Walking Through Needles

by Heather Levy

  He knew right then Sam was gone.

  He made his way back to the kitchen as slow as possible.

  His father looked up from the paper in his hands, saw Arrow’s expression.

  “Where’s Sam?”

  Arrow directed his answer to Jeri, not his dad. “She’s not here.”

  “What do you mean she’s not here?” Jeri said, turning off the burner on the gas stove.

  “She’s not upstairs.”

  Grandma Haylin, up unusually early, sat at the table, chewing on a piece of crispy bacon and looking apprehensive.

  “I think she said something last night about having to get to school early to finish a project,” Grandma Haylin said.

  Arrow could’ve come up with a better lie in his sleep. His father wasn’t buying it either, but Jeri’s face softened.

  “That girl.” Jeri sat at the table, grabbed a couple of slices of bacon for herself. “You could learn a thing or two from her, Arrow. That’s why she’s on honor roll.”

  Arrow had lost any appetite the minute he saw his sock drawer, but he knew his father would be more suspicious about Sam if he didn’t eat breakfast. So, he sat and gobbled down two eggs, buttered toast, and three slices of bacon with his tall glass of milk.

  He ran back up to his room to get his backpack. Grandma Haylin caught him before he ran down the stairs.

  “Where’s Sammy?” she hissed, clutching his arm. “I know you know, and I just need to know if she’s run away or not.”

  “I don’t know, ma’am.”

  Grandma Haylin puckered her lips, thinking. “Will she be safe, where she went?”

  He wanted to look away from her pleading gaze, but he couldn’t. He could only assume Sam took the money and was on her way to Oklahoma City and then to Dallas.

  “Yeah. She’ll be safe.”

  She held onto his arm.“You didn’t hurt her, did you? It’s not you she’s running away from?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Grandma Haylin glanced down, her face looking as if she had finally determined something.

  “It was him, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  Arrow paused a beat. His breakfast felt like it was about to come up, but he needed Grandma Haylin to know the truth.

  “Yeah. It was him.”

  “I knew it.” She shook her head.

  She moved her hand up to his shoulder and squeezed hard.

  “Get yourself to school before you’re late.”

  Arrow knew she wouldn’t say anything to his father, but he also knew it wouldn’t matter. His dad knew Sam was gone and that Arrow probably knew where she went.

  He had to run most of the way to school and he was still five minutes late. At the end of the day when the bell rang, signaling the end of his last period, he didn’t look forward to walking home and seeing his father.

  Chrissy, Sam’s friend, was waiting for him outside of the school. She used to be weird around him, but she had warmed up to him some. Now, though, she didn’t look at all happy to see him.

  She shoved a note into his hand as she said, “Hope you’re happy.” Then she ran to her car parked in the circle drive.

  He opened the note and read Sam’s messy scrawl: You won’t have to worry about me or “it” anymore.

  Chapter 37: Eric, 2009

  The police cruiser pulled into the Oklahoma County Jail, and Eric thought for sure he would throw up. He had heard plenty from the news about the corruptness and inhumane treatment in the county jail and now he’d get to witness it firsthand.

  The two officers took him inside. It took a couple of hours before they officially booked him, every fingerprint taken along with his mug shot. He kept his eyes down as they walked him from place to place, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone.

  They moved him to a holding cell and left him there for a long time. Hours—he wasn’t sure. They didn’t give him any food or drink and his mouth was dry, his stomach twisted in painful cramps from hunger. The holding cell contained a dozen other men. It was hot, it stank of urine and body odor that threatened Eric’s stomach to rise up, and there was one metal toilet out in the open just in case that happened. There was no place to sit but for the crappy benches lining the walls. He sat, unable to get his bad leg comfortable. He saw a pay phone along one wall, but a man was using it, alternating between sobbing and yelling into the receiver.

  He didn’t know how, but he had fallen asleep slumped on the bench until someone nudged him awake. It was a male officer. Eric stood up, his left leg numb and throbbing with pain, and the officer cuffed his wrists in front of him.

  The cop walked him through several hallways to a small room in another part of the building. Detective Eastman was waiting for Eric in the room. His face was grave, his usual smile replaced with a tense jaw brushed with gray stubble.

  Eric sat at the cheap table across from the detective.

  “Would you like some coffee?” The detective motioned to his own. “Too damn early for me to be up.”

  Eric was thirsty enough to drink his own piss.

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Detective Eastman raised his coffee, nodded his head to a surveillance camera secured to the wall behind Eric.

  “Black, right?”

  Eric nodded, surprised the detective remembered.A moment later, an officer entered the room and set a small Styrofoam cup in front of Eric before stepping back out. He had to be careful with his hands cuffed, but he took a cautious sip, his gratitude for the coffee bordering on obscene.

  “We’ll get you something to eat soon enough,” Detective Eastman said.

  Eric set the cup down and held the detective’s stare.

  “I shouldn’t be here. This is a mistake. I didn’t kill my father.”

  “Yeah, we’ve been through all that.” The detective crossed his arms and gave Eric a tiny shrug. “The thing is Vickie Lang contacted us—said you paid her a little visit in Anadarko, threatened to hurt her if she kept talking to us about you.”

  There was only one reason why Vickie would tell lies about him. She knew what happened to his father, she knew who killed him. He didn’t know if she was protecting herself or Meredith, though. Hell, maybe she was protecting someone Eric didn’t know. Some drug dealer of Vickie’s who didn’t like Isaac coming around. It could be anyone, but he figured it was a man from the description of his father’s head wound. That would take force, and Vickie and Meredith were both small women.

  “We know you went to see her, Mr. Walker.” The detective paused, assessing Eric slumped in the chair, tired and starving. “Whatever threat you made didn’t faze her, I’m afraid.”

  Eric never had to clench his mouth shut so much as he did right then. He knew whatever he said was being recorded, would be picked over until it fit whatever narrative the police had invented.

  Detective Eastman took a slow sip of coffee and leaned forward.

  “You know, I’ve been struggling trying to piece everything together. This hasn’t been an easy case for many reasons. Frankly, your father was one sick piece of shit, and if I weren’t in this job and on this case, I wouldn’t blink twice at someone killing him.”

  The detective leaned back in the chair and Eric noticed the man’s white button-up shirt wasn’t pressed and starched like usual. There was a deep crease just below Detective Eastman’s neck and Eric couldn’t look away from it.

  “But, I am on this case and I have a responsibility to see it through, to look at all the pieces, even the ones that don’t seem to make sense at first. You see, I knew your father’s murder had something to do with your stepsister and Meredith Lang, but I just couldn’t get that last piece to fit and give me the full picture. But, it all came down to an unborn baby.”

  Color drained from Eric’s face. He felt it as his body went cold, every inch of it.

  “Yeah, we know about Samantha Mayfair’s pregnancy. I can only guess the child was yours, though it’s hard to
say isn’t it? Your father, it seems, took a liking to many girls, girls like Miss Mayfair and Miss Lang.”

  Eric sucked in his bottom lip, his teeth pressed hard enough to draw blood.

  “Looks like your father found out about the pregnancy and your sexual relationship with Miss Mayfair. He attacks you two—that I believe. But then you stab him multiple times, maybe hit him on the head with something heavy—a hammer? He dies and Miss Mayfair helps cover for you by helping you bury the body and driving your father’s Chevy into a pond. Is that how it went?”

  It was like Eric was back at the Blanchard farm, stuck in the middle of some wild bramble lining the woods, thorns pricking him and no easy way out. The truth was right there, edging its way to his lips, but he couldn’t say it.

  “No. That’s not what happened.”

  Detective Eastman glanced up at the surveillance camera and gave a short, strong nod. A minute or two later an officer brought in a familiar box, perfect for holding shoes but Eric knew what it really held.

  Detective Eastman took the plastic-wrapped pocketknife out and set it right next to Eric’s cuffed hands resting on the table. His pinkie finger brushed the plastic and he pulled his hands back.

  He looked down at the knife, the opalescent handle shimmering under the florescent lights. His head felt like a thousand-pound weight when he lifted it again.

  “Jeri Walker informed us that this knife belongs to you. Your father gave it to you on your sixteenth birthday. She remembered that very clearly. Guess her memory is better than Miss Mayfair’s. Or yours.” Detective Eastman loudly exhaled. “So, Mr. Walker, would you like to explain why you lied about owning this knife, how your father’s blood got on it, and how it made its way to a barn loft on the property where you used to live?”

  For a long time, Eric couldn’t exhale, his lungs expanded, full to bursting with words, words that could easily damn him, but they were the truth, or at least enough of the truth to be believable.

  “I—I was scared.”

  “Scared of what?”

  “That police wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Believe what?”

  “What I did.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I hid the knife. I was just a kid. I didn’t know what to do, so I hid it.”

  He should’ve thrown it in the river, but he had kept it, the only real gift his father had ever given him.

  “So, you stabbed your father?”

  Eric swallowed.

  “He was on Sam, he was going to kill her, so I had to—I had to do it.”

  “Why do you think he was going to kill her, Mr. Walker?”

  Eric sat, face numb, the scene of that day playing out in front of him, a projector beaming images on a waving white bedsheet—his father pinning Sam, Eric’s knife burning hot in his back pocket—all flashing and gone within seconds.

  “Mr. Walker, we have record of Miss Mayfair’s pregnancy but no record of the birth. What happened to the child?”

  Eric didn’t know what happened, not exactly, but he knew enough to tell Detective Eastman. Only Sam knew the entire horrible answer.

  Eric cradled his head, pressed his palms into his closed eyes to stop the tears from finding their way out of him.

  “Mr. Walker?”

  He couldn’t do this. Not this, not now, not ever. It would seal everything for him, for Sam, nail in coffin.

  “Mr. Walker, I need you to answer the question.”

  Eric lifted his head, stared at the detective straight on.

  “I want to make a call.”

  Chapter 38: Sam, 1994

  Sam watched Aunt Shelley finish the last of her large glass of red wine. She gazed down at her own untouched wine, which her aunt had procured for her because she was friends with the server at the small bistro-style restaurant. The two women had laughed and chatted as if Sam were invisible. When the server finally stepped away and silence settled over the two-top, Sam knew her aunt was digging for something to say to her. Sam bit the

  Sam had arrived at her aunt’s apartment late that Thursday night three days before, tired and hungry, her face stained from dried tears and eyeliner. Sam said little on the drive to Oklahoma City while Chrissy yapped the entire way about how it was a huge mistake to run away, how Sam needed to talk to her mama about her pregnancy and Isaac and figure things out.

  Her mama. Her mama was as blind to everything going on as Betty Woodland had become after her stroke. Isaac could say anything, and her mama would believe him.

  On the bus ride to Dallas, Sam had found a seat in the back, away from anyone else. A middle-aged brunette woman with kind eyes kept glancing over at her, her mouth parted as if she wanted to say something. Even after Sam tried to muffle her crying with her backpack, the woman remained silent, but her eyes seemed to ask, “Are you okay?”

  No, she wasn’t okay.

  Aunt Shelley took ten minutes to answer the security guard in the apartment building, the guard holding the phone and eyeing Sam like she was a homeless kid trying to break into the place. Her aunt didn’t come down to get her but gave permission for Sam to come up to her thirteenth-floor unit. Sam said nothing when Aunt Shelley opened the door to let her inside. Her aunt had taken one long, sleepy look at her and hugged her, her frosted hair teased into platinum cotton candy tickling Sam’s cheek.

  Aunt Shelley, sitting across from Sam, tapped her empty wine glass and ordered another pinot noir while flashing a quivering smile.

  “It’s really not a big deal, sweetie,” she said, patting Sam’s hand. “I had two in college. Super-fast—you don’t feel a thing.”

  Sam wasn’t dumb. She knew an abortion would hurt. She tried not to think about what her baby would feel.

  “We’ll go there after our lunch, okay? It’ll be fine.”

  “Okay.”

  Sam lifted the glass of wine. She and Chrissy drank a little peach schnapps at Ricky Stover’s house once, but they didn’t have enough to get drunk or even buzzed much. She drained the glass, the wine burning down her throat, and her aunt laughed.

  “You want another? Jenny’s cool.”

  Sam found the server, Jenny, flirting with the bartender on the other side of the restaurant. Jenny caught her eye and swooped back over with more wine for her aunt.

  “Sammy?”

  “No, thanks.”

  All the wine in the world wouldn’t numb her enough to make her forget what she was going to do.

  Aunt Shelley nodded and nursed her wine.

  That was one thing Sam loved about her aunt; she didn’t ask too many questions. She didn’t ask who the father was or how Sam had sex under her mama’s roof without getting caught. She didn’t mention calling Sam’s mama either, although Sam knew her mama was close with Aunt Shelley, her younger sister and only sibling. Aunt Shelley also didn’t ask what Sam planned to do after the abortion. Maybe she assumed Sam would go back to Oklahoma, which was the last place she wanted to go. She imagined staying in Dallas, living with her aunt and getting a job to save money for her own place. She didn’t want to think about what Arrow was doing back in Blanchard or how upset her mama probably was by now.

  They drove over to the Planned Parenthood after their lunch. The place was a small, red brick single-story building that looked nothing like a medical facility. At first, Sam thought they went to the wrong place until she saw the waiting room. It was filled with women, mostly young, some white, some black. Aunt Shelley filled out forms next to her, mumbling under her breath, and they waited two hours before someone called and ushered them to an exam room.

  An older nurse took Sam’s vitals, asking questions she wasn’t sure how to answer until she was asked to verify her date of birth. Aunt Shelley made a sudden coughing sound as Sam answered. The nurse looked at the form on the clipboard and back to Sam, a frown etched on her face.

  “Someone will be in to see you shortly,” the nurse said.

  As
soon as the woman left the exam room, Aunt Shelley gawked at Sam.

  “Why did you tell her your birth date?”

  Her heart raced. “Because she asked.”

  Her aunt groaned. “Didn’t you hear me in the waiting room? I told you what date of birth to say—the one I wrote down.”

  Before Sam could ask why, a woman entered the room. She introduced herself not as a doctor but as a PA, which Sam wasn’t sure what that meant.

  The PA looked at Aunt Shelley and asked to speak to Sam alone. Sam knew from her aunt’s thin-lipped scowl, so much like her mama’s, that she had done something wrong. She wanted to hop down from the exam table and run out of the room with her aunt.

  “Samantha,” the PA said once they were alone, “how old are you?”

  She thought about lying but she didn’t hear what date her aunt had told her. She recalled her aunt saying something in the waiting room, but she had been too absorbed with watching the nervous faces of the other young women, including one girl whose belly looked ready to burst open.

  “I’ll be seventeen next week.”

  The PA nodded her head with the answer and circled something on the chart she held.

  “Samantha, I know you came here for abortion services, but there’s a problem with that.”

  She guessed as much when the nurse hadn’t told her to get undressed and into an exam gown.

  “First, you would need parental consent for an abortion to even be considered at your age. The other problem is that we don’t perform those services here. We only refer patients to other places. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  She nodded, realizing tears were streaming down her face. The PA was telling her she was stuck.

  She stopped listening as the woman rambled on about referring her to a good prenatal doctor and, if she wanted, adoption services.

  Aunt Shelley drove them back to her apartment, her BMW pushing over sixty on the city streets every time she blasted Sam with a barrage of comments.

  “You should’ve listened to me. Now what are you going to do? You’ll have to drop out of school. How will you go to college? How will you get a good job?”