The Long Way Home

by Richard Chizmar

  “I’m positive,” he answered and looked away.

  Then it was Frank’s turn.

  “We appreciate you sharing as much as you have, Mr. Rutherford. I know this hasn’t been easy.”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “And we appreciate that, don’t we, Ben?” He looked at me and I nodded.

  “We’re almost finished here. I just have a couple more questions.”

  “Okay.” Rutherford took another drink of water.

  Frank made him wait almost a full minute, staring down at the open file folder, and then he said, “The investigating officers talked to some of your neighbors. Do you know a Joanne Cavanaugh and a Henry Straub?”

  “Sure. Joanne lives across the street from us and Henry lives down the block.”

  “You like them?”

  “I…don’t really know them very well.”

  “Let me read you something, Mr. Rutherford. This first statement is from Henry Straub.”

  Rutherford suddenly looked nervous again. He started tapping his finger on the table.

  Frank picked up the report and started reading. “‘Rich Evans is a good guy. He plays in our poker group and we golf together maybe two or three times a month. But his boy, Bobby, is another story. That little shit needs to be taken out to the woodshed and taught some manners. He came around the house a couple weeks ago and asked if we needed our leaves raked. I told him no thanks and you know what the brat said to me? He said, ‘C’mon, Mr. Straub, you know your wimpy ass ain’t going to rake them yourself.’ I couldn’t believe it. I told him I was going to tell his father, and he flicked me the bird and called me a ‘pussy’ under his breath. I slammed the door on him and started to call Rich, but my wife stopped me. Told me I needed to cool down first. I never did get around to calling him.’”

  Rutherford sat up. “You think Henry Straub had something to do with Bobby’s disappearance?”

  Frank shook his head. “We checked him out first thing. Bobby’s been missing for just short of seventy-two hours. Mr. Straub was at the Grand Canyon vacationing with his family from last Saturday until their return yesterday evening.”

  Frank looked down at the report again. “This next statement is from Joanne Cavanaugh. ‘Bobby Evans was a bully. I witnessed it time and time again. Whether he and the other children were riding bikes or playing whiffle ball or tag. He was bigger than all the other kids and he liked to throw his weight around. He was always teasing the other children and calling them names. I can’t repeat most of the words he used, but douchebag and wimp were two of his favorites.’”

  Frank stopped reading and looked up at Rutherford. His eyes glinted like razorblades in the fluorescent light. “Your wife wasn’t home the day Bobby Evans came to your house, was she?” The soothing voice was gone. “She was working at the florist shop when Bobby knocked on your door.” Frank shook his head in disgust. “Don’t even think about lying to me.”

  “Wha…what…?” Rutherford stammered, his face going pale.

  “Did he call you a pussy, Harold?” Frank slammed the file folder down on the table, scattering papers across the floor. “Or did he call you a wimp like all those other kids used to?”

  Frank was yelling now. Thick veins bulged on his forehead and neck. “Did he make fun of you, Scary Harry? Is that what happened? He teased you and made you his bitch and you finally lost your temper?”

  Frank got to his feet and Rutherford slid his chair away from the table, cringing behind it, trying to make himself as small as possible. He looked like a terrified child.

  “C’mon, you little wimp,” Frank taunted, walking around the table. “For once in your pitiful life stop being such a baby.”

  I reached out to stop him, but I was too late. Frank jerked his arm away and towered over a moaning Rutherford. He sneered and lowered his voice: “Your father was right about you, Harold, you’re nothing but a pathetic wimp.”

  Something in Harold Rutherford’s face changed then. I was staring right at him, and I saw it happen, and I still can’t tell you exactly what it was. The slant of his lips maybe. The shape of his eyes. The color of his skin. I honestly have no idea. But, I’m telling you, in that moment, he became someone else.

  Rutherford lunged to his feet and stood nose to nose with Frank. “You want to know what happened to that snot-nosed little brat?” he hissed. “You want to know where I put him when I was done with him?”

  I moved between Rutherford and the door, and snuck a glance at the camera mounted on the wall in the corner of the room. I hoped Rickstad was watching.

  Frank didn’t give an inch. He remained very still. “What did you do to him, Harold?”

  Rutherford smirked. “Want me to draw you a map, Detective?” A moment ago, he’d sounded like a whimpering child. Now, he sounded insane and angry and very dangerous.

  Frank didn’t budge. “Tell me what happened.”

  “‘Tell me what happened! Tell me what happened!’” Rutherford laughed and sat back down in the chair and crossed his legs. “If you say so, Detective. But you better grab your pen and paper. There were a lot of them.”

  Stunned, I found my voice. “A lot of what?”

  Rutherford looked over at me. “What do you know, he speaks!” He barked with laughter.

  Frank took a step forward. “Tell us what you did with—”

  “You can find Bobby Evans—or what’s left of him—in the culvert behind the old car wash. And, as a matter of fact, Detective, he did call me a pussy and I did lose my temper. I lost my temper big time.” Rutherford giggled.

  “What’s left of him…” I repeated, unsure I’d heard him correctly.

  “That’s right. I kept his head, Detective. For proof.”

  “Proof?” Frank blurted.

  “I’m sure your investigators have discovered the key to my storage unit by now. Take a look for yourself. I assure you the skulls are unlike any you’ve ever seen before.”

  “What in the hell are you talking—”

  “They’re not human, Detective. They’re monsters. Every last one of them. Go on and take a look. You’ll see.”

  “How many others?” I asked, my voice sounding far away.

  “I still remember their names, believe it or not.” He uncrossed his legs and grinned up at us. “Carlos Sanchez. Peter Block. Randy Matthews. Johnny McClernan. Doug Stiner. Katy Lotz. Frankie Stoner…”

  ****

  “You hungry?” Frank asked as I drove out of the station house parking lot three hours later.

  “I could eat.”

  “How about the diner on Fourth?”

  I turned left on Martin Lurther King Boulevard and merged into traffic. We drove across town in silence. The sky rumbled and raindrops spattered the windshield. I turned on the wipers.

  Frank finally broke the quiet. “Guy like that…nine victims.”

  I nodded. “We’ve seen it before.”

  “I dunno. This guy was…different.”

  I glanced at my partner. “You kind of liked him, didn’t you? In the beginning, I mean.”

  Frank ignored the question. “Rickstad talked to his psychiatrist. She said it was too early to know for sure, but it sounded like his condition caused him to split—that’s the word she used—into two different personalities. The first personality the victim. The second one the protector.”

  “What do you think?”

  Frank stared out the rain-streaked window. Just when I thought he wasn’t going to respond, he said, “Hell, I don’t know what to think. It sounds like a whole lotta bullshit, but what do I know?”

  The diner swam into view up ahead. I hit the turn signal. “I need coffee.”

  “I need a bucket of Coke and two servings of biscuits and gravy.”

  I turned in. There was an empty parking spot by the door. I pulled in
and turned off the car. “You really need to improve your diet, Frank. And start exercising more.”

  “Don’t start with me, Ben.”

  “You want to live long enough to see your kid graduate from college, don’t you?”

  “My kid’s a moron.”

  He had a point. Rain drummed a soothing rhythm on the hood of the patrol car. “Tennis, Frank. Just give it a try. We can play doubles.”

  He scowled at me. “You didn’t just say that.”

  We got out of the car and walked inside.

  ROSES AND RAINDROPS

  Another child was killed yesterday…

  And probably right around the time that it happened, I was sitting alone on my screened-in back porch, eating dinner and watching the storm break. A bowl of cabbage soup and a cheese sandwich cut into four neat squares. Too tired to even make it to the dining room table. I’m getting to be an old fart, can barely leave the damn house anymore. This weather makes me feel even worse, but I stayed out just the same and watched until the clouds drifted away. There might not be too many left for me. Not too much of anything left for me, so I like to see all I can.

  It wasn’t a big one. Not as far as storms go. Us folks here in Aberdeen, Virginia have seen much worse. I’d barely finished my soup and started on my sandwich when I noticed the wind letting up. Sure enough, a half-hour later, the rain slowed to a drizzle and the scattered line of baby evergreens along the north fence straightened their shoulders and relaxed, while tiny waterfalls cascaded down onto their lower branches.

  There hadn’t been much thunder or lightning this time around either. Nothing special or impressive about this storm. Just a steady, depressing downpour; the kind that creeps through the walls of your house and seeps right into your bones; the kind that makes you want to crawl into bed and pull up the covers even though it’s barely five in the afternoon.

  So, no, it wasn’t a big storm, especially not for Aberdeen. Lasted barely a handful of hours, and then went on its merry way up north toward our Yankee neighbors in Maryland. A lot of folks probably thought—hoped—we had gotten lucky this time. Escaped without harm. But a lot of folks ’round here are damned fools.

  We didn’t get lucky.

  ****

  Another child was killed yesterday…

  This is how it happened this time. At least, this is what Pecker Robbins overheard down at the Texaco station. Now, I know what they’ll say about ol’ Pecker. That he listens to Alex Jones and believes George Bush and Barack Obama are teaming up to send in United Nations soldiers to take away his hunting rifle. Far as I know, Bush spends his days on a ranch somewhere in Texas. And Obama? Well, I don’t much care for him either, but the man has been in office eight years now and not yet has anybody shown up at Pecker’s door and demanded his guns. So, I reckon he’s wrong on that.

  But not on this.

  The call came in to police dispatch as the storm was winding down. Megan Bradley’s husband, Jerry, told police that they had locked their daughter, Kassie, in her upstairs bedroom, soon as the storm first arrived.

  Just to be safe, you understand.

  Megan had unlocked the bedroom door shortly after six o’clock to serve Kassie her dinner and discovered the girl was missing. The frantic mother checked the bathroom, underneath the bed, and inside the walk-in closet before noticing the curtains fluttering in the breeze. The bedroom window was open.

  According to Pecker (who heard it from one of the responding officers), Megan called out for her husband—quietly at first, then shrieking with panic. At the sound of her voice, Jerry bounded up the stairs and stopped in the doorway, following his wife’s wide-eyed gaze to the billowing curtains. Without a word, the couple—maybe gaining strength from each other’s presence—moved forward together. Moved slowly, I reckon.

  I imagine their footsteps made whispering sounds on the plush carpet. Knowing that a story is only as good as the details, Pecker recounted to me how the officer had described Kassie’s bedroom. If I close my eyes, I can picture those poor parents inching past the pink-canopied bed, the neat desk with the laptop computer, her bookshelves lined with soccer trophies and those Harry Potter books.

  They stopped in front of the open window. I’ll bet the rain was louder there. Jerry reached out and pushed aside the soaked curtains—

  —and there on the drenched windowsill, they found a single red rose petal.

  According to Pecker, that was when Megan fainted.

  About an hour later, after the storm had ended, one of the responding officers found Kassie’s remains in the Bradley’s south meadow. Her tiny torso slit wide open from her neck right down to below her belly button. To no one’s surprise, her eyes and ears were missing, as were her fingers and toes.

  And, of course, just like all the times that had come before, they found—clinched between her crooked, little teeth—a single blood-red rose.

  ****

  Another child was killed yesterday…

  I know this whole business must sound strange to an outsider, but us folks here in Aberdeen have grown used to the storms and their deadly consequences. Over the years, we’ve learned to fear and loathe the storms with all our hearts, but we’ve also learned to accept them as part of our town’s undeniable heritage.

  Believe it or not, it doesn’t get talked about much anymore. Times are tough the world over, and people around here know that. They also know that Aberdeen has somehow remained untouched by many of the problems that plague today’s society. We don’t have drugs or poverty. Our schools are safe. The churches are full on Sunday. Property taxes stay pretty low. There are no terrorists training out in our cornfields. Hell, other than when the storms come, there’s no crime to speak of. Maybe some teenagers driving too fast, or somebody getting drunk and starting a fight. Maybe some mischief come Halloween night. But that’s small stuff. Folks here recognize that Aberdeen has somehow remained a prosperous place to run a business, to raise a family and put a roof over your head and three squares on the table every day. For a lot of folks, that’s all that matters.

  If you’ve got those things, you might tend to look the other way so that you can hold onto them. You might make excuses, become forgetful. You might even pretend.

  For years, I wasn’t one of those people. I often wondered to myself—worried to myself—about the small town I’d been born and raised in. Why had we been cursed to live in such fear? Why had none of us went and asked for outside help to solve this terrible mystery?

  Although I never had any children of my own to worry about—my Jenny couldn’t have kids and it never mattered a lick to me, no sir—the questions troubled me on many a long and restless night.

  Until nine years ago, almost to this very day, when—completely by accident—I stumbled upon the answer.

  It was the hottest summer I could remember—and believe me, I’ve seen a lot of hot summers—but by no means the driest. The storms hit us something fierce that year, and a half-dozen children were dead by mid-August.

  I was still working at the mill then, putting in my ten hours a day and collecting a legitimate paycheck. I miss those days. You spend your life looking forward to retirement, and then, when it comes, you spend the rest of your days wishing you could go back to work. Life is tricky that way.

  I remember it was a Thursday, just before quitting time, and Teddy Jenkins, the mill foreman, came into the shop and asked me to make a special delivery for him. He was all secretive about it. Whispered so the other workers wouldn’t hear him. He said it was important and he would have done it himself, but he had an anniversary dinner planned with his wife and there was no way in hell he could miss it (if you’d ever set eyes on Teddy’s wife, Mabel, you know he was telling the truth). Anyway, Teddy finished with a hearty pat on my back and said I was the only man he could trust to do the job right.

  The whole thing struck me as a little stra
nge—Teddy wasn’t exactly the complimenting kind, and if there’s one thing folks in Aberdeen can all agree on, it’s that he didn’t trust anyone—but I needed the overtime, so I obliged. Also, looking back, I reckon he’d played to my ego a bit. Sneaky bastard.

  I helped Teddy load my pick-up with a dozen sacks of mulch, another two dozen sacks of planting soil, and a stack of heavy two-by-fours. The bed sank a good few inches, and I wondered if my shocks would hold, but they did. Then he lowered his voice again—even though there was no one else around—and gave me directions to the house I was to deliver to. When he was finished, he made me repeat them. Twice.

  I had never seen Teddy act like this before. Usually, he was loud and obnoxious and full of bluster. As I climbed into my truck, I looked at his expression and realized something.

  He was scared.

  It was in his voice and his eyes and the way he moved. Teddy Jenkins was downright terrified of something.

  “Listen here,” he growled, coming up to my driver’s side window. “Drop the goods right there in front of the porch and be on your way without delay. These people pay good money and always on time. In return, I deliver their purchases and respect their privacy. You do the same. Understand?”

  Puzzled and unsettled, I nodded my agreement and was on my way.

  The evening was hot and sticky. The roads I was driving were rutted dirt, and bounced me around like I was riding on a rollercoaster at the State Fair. I waved to a little boy carrying a fishing pole on my way out of town, but the little prick didn’t so much as wave back. I just shook my head at him and kept on going. The truck radio was broken, so I had a lot of time to think during the drive, and my thoughts were dominated by Teddy’s bizarre behavior. I decided there had to be a simple explanation to the whole thing. Just had to be patient and wait and see for myself.

  I was heading west and deeper into the thick woodlands of the valley. I’d hunted the valley more times than I could count but always further south where the interstate ran. Same with fishing; the Hanson River held some of the finest smallmouth bass in the state, but all the best spots were located to the south. Dead west was a whole lot of dark forest and scrub brush. Despite having lived there all my life, it was new territory for me.