The Light at the End of the Tunnel

by James W. Nelson

  “Get’im up again!” Riley said, then advanced to where two of the men were holding the young man up. “Let’im stand alone!” Riley said, “And if you fall down again, buster, I’ll shoot your ass myself! No, we are not out here to set up a big drug deal for you. We are here to stop you. Now I’d like to introduce you to the mother of that young girl who died of a drug overdose last week—“

  “No! I—I—didn’t have anything to do—“

  “Shut the fuck up!” Riley said, “And don’t you dare fall down again!” Riley turned but didn’t say her name, “Your turn, ma’am.”

  “No!” the young man cried, “I didn’t do anything! Please!”

  With her purse hung from her right shoulder and resting against her left hip, Nicole stepped forward, opened her purse, pulled her Walther out, held it to the sky and advanced to within eight feet of the young man. She looked into his eyes. Nothing but fear there. No remorse for anything he had done. She cocked her gun, placed her left hand on the bottom of the handle and slowly brought it to aim at the young man’s face, just as the chaplain had done.

  She continued looking into his eyes. She wanted to see some emotion there, some…humanity. She saw nothing but greed and indifference. She felt her finger tighten on the trigger. She placed the sights on the top of his nose. She so wanted to end this worthless life…

  She pulled up slightly and peeled off the four rounds just as the chaplain had done. But then she stepped out of their set plan. She brought her little gun to bear on the young man’s face again, and held it there, staring at his face and thinking of all the pain she had seen and heard about caused by drugs and its pushers. The young man’s eyes looked like they would soon explode—then she jerked her gun down and emptied it into the ground between his legs. The young man collapsed on himself and a huge stink erupted from him. Everybody knew what it was and stepped back. They all knew that human emotion could stand just so much before losing that bodily function. All the men there were ex-military. Some had been interrogated and tortured as prisoners, and had brought their learned skills back to teach to others.

  After the last shell ejected from her gun, Nicole kept her cool and did what was necessary for the gun, then returned to the van and laid it on the carpeted floor, and brought both her hands to her face. She could barely believe what she had just done, and could barely believe even more what she had wanted to do. A few tears formed. She gasped, and leaned against the side of the van, then felt welcome arms around her, “My god, Radford. I wanted to kill him, and I enjoyed doing that.”

  “I did too, my dear.”

  Sadie arrived next, and put her hand on Nicole’s shoulder, “You did good, Nicole, it’s something we all have had to do at some point in our training.” She patted Nicole’s shoulder, “And there’s more. Just come and watch and listen to Riley.”

  Nicole gave a quick and extra hug to both her man and Sadie, then wiped her eyes, picked up her gun, released the slide, lowered the hammer gently, and put it back in her purse, then glanced at Sadie.

  “Come on,” Sadie said.

  The three approached to where the continuing stink began to intrude on their senses again.

  “Throw the water on’im!” Riley said.

  Two men used a three-gallon pail each. The young man, now not classy-looking at all threw his arms up, opened his eyes and looked around.

  “Get your ass up, buster,” Riley said. The young man stood, then looked at the eight people all around him, but at a distance away. “We are finished with you, for now, but if we ever get word again that you—and we have your name, address, phone number—what your first car was and where it is today—a whole pedigree on you, sonny—if we ever hear of your name again involved with drugs of any kind, well, you can ingest as much as you want yourself, but don’t ever sell again.” Riley hesitated, “If your name comes up again, we will be back, and next time we won’t miss. Am I understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” No arrogance or even a bit of class remained.

  “Good.” Riley pointed, “Over there about a half mile is a pond. You can wash out your slacks there—I wouldn’t drink the water, though—well, go ahead and drink it if you want to, as you’ll probably be thirsty about then—and, in about three miles in the same direction—or maybe it’s five—is the highway back to Phoenix.”

  The young man, his eyes wide, said, “You don’t know how far?”

  The innocent question caused Riley to laugh. Then, without answering, he turned, “That’s it. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 20 Baby Boy-Doe9

  After their self-improvement changes the first thing the chaplain and Nicole did was return to the hospital in Nebraska where Nicole had worked when the abandoned baby first arrived. The small hospital, St. Winston, in the small city of Wayne Ridge, had not received that many abandoned children, so it was easy to narrow down their search. And, thankfully, nobody at the hospital remembered the young nurse, Ms. Waters. Also, she identified herself only as the chaplain’s assistant and did not have to give her name.

  The important thing they discovered was that the baby, of course, was abandoned with no name attached to his basket, so was given the name, Baby Boy-Doe9. And then, as the child shifted from foster home to foster home, where no attachments were ever formed, no family gave him a name, either, or if they did, they returned the child to the system without sharing it.

  So, the name ‘Baby Boy-Doe9’ became attached to their quarry and was fairly easy to track. What surprised the two sleuths was the sheer number of foster homes the child had already been to and rejected from, an absolute guarantee that the child—like most any child bounced around in foster care—would grow up literally fighting the system that had failed him.

  According to the chaplain, for worst-of-the-worst criminal, Les Paul, fighting the system was guaranteed anyway, and, after originally sharing that name with Nicole, since he couldn’t absolutely guarantee identity of the child, he insisted they use only the name ‘Baby Boy-Doe9.’

  After the hospital they visited Family Services, and found their brand new private investigator licenses would help them, and speed things up, to a point. Then, after being certain of Baby Boy’s earlier foster homes, they made the decision not to visit any of them immediately, and instead went directly to the home of the family that had lost their mother at the Grand Canyon accident.

  There they met a stone-faced father with a sad story, which he began right at the door: “At first I thought it was just a terrible accident,” the man said, “After all, before I even met my wife she had scaled Mt. Whitney with a girlfriend, and, just before we met, she had—alone, for Christ’s sake—climbed El Capitan at Yosemite, her home state. So it’s not like she was some bumbler who regularly stumbled over her own feet!”

  The man was angry. The chaplain saw that, so would move slowly, “So what do you think happened, sir?”

  “I think that little bastard foster kid we had pushed her!”

  “A two-year-old.” Nicole said it as a statement.

  “Chloe, my daughter, was first to suggest it.” The man hesitated, and brought his hand to his mouth, and let go a sigh, then a swallow, then another sigh, “At first she loved that little boy…always holding him and teaching him things, and then she came home early from school one day—“ The man stepped back and swung the door wide, “Please, come in.” He gestured to kitchen chairs, “Would you like some coffee?”

  Both the chaplain and Nicole said, “Yes.”

  After the coffee was poured the man pulled his own chair, sat down, first sipped his coffee, then began, “Even at just seven years old Chloe has been a really smart kid, and very observant, and even though she loved that little—“ The man shook his head and tightened both his fists, “Bastard!—the little shit!—I’m just calling it as I see it! He murdered my darling wife! I have no doubt but I can’t prove a thing!”

  Nicole reached across the table and clutched his right hand.

  The man brought his left hand over and
clutched Nicole’s hand, “Thank you,” he said, then released her, “Anyway, Chloe was the first to suggest he also murdered my son.”

  Nicole gasped, “We hadn’t heard that!”

  “No,” the man said, “And of course it would not have gone into the paper as that.” Again the man appeared to almost lose control of his emotions, “No! The story that went to the media was that my son hung himself!—A nine-year-old! The police suggested—after investigating—that my son accidentally killed himself by playing around with erotic asphyxiation!—a nine-year-old, for Christ’s sake!”

  The man placed both his hands over his eyes, and gasped and swallowed several times. The chaplain and Nicole stared at each other. How wrong they had been about the tiny Les Paul’s capabilities. Nicole reached and clutched the man’s right lower arm, “We believe you, sir, and we are trying to locate this child, but we need to know more about, what…you think happened. You mentioned Chloe earlier.”

  “Yes.” The man lowered his hands and laid them on the table. Nicole again placed her hand on his arm. “Yes. Chloe came home early from school. She heard the boys in Tyler’s bedroom, and she knew that the boys didn’t get along.”

  “How so, sir?” asked the chaplain.

  “Chloe never really saw anything herself, but quite often Tyler told her about Baby Boy’s expressions when he thought nobody else was looking—a two-year-old! Conniving like that!”

  “Could you be more specific, sir, about the expressions?”

  “No, and Chloe really couldn’t either. For a long time she didn’t believe Tyler. But this one time when she got home early she said that Baby Boy had apologized to Tyler for playing with his computer, and Tyler accepted it.” The man withdrew his hand from Nicole and took a drink from his coffee. His face was coldly sober, “And the next morning we found Tyler hanging by his lariat. A Christmas present. It looked to me like Tyler had been strangled in his sleep, and then Baby Boy just drug him out of bed. And Baby Boy was sound asleep in his room.”

  “The police could have taken fingerprints—“ Nicole started to say.

  “Why would they?” the man snapped, “Why on earth would they—anyone—even consider a two-year-old capable of murder?” The man again sipped his coffee, “I didn’t either, and wouldn’t have, but then Chloe started sharing things she had seen over the months but had dismissed, like those expressions—just glimpses, you know, that the little bastard thought nobody but Tyler ever saw. She even feels responsible for Tyler’s death.”

  “Oh no,” Nicole said, “Work with her, sir. Take her to as many counselors as necessary to get her over this.”

  “I will,” the man said, and looked at the two of them. He appeared calmer than he had yet, as if sharing his story had helped, “And we are going to a counselor. Both of us, but neither of us has felt comfortable telling them what I just told you.”

  The man’s mouth smiled. His eyes did not.

  Chapter 21 The Barbie Dolls

  More time passed. Les Paul had reached the ripe old age of four and then some. Even at his very young age he had learned that he had to moderate his actions and for certain never let his true nature be known by any more than one member of the family. He somehow knew he had screwed up with Tyler and Chloe. He would be more careful, and he knew he needed to grow up a bit. It would help to again stay with one family longer than a few weeks. He learned that with Tyler and Chloe and their loser dad, so only was on his seventh family, not including his birth parents.

  This family had a boy, ten, and a girl, eight. He was in the girl’s room surrounded by her dolls. He wasn’t a lover of dolls but he liked putting the Barbie Dolls into compromising sexual positions with the Ken Dolls, and if he couldn’t find a Ken, or ran out, he would use one of the other Barbies. He didn’t in his young mind really know about sexual positions, but his hands did.

  Whenever he was in his foster sister’s room alone he would put all her dolls into every compromising position his hands could think of, then he would skedaddle out of the room to anywhere else and wait for his foster sister to discover the dolls, and who did she blame? Her blood brother. Her brother, of course, always denied doing it, and neither were willing to bring the matter to their strict parents.

  This time Les Paul didn’t hear his foster sister coming until she opened the door and stared at the dolls with the widest eyes he had ever seen on anyone.

  “You did this!” she shrieked, “Mom! Mom!”

  Mom came immediately, “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “Look at my dolls! I always thought my real brother was doing this, but I was wrong—it’s him!” She pointed.

  Les Paul was caught. There would be no getting out of it this time. He stood up and stood still…and began wondering about the thoughts and visions that began coming to him. He was lying on a steel table on a very thin mattress, his hands and feet were bound in chains, he couldn’t really move well…but he could see. Straight ahead was a large glass window. Behind it were several people sitting, like on a bleacher, because some were higher than others…and some looked familiar, and they all had strange looks on their faces, like they were mad at him—why would they be mad at him? He didn’t even know them! Then he noticed a man dressed in white by another window. Behind that window looked like tubes, and the tubes combined and ran into just one tube…to his arm! Where a needle was injected and taped to his arm! Then he saw a man in a suit enter, who looked familiar, and another man in black clothes with a white collar and white hair, and he knew that man too, but who?

  The man with the white hair came to him and opened a book and looked into his eyes, and laid his hand on his arm and began speaking—at least his mouth was moving, for just a really short time—then the man in the suit nodded to the man dressed in white, who did something with the tubes because liquids started moving…moving…he felt a roaring in his ears, like he was going fast, faster than he ever had, and faster, and faster, and faster…

  The scene ended.

  Les Paul felt so strange. What had just happened? Why would he see something like that as if he was thinking it? Dreaming? He thought about crying, maybe just screaming, like what used to get him the best attention, but, somehow, he knew, screaming and crying—this time—would not help. He was done with this family and he knew it. They probably wouldn’t even let him stay the night.

  He was right. The mother grabbed his arm, glared at him, and jerked him toward her, “What kind of monster are you? How would you even think of such a thing?”

  “He’s done it about ten times, Mom!”

  “Good Lord! Ten times?”

  “Yes! It made me so mad, and I always blamed my real brother!”

  The mother then escorted Les Paul to the boy’s room, “Son,” the mother said to her real son, “Watch this kid and don’t let him leave your sight. I’m calling your father at work.”

  A half hour later the father arrived. They installed Les Paul into a car seat in the back of their Sport Utility Vehicle, and the father instructed, “Watch him, son. When we get there, you stay in the SUV.”

  A half hour still later they arrived at the government office that dealt with foster children. The father removed Les Paul from his seat, and took him by the hand as they entered the building and walked straight to the correct office, where a stern-looking woman sat at a desk, “May I help you, sir?”

  For five minutes the father spoke, giving the main reason, and others, that this child could no longer stay at their home, and ended with, “Will we still get paid for this month? We are over half, you know.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  So the families got paid for keeping him. Good to know. Just one more card in his deck to use against all the people who were being so mean to him.

  Chapter 22 Cassandra at Four

  Cassandra had just passed her fourth year too, and had lost track of how many foster homes she had been in. Only her reasons for getting moved around were not behavior-related. Though never coming anywhere near bondi
ng with any of her families, she was well-behaved. She never caused trouble. If there was trouble with her foster siblings she would back away, go to her own room if she had one, and if she didn’t she would go to her own bed and crawl onto it and wait for further instructions, or sometimes would just wait for night and bedtime. Sometimes her foster sister, if she had one, older or younger didn’t matter, would look at her with big sad eyes.

  So, yes, Cassandra was well-behaved but she was not healthy. Physically healthy, yes, though slightly underweight and under height for a girl her age, but, basically, healthy. It was her mind that was not healthy. She wasn’t retarded by any means. She was bright, but she kept everything inside. She never spoke unless spoken to, and then just to answer. She kept to herself and never reached out, so much so that nobody reached out to her, either. The grownups and children in each family always looked so sad whenever they looked at her, that Cassandra decided that was just how it was. Life, as she understood it, was not happy.

  She had one thing, though, that she really liked, a Little Mommy Play All Day Doll. In her last foster home her eight-year-old foster sister had given it to her. “It used to talk, Cassie,” her foster sister had said, “It used to talk a lot, but it doesn’t anymore. Would you like to have her?”

  Cassandra remembered holding her arms out. She hadn’t planned to but her body had just responded on its own to such a kind gesture, “Thank you,” she said, and brought the doll against her as if a baby, and wrapped her arms around it, and the doll—in lieu of a human person—began to warm her. Wherever she went after that the doll went with her and rarely was out of her hands. If she wasn’t holding it she at least tried to keep it in sight. So, maybe she more than liked that doll, maybe she actually loved it. It was good to feel that emotion, even though she did not relegate her feelings to love. She yet had not heard the word ‘love,’ or, if she had, she had not linked the word to good feelings.