A Killer Harvest

by Paul Cleave

  Dr. Hatch runs some basic tests, and after fifteen minutes tells him he can leave once his mom arrives. They shake hands good-bye, with Dr. Hatch applying only slight pressure so as not to hurt him, and then he disappears. Joshua returns to the window, but gets in only a minute of staring before a nurse with a pair of glasses so large they almost reach her hairline walks in and hands him a note. “This was dropped off for you last night, sweetie,” she says, and her smile stays on her face as she watches him unfold it. Then she winks at him. “Apparently the girl who dropped it off was quite pretty.”

  He reads the note. Hope you’re doing okay, Boy Who Used to Be Blind. I’m really sorry I took you down those tracks . . . and I’m sorry I told Mrs. Thompson what Scott did to you. I’m not going to school tomorrow, so maybe if you want to, you can call me. I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk to me again, or if you hate me. I feel so bad and it’s all my fault and I want to crawl into a cave and hide. But I would like to talk to you if you want to. Here’s my number in case you lost it. Olillia

  He traces the smiley face with his finger. He hates the idea that she’s blaming herself.

  “Can I borrow a phone?” he asks.

  “When we’re done here,” the nurse says. “Now let’s take a look at those bandages.”

  She removes them one at a time, examines the cuts, cleans them down, and re-dresses them. His left hand still requires a bandage, but his right hand and knees she covers again with plasters. She checks his head and cleans around the lump that’s still painful to the touch. She’s in the process of finishing when his mom shows up. She asks how he is, and he tells her the same thing he told Dr. Hatch. The nurse finishes, winks at him again—a wink that’s magnified by her glasses to become the biggest wink he’s seen since being able to see—and tells him to be careful today, and then Joshua changes into the clothes his mom brought with her while she waits out in the hall. He almost forgets about the note from Olillia, and has to go back into his room to fetch it from the pocket of the borrowed jeans when they leave.

  “You’ve heard about Uncle Ben?” she asks him.

  “Doctor Hatch told me,” he says.

  “Hungry?” she asks.

  “Starving.”

  They walk to the cafeteria. It’s a different policeman outside his door today from the one last night, a guy who walks with small, jerky movements, as if his joints are made of tin. The policeman doesn’t make any conversation along the way, but he does eye everybody suspiciously, as if they could be the person who attacked Vincent Archer. When they reach the hospital café, Joshua orders a bowl of muesli and some fruit and an orange juice because they don’t have the one thing he really wants—a breakfast burger. His mum has no appetite and orders only a coffee.

  “Here,” she says, and reaches into her handbag. “I got you something.”

  She hands him a small package. He unwraps it. It’s a new phone. He remembers his old phone and what Scott did to it, which makes him think of Scott and his last moments. He tries to push the image from his thoughts. He leans across the table and hugs his mom. “Thanks,” he says.

  “Now tell me more about last night,” she says. “I want to know what Detective Vega had in mind.”

  His breakfast shows up while he’s telling her. The muesli tastes like cardboard but he’s so hungry he eats it anyway. His mom has to constantly blow across the surface of her coffee to cool it down.

  “I think I should have gone,” he says, when he’s given her the details. “I would have been okay.”

  “You would have, until you weren’t,” she says. “That’s what happened with your dad.”

  “It wouldn’t have been like that, and I might have been able to help.”

  “I don’t want you going to that house.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve already told you why. Now finish your breakfast.”

  He finishes his breakfast and his mom finishes her coffee. There’s a bunch of reporters outside the main entrance, so they take the staff entrance out into the parking lot behind the hospital. The police officer drives them to the police station with the same robotic movements he had when walking. His mom leaves her car at the hospital. Joshua sits in the backseat, switches on his new cell phone, and is happy to see it’s half-charged. He unfolds the note from his pocket and copies the phone number into the phone. His mom bought him a SIM card too, and he slots that in. The phone finds the network, and he composes a short text.

  Hey, Talking Girl—it’s Josh. I’m doing okay. Talk later?

  It’s only a couple of minutes to the police station. He’s been here before, but he’s never seen it. It’s a concrete block with windows that’s as wide as it is tall, and it looks like it might have taken longer for the architect to find his pencils and ruler than to actually design it. From the outside he counts nine floors. It looks dirty, as if all the exhaust from the passing traffic has stuck to the sides of it. A gate rolls to the side so they can enter the parking lot behind it, then the police officer leads them upstairs to a room where Joshua’s lawyer is waiting.

  She introduces herself as Natalie White. Natalie has a thin smile and short dark hair and expertly applied makeup. She looks like she’d fit in with the people he’s seen on the covers of entertainment magazines. Her hand is warm when he shakes it and she asks him if he needs anything, and he tells her he’s fine. The room is four concrete-block walls. Half of one is taken up by a mirror. Joshua suspects the building’s architect was the same guy hired to do the interior design. He also suspects someone is on the other side of that mirror observing them. There’s a table set up with two chairs on each side. There’s a video camera on a tripod in the corner. His phone vibrates in his pocket, but he doesn’t check it. He sits next to the lawyer, and his mom drags one of the seats around so she can sit next to Joshua.

  “Are the police going to charge him with anything?” his mom asks. “Do they think he killed that boy?”

  “Joshua is just here to give a formal statement,” Natalie explains, “but let’s see what they say before we plan for things we don’t need to plan for. Remember, Joshua, don’t answer anything too quickly. If there’s a question I don’t like, I want to be able to interrupt. If there’s something you’re unsure of, you say nothing. If I don’t like what you’re saying, I’ll tell you to stop. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s important that you really do get it, Joshua.”

  “I get it,” he says.

  The door opens and Detective Vega steps in. She’s carrying a cup of coffee and she looks tired. Her clothes are wrinkled and there are bags under her eyes. She sits opposite him and his mother and his lawyer.

  “How are you feeling this morning, Josh?” Vega asks.

  “I’m fine,” he says.

  “Can I get you something? A drink maybe?”

  “I’m good,” he says.

  “Okay, okay, good. Well, then let’s go over everything that happened yesterday, shall we?” she says. “Joshua, I want you to start by telling me why you decided to walk down the train tracks.”

  “I told you all this yesterday.”

  “I know you did, but yesterday you were suffering from a concussion.”

  “Which means anything he said yesterday can’t be—”

  Vega puts up her hand to interrupt. “I know what it means, Counselor, and that’s why we’re here this morning, to go over everything again.”

  “What does it mean?” Joshua asks.

  “It means you weren’t in a fit state of mind yesterday to be giving statements,” his lawyer says.

  Vega ignores her. “Okay, Joshua, why don’t you tell me what happened yesterday, starting with why you took those train tracks?”

  He tells her everything he told her yesterday. He tells her about leaving school, about meeting Olillia, about walking the train tracks. Occasionally Vega will jot something down. He tells her after Olillia left, Scott chased him, and he tried to defend himself but didn’t know
how. He slows down, as if by holding back the story it will end differently, that if he doesn’t reach the point where Vincent Archer arrived then perhaps it doesn’t have to have happened. Only it did happen, and again he can see Scott’s face at the moment he knew he was dying.

  “Tell me what happened at school,” Vega says. “Concerning your altercations with Scott Adams.”

  “What altercations?” his mom asks.

  “Joshua?” Vega says.

  “There weren’t any altercations,” his mom says.

  “Mom,” he says, looking up at her. “It’s okay.”

  “I want a few minutes with my client,” his lawyer says.

  “It’s okay,” Joshua says.

  “Joshua—”

  “It’s really okay,” he says, and then he tells them about yesterday. The shoving. The can of soda. The sawdust. He’s embarrassed as he tells them. His mom looks upset.

  “I was going to ask Uncle Ben to teach me how to fight—at least that’s what I was thinking before I . . . you know, hurt him.”

  “He doesn’t blame you,” Vega says.

  “You’ve spoken to him?”

  “No. But I know him well enough to know he won’t blame you in any way.”

  “Okay, Detective,” his lawyer says, “Joshua has given you a statement and, as you just said, Detective Kirk doesn’t blame my client. Joshua has done nothing wrong, so if there’s nothing else, it’s time we wrap this up.”

  “There is one more thing,” Vega says. “I’m hoping Joshua might be able to help us with our investigation.”

  “In what way?” his lawyer asks.

  “We believe if we take him to Vincent Archer’s house he might see something that can help identify who we’re looking for.”

  “I don’t see how he could identify anything or anybody at a house he’s never been to, belonging to a man he’d never met before.”

  “He might be of great help, and we still have a killer out there we need to find.”

  “No,” his mom says.

  Everybody turns to look at her.

  “It will be completely safe,” Vega says. “We’ll have plenty of—”

  “I said no.”

  “I’m happy to do it,” Joshua says.

  “Joshua, I said no,” she says again.

  “You want to tell us why?” Vega asks.

  “Perhaps give me a few minutes alone with Joshua and his mom,” Natalie says.

  Vega stands up. “I’ll be back in five.”

  “You want to explain your objections?” his lawyer asks, once Vega has closed the door behind her.”

  “I’m not going to expose Joshua to the danger of visiting the house of the man who tried to kill him when the police don’t understand the connection between that person and this other person who showed up yesterday. I also don’t want Joshua seeing something and the police department creating a whole new context for it, and suddenly Joshua is facing charges for something he didn’t do.”

  “I understand your concern,” his lawyer says, “but I think there’s an opportunity here to help the—”

  “It doesn’t matter what you think,” his mom says, and he’s never heard her talk like this before. “All that matters is that I’ve said no.”

  “It’s your call,” his lawyer says.

  “And I’ve called it.”

  Natalie knocks on the door to let Vega know they’re done. Vega comes back in and sits down.

  “The answer is still no,” his lawyer says.

  “I don’t see why,” Vega says. “What’s really going on here, Mrs. Logan?”

  “What’s going on,” his lawyer says, “is that jail has its share of innocent people because things were taken out of context. Lives have been ruined when the police misread the evidence.”

  “That’s not happening here.”

  “Can you honestly sit there and tell me innocent people have never ended up in jail?”

  “I’m not here to debate the injustices of the system,” Vega says.

  “Well, you should. Every cop should. Every time a jury finds somebody not guilty, that’s somebody the police believed to be guilty, and somebody’s life they’ve tried to ruin because they didn’t get the facts straight. Until the police are held accountable for arresting the wrong people, that will never change, and do you want to know why that will never change?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” Vega says.

  “If the police were held accountable then nobody would ever get arrested. You’d all be too scared to do your jobs,” Natalie finishes.

  “You’re discussing one thing when I’m trying to discuss another,” Vega says, “and by doing so you’re blowing this way out of proportion. Joshua can help us by visiting the house. Don’t you want us to get this killer off the streets?”

  “That’s a manipulative question, Detective. You know better than that.”

  “We’re not the enemy here,” Vega says.

  “I’m sorry, Detective, but my client has given you an answer, and it’s no.”

  “Sorry isn’t going to help the next person this guy hurts,” Vega says.

  “That won’t work on me either, Detective. You have your job to do and I have mine. My client is tired, and yesterday was a long day for him. It’s time for him to go home.”

  FORTY-NINE

  The same policeman who drove them to the station drives them back to the hospital so Joshua’s mom can retrieve her car. They don’t make any conversation on the way. Somebody must have tipped the media off that Joshua was no longer at the hospital, because they’re all gone. When they get to her car, the policeman follows them back home.

  “I really wanted to help,” Joshua says, staring out the window. They pass a flattened hedgehog, and up ahead is another. He wonders if they made a pact.

  “And what if something happens?”

  “Like what?” he asks, turning towards her. “There’ll be plenty of other officers there.”

  “People have been dying and getting hurt all because somebody else wants revenge,” she says. “We don’t know what this guy wants, or how crazy he is. I don’t want you getting involved.”

  She keeps looking ahead, eyes on the road, not willing to even glance at him.

  “If this guy wanted to hurt me, he would have done it yesterday,” he says.

  “If he wanted to help you,” she says, “he wouldn’t have left you on a set of train tracks to get run down.”

  “Dad used to say the world was full of good people willing to do nothing.”

  “Your dad is dead, Joshua.”

  He feels like jumping out of the car at the next set of lights and walking the rest of the way.

  “You’re upset with me?” she asks.

  “No,” he says, but he is.

  “It sounds like you’re upset with me.”

  “I’m fine,” he says, but he isn’t.

  “I want what’s best for you.”

  “I know,” he says.

  “You’ll understand one day.”

  He’s not sure he will. His phone vibrates. He had forgotten that it went off earlier, but he leaves it in his pocket, not wanting to read the message in front of his mom.

  “You’re wrong,” he says.

  “About?”

  “About me understanding one day.”

  His mom says nothing.

  “I’d have thought you wanted this guy found so you could thank him. I’d have thought . . .” he says, then stops talking. He focuses on what he’s just said. He looks at his mom. She doesn’t look back. An idea is forming. He scrambles to get hold of it. I’d have thought you wanted this guy found so you could thank him.

  “We never spoke about school,” his mom says, changing the subject. “Why don’t you tell me more about your day?”

  I’d have thought you wanted this guy found so you could thank him.

  “Joshua?”

  Why would she not want to thank him? He said a moment ago he would never understand
, but that’s not true. He’s making sense of it.

  “Are you still awake over there?”

  “You don’t want him found,” he says.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The man who saved me. You don’t want him found.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she says.

  “That’s what this is about,” he says. “It’s not that you think I might be in danger, or that I’ll see something the police will take out of context and blame me for, it’s that you do want to thank him, only not in person. You want to thank him by not helping the police find him.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Joshua.”

  “You don’t want him found.”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Because he saved my life, and that makes him a hero.”

  “A real hero wouldn’t have left you on the tracks.”

  “He couldn’t have known a train was on its way, and anyway, maybe he didn’t leave me on the tracks. Maybe I stumbled back onto them.”

  She says nothing.

  “Aside from that, I think you approve of what he did. You think we’re all better off with this guy out there because he took a really bad guy off the streets.”

  “So what if that’s what I think?” she asks, taking her eyes off the road for a second to glare at him. “Having somebody out there ridding us of these monsters, that’s a good thing, Joshua. If he’s done this before, and somebody else had given him up, then he never would have been there yesterday to save you. Right now you’d be laying out cold and dead on a slab in a morgue, maybe you’d be in pieces, and I don’t think you really get what it’s like for me knowing how close that came to being a reality. You could have died, Joshua. I remember what it’s like being your age. You feel immortal. You think stuff like that can’t happen to you, but it can, and it almost did. This man, he saved your life. We have to pay it forward. We have to do our best to make sure he’s around to protect the next person who’s in danger.”

  Joshua isn’t sure what to say. It’s almost like this isn’t his mom anymore. Has she always felt this way? “We don’t know if he was following me, or Vincent Archer, and we don’t know why.”