praying. There were voices, the television, lifting her eyelids an effort to let her see who it was. Jay Leno, no, she didn’t think so, she thought he had retired or been fired. She couldn’t keep track any more. The wine bottle on the table in front of her was empty, but there was a swallow in the glass and she threw it down, coughing as she nearly choked on the warm liquid. She grabbed the bottle by the neck and walked to the kitchen, setting the bottle and glass on the counter. Nearly midnight. She looked out the window over the sink, wondering if her husband Mark would be home. It was unlikely. He’d have golf or a business meeting or something to keep him out late. To make sure they spent as little time together as possible.
She walked down the hall towards the bedroom and looked down the stairs. A light was on. She should go check on Michael.
He’d been a challenge since he was born, needing attention 24/7 when he had been young. It did not take long to discover that Michael was “challenged” as one doctor put it. Autistic. They had tried to put him in school with the other special needs children but Michael had been too violent, striking an aide and hurting another child. He was big, six feet by the time he was ten, making it hard to find a caregiver who wasn’t physically afraid of him. But the boy had mellowed as he got older, new medications making a difference, and he had been able to sit still long enough to learn, especially with the help of games on the computer. At eighteen he had a summer job at the park, now working at a local grocery store.
The door going out to the backyard was open. She crossed the room to close it, stopping several feet short of the door. There was mud – everywhere. The pastel tiles showed a dark trail leading from the door to the hallway. Stepping around the mess, she shut the door and locked it, and then walked towards Michael’s room. The black pattern of footsteps was even visible in the dark shag in the hall. They continued to the bathroom and across the hall to Michael’s room.
Moving along the wall, Cheryl came to the bathroom door, reaching around the frame to turn on the light. More mud. On the sink, on the toilet, on the floor, where a towel lay. At least he had taken a shower. Avoiding the puddles, she tiptoed out of the bathroom and across the hall, slowly pushing open Michael’s door. His muddy shoes and clothes were dropped in a pile on the carpet. She stepped into his room and bent down, pinching his nearly black shirt on a fold, lifting it for a better look, aware now of the source of the smell she had noted when she entered the lower level.
Wrinkling her nose as she turned her head away, she dropped the shirt back in the pile. Michael was on his side, turned away from her, a sheet covering only his feet. He was in his Spiderman pajamas, his favorite, his dark hair matted down. She moved over to his bed, bending down to pull the sheet over him, stopping as she held it above him. Her son was holding something. A toy, plastic or rubber, bleached-out pink. Some kind of animal. Where had he gotten that? She placed the sheet on his shoulder and looked at the muddy clothes and floor. Lots of cleaning to do – tomorrow.
Chapter 7
Seton was in the passenger seat, looking at the map on his lap, trying to get oriented.
“Which way do you want to go?”
The pilot was looking at Seton as they hovered over 62nd, just east of Highway 101. It was a busy area, lots of traffic, and the pilot could already see cars slowing and swerving below, an accident in the making. They had traveled from Eden Prairie Road, going northwest about two miles and then following the creek as it bent in a slow turn to the south. When the creek reached the point where they were now, it split, one finger going south, the other northwest.
“Aw shit, I don’t know. That way I guess,” replied Seton, pointing to the southerly flow.
“Roger.”
The pilot kept the helicopter slightly to the east of the creek giving Seton a good view as they moved slowly over what was titled a ‘conservation area’ on the map. It was essentially lowland, with little but mud for fifty to a hundred yards on either side of the creek before trees and brush began to take over. The creek itself was tiny here; Seton figured he could jump over it, and he saw little in terms of erosion from the storm. It didn’t feel right, not if you wanted to bury a body in privacy, or for a small flood to have washed a body over two miles downstream. “Let’s go back, follow it back to Eden Prairie Road.”
“You don’t want to go down the other arm?”
“Nah.”
They flew back north, over 62nd, and then over Purgatory Park. This felt different. Here the low open areas still existed, but there was not as much space between the cover of woods and brush and the creek, maybe fifty yards at the most, and at some points the creek meandered next to the tree line. Park access was close to those areas, with walking trails he could pick out, some entering the park from roads surrounding the park. Probably not city trails, more like dirt paths shared by deer and residents. Seton made notes on his map and leaned out the window to get photos, quickly pulling his head back in after each shot.
He’d done this before, riding in a helicopter, but he didn’t like it. His father had taken him on a helicopter ride at Paul Bunyan Land in Brainerd when he was a boy. They flew over the area, the pilot pointing out the sights, Seton thinking how small the people and cars looked from the sky. But as the ride progressed, he could feel himself getting anxious, and a little dizzy. The roar of the engine built in his head, like a motorcycle approaching, and he shut his eyes, his hands holding the headphones tight. The vibration of the craft was like a small army of centipedes, working their way up his legs and then on to his torso until he yelled that he needed to get down.
The hum and vibration of the helicopter still bothered him, although not as much as the ride he had as a kid, the machines now a little quieter. What seemed to get to him more now was the height. He’d noticed when he went on rides with his kids at amusement parks, and even when looking out of windows on taller buildings, he got a little queasy.
They flew southeast, over 62nd, and then to Eden Prairie Road. This stretch was a residential area, homes bordering the creek on either side, not a lot of distance between the trees and brush and the creek bed. He’d have to drive the route, get out and walk, to get a good feel for how visible the creek would be from the homes. The washout had taken trees on either side of the creek here, laid them over the creek, the trees catching debris that came after they fell. Seton was pretty sure t
he body would have been south of here when it came dislodged after the trees went down. He had the pilot hover over the downed trees, took more pictures and made more notes. They’d have to check out those snags too. That won’t be fun. Happy to be telling the pilot they were done when they reached Eden Prairie Road, the helicopter rose and banked sharply to the north to return to the landing pad, Seton closing his eyes, now hoping he wouldn’t be sick.
“I’m home!” Cheryl Little came through the door from the garage into the kitchen, setting a bag of groceries on the counter.
“Hi, Mrs. Little,” called Lisa Thompson as she reached the top of the stairs.
“How did it go today?”
Thompson was their summer help for Michael. She would be a junior in college next year. A thin girl with stringy brown hair and a big smile, she was well over a foot shorter than Michael. The Little’s had been concerned about whether she could handle Michael, but she had established herself as the boss immediately upon meeting the boy, and he had taken to her. “Oh fine. We went to the park and read some. He’s into his video games now.”
“Of course. See you at the same time tomorrow?” asked Little as she put the groceries away.
“Yup. See you then.”
“Thanks, Lisa.”
The girl pulled her car keys from her pocket and had turned to leave when she stopped and turned back to Little, picking up a sheet of paper on the counter. “Oh, I almost forgot. The police were here today.”
Little was looking in the grocery bag for something she was sure she had purchased but did not seem to be there. She looked at Thompson. “The police?”
“Yeah. They dropped this off.” She handed Little the paper in her hand. “Looks kind of like the thing Michael has.”
