A Guide for Murdered Children

by Sarah Sparrow

  Perhaps he was meant to become Death itself.

  His attention drifted to the photos pinned on the wall:

  A blurry image of Sarabeth Ahlström (he’d written Miss Shrinking VIOLET above it) from her LinkedIn profile, poorly printed on his antiquey HP . . . Deputies Lydia Molloy and Daniel Doheny (TROY and MAYA-oh-my-a!!!), scissored from an article in the Macomb Gazette covering the inauguration of the new Cold Case unit . . . and a yearbook photo of Renée Devonshire (win-win WINSTON!!) that he’d found online. The playmates from the Meeting who once elicited such affection were poison to him now. But he needed them—so went the incomprehensible logic of an incomprehensible being—if he was to live.

  To live!

  For he had come to believe their deaths would act like toxins, in the manner that pathogens of certain snakes, fish and plants can be titrated and absorbed by human beings, allowing them to survive a condition that would be fatal without such intervention.

  2.

  Renée was still druggy when the sheriff arrived. (“Medicated, but to the minimum,” as the doctor put it.) The suspect had “decompensated”—completely broken with reality. Owen thought that an interview would be futile but he had to try. He brought along Ruthie Levin, an investigator whose specialty was the forensic interview. She was skilled in speaking to juveniles.

  She’d been temporarily moved from a padded safety cell to a thick-glassed, sunny room with carpet and sofa. Instead of a hospital gown, she wore the pajamas her parents dropped off. Owen was startled by her appearance. She looked nothing like the girl he’d glimpsed in the back of the squad car that day at Mount Clemens High. She had purplish blotches on the skin above her breasts that one of the RNs said were most likely caused by a reaction to antipsychotics. Still, they reminded him of the skin eruptions of dying children he’d met at Adelaide’s hospital.

  She smelled like something that was dying.

  “Good morning, Honeychile.” He thought it was best to use her nickname. “I’m Detective Caplan—and this is Ruthie Levin. We’re here to talk with you for just a little. Is that okay?”

  When she didn’t respond, he nodded to the investigator.

  “Hi! And thank you for seeing us today,” said Ruthie. “I know it’s not easy being here. And the first thing that’s so important to say is that no one’s upset or angry with you, okay? We just want to get your side of the story. You know, I’ve been doing this a long time and if there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that there’s always two sides of a story. And we’d very much like to hear yours.”

  “That’s right,” said Owen. “We’re not here to judge.”

  “We just want to know your side. And we’re very happy to have a chance to sit with you today and just listen.”

  They waited awhile but she was silent. Just when Owen was about to try a different approach, Honeychile whispered, “Winston was kilt.” She stared at the floor, making it easier for the colleagues to communicate by a semaphore of glances, urging or cueing each other to push forward or hang back.

  “Who killed him, Honeychile?” said Owen. He didn’t think he had anything to lose by cutting to the chase. “Do you know who killed Winston?”

  Ruthie discreetly raised her hand, telegraphing him to move slower. “We’re trying to find out who hurt Winston,” she said. “And we think you can help. How did you know where we would find him, Honeychile? Where we could find Winston? Because thanks to everything you told us, we did find him—and that meant so very, very much to his mom. We really want to thank you for showing us where he was.”

  “They put Winston in the water,” said Honeychile.

  “Can you tell us—do you think you can tell us how you knew that?” she said. “That he was in the water? Can you tell us how you knew that, Honeychile? Did someone tell you? Or did you see it? Did someone tell you that Winston was in the water?”

  After a moment, Owen said, “Were you there when they put Winston in the water?”

  If his eyes weren’t playing tricks, he could swear that more splotches were appearing on her calves and forearms, like flowers opening in slow motion.

  “Honeychile kilt wrong one! Honeychile the biggest loser,” she said, and began to cry.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” said Ruthie, daring to put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. Honeychile was oblivious to the gesture.

  “He was a mean, nasty boy but did not kilt Winston.”

  “Who was a mean, nasty boy?” said Ruth.

  “Boy at skwool. Boy she kilt.”

  “Why did you kill the boy at school?” said Owen.

  “Honeychile kilt him, not me!”

  “Okay,” said Ruthie. “And who are you? Can you tell us who you are?”

  “Winston.”

  “Do you know why she killed him, Winston?”

  “’Cause she think he kilt Winston,” she said angrily. “But it was the bad man who kilt him.”

  “Who was the ‘bad man’?” said Owen, powering through despite Ruth’s caution. He sensed they’d come as far as they would today—or possibly ever. “Can you tell us about the bad man? Was he alone?”

  “I saw woman,” she said.

  “Was Honeychile with the man?”

  “Honeychile not with him,” she scowled.

  “Did you know her? Did you know the woman that you saw?” said Ruthie.

  “Woman had wings!” said Honeychile.

  “Wings?” said Owen, looking impatiently toward Ruthie.

  “Like angel,” said the girl, her breath becoming labored. “But Honeychile she fail! I going to be punished on train! Porter going punish me! Me and Winston s’posed to kilt him—but Honeychile kilt wrong one . . .”

  She sobbed, then screamed.

  As the sheriff and his colleague stood, two males nurses rushed in to subdue her.

  3.

  The Task Force gathered in the conference room for a midmorning coffee.

  Sitting there with his “kids”—he’d called them that from day one and now laughed at the irony—the detective experienced a cognitive dissonance. From all appearances, things looked, felt and seemed normal, though nothing could have been further from the truth. Instead of dissipating, the dream Willow was trapped in grew more real by the hour. He thought of the end of The Shining, when Jack Nicholson vanishes into a group photo taken on Independence Day, fifty or sixty years before (“You have always been the caretaker,” says the spooky bartender), and fantasized himself entering the mural that he painted on his apartment wall. Dixie would wonder where he’d gone and, when she came to look for him, wouldn’t even notice his haunted face staring out at her from one of the windows of the train.

  You have always been the Porter . . .

  “Daniel,” he said. “Let’s go over what you remember from that day.” It was really Troy whom he was asking, but Willow still couldn’t bring himself to use the name. “Start from when your father told you to borrow the lighter fluid.”

  The deputy shrugged and went blank-faced. “Daddy asked us to go to Ebenezer’s. I just remember being on our bikes.”

  “Do we know what Ebenezer’s been up to? Does he still live in the area?”

  “He’s in a lovely community outside Harrison Township,” said Lydia, with a slight smile.

  “Go and talk to him,” said Willow.

  “He makes his home in a quiet little village called Erin Grove,” said Daniel.

  “It’s a cemetery,” said Lydia. “Tractor accident, ten years ago.”

  “A very grave situation,” said Daniel.

  “You’re both fuckin’ hilarious,” said Willow, unamused.

  Suddenly, he thought: What was the point of all this? Of chasing actual clues and Persons of Interest, of sifting through evidence . . . What was the point of a traditional “investigation”? Wasn’t the arrival of Troy and Maya supposed to m
ake Lydia and Daniel—wasn’t it supposed to confer upon the whole freak foursome some kind of omniscience? For chrissake! These were dead children who’d dropped down from God knows where, like the supernatural hammer of Thor! Weren’t they supposed to simply know the identity of their killers? And if they were supposed to know, why hadn’t the deputies made any headway? Willow wondered if it was something he was doing—or not doing—that was creating obstacles, impeding their flow. He felt like an inept counselor lost in the woods with two frightened scouts.

  He decided it was all of a theme, in this world and any other: he was failing again. He had always failed and now he was failing in the sacred task entrusted to him. And, as in times of challenges past, he wanted out.

  “Can either of you expand upon the process or method of how exactly the tenants—how the children reach their moment of balance?” He still chafed against the essential phrase, enunciating it with a measure of sarcasm. “Do you think you can help me with that?”

  “It just comes,” said Lydia. “Annie said it’s more of a feeling than anything else. She said that one day, you just know.”

  “But what if you don’t?” said Daniel, rhetorically. “What if that ‘feeling’ never comes? Personally, I think something’s gone wrong. Because by now we should have known who killed us.”

  Bingo, thought Willow.

  “I’m not sure that’s true,” said Lydia meekly.

  “And what about Dabba Doo?” asked Daniel, continuing to build some sort of ominous case. “In a few months—if he ever comes back—that means he’ll have been coming to the Meeting for a year! And from what the Porter said—the Guide said it too!—that isn’t possible.”

  Willow wandered over to the corkboard. Staring at the hit parade of evidentiary pinups, he had deep thoughts—though not about the Rummer case. Instead, he asked himself if he felt like a drink. He didn’t, not really . . . though maybe it was time to surrender, surrender to alcoholism and concede it was booze that provided Willow Wylde his very own moment of balance—a custom blend of revenge, symmetry and justice that would never let him down, one day at a time, until his trudging-buddy pallbearers (all those he’d abysmally failed) trudged him to the grave.

  They joined their boss at the board.

  “What are those?” said Lydia, in confusion.

  The detective had come in early and thumbtacked two images. One was a photo taken from a 1998 school yearbook of a staffer in a loud bow tie, smiling broadly. The caption read “Roy Eakins, American History. History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.—Mark Twain.” The other was a recent picture of “R. J. Eakins” that Willow clipped from an article in the Anchor Bay Bugle about locals who were protesting the installation of parking meters with computer chips.

  “That’s Dabba Doo,” said Daniel, wide-eyed.

  “Dabba Doo?”

  “From the Meeting,” said Lydia.

  “He stopped coming, which is weird. Because he hasn’t taken his birthday cake,” said Daniel.

  “Jesus,” said Willow, under his breath.

  In the detective’s view, Roy had never been a viable contender in the leading role of the Rummer murders anyway. And yet, after the uneventful visit to the tidy home in New Baltimore, Willow had been surprised when his gut stubbornly refused to acquit the schoolteacher of the crimes. Now, though, learning that Eakins was de facto dead seemed absolute proof of his innocence. Willow couldn’t believe he was capable of such berserk logic: as far as he knew, the children of the train only sought revenge on the living. If Roy had killed Troy and Maya, how could they balance the scales if he was already dead? He would definitely need to have a talk with Annie about that, if only for curiosity’s sake . . .

  Now that he knew Roy was a landlord, he felt hoodwinked. It gave him the willies just thinking about being “entertained” by a charming cadaver on a pleasant afternoon. The damn thing even made him a sandwich. It made him feel unclean.

  “Do you really mean to say,” said Lydia, “that Roy Eakins . . . is Dabba Doo?” She sounded both like a child whose father had just told her Santa Claus wasn’t real, and like an adult who’d been told that he was.

  “Apparently,” mused Willow. “And I wonder why he stopped attending the Meeting.”

  His detective mind leapt forward. Where there’s cremation smoke, there’s fire—he had better get on that interview with Grundy tout de suite.

  “Hear me out, sir,” said Daniel, who hadn’t been paying much attention to the exchange. “It’s imperative that we speak to Honeychile.” It was less a suggestion than it was a pronouncement. “If at all possible.”

  “I agree, sir. Daniel has a really strong feeling about it,” said Lydia.

  “The sheriff was supposed to interview her this morning,” said Willow. “I’ll ask how it went—she may not be in shape for that. But if we do see her, I’m going to have to tell Owen about it beforehand. I don’t want a repeat of that fiasco.”

  Happy with the new plan, Lydia and Daniel made a shiny little show of getting back to work. Willow blinked at the stuffed unicorn that hung in its Ziploc just above the photos of Roy. It whispered but he could not yet hear what it was telling him.

  4.

  After the visit from Owen and his investigator, the patient’s transformation was radical and unexpected. She became calm and lucid, nearly presenting as “normal.” She promised to behave and begged to be transferred from protective isolation. Because of the murder charge, they wouldn’t allow her to mingle with other patients, but the doctors agreed she could change to a more “mood-elevating” room. Even her skin blotches seemed to fade.

  Honeychile said that she wanted to draw, which her therapists encouraged. Crayons and paper were approved. Through the locked door and wired glass portal, the staff could hear her sing while she sketched. The nurses couldn’t believe she had killed a six-foot-tall football player—so tiny, so demure! They smiled as they listened, busying themselves in the changeover to swing shift.

  “Girl’s got a voice. She should go on tour,” said an RN.

  “Give Katy Perry a run for her money,” said another.

  “That’s going to have to be some serious running, cause Katy got a lot of money!”

  As Honeychile put the finishing touches on her butterfly-winged angel, she luxuriated in the melody:

  When, when the fire’s at my feet again

  And the vultures all start circling

  They’re whispering, you’re out of time,

  But still I rise

  This is no mistake, no accident

  When you think the final nail is in

  Think again, don’t be surprised

  I will still rise

  The nurses didn’t notice when the singing stopped.

  * * *

  • • •

  Willow told the sheriff that his unit’s preliminary investigation indicated that Renée “Honeychile” Devonshire might possibly be in possession of information of value to the Rummer case. He was prepared to be vague and lay it off on something “the kids” were chasing down, but Owen reacted with indifference.

  “Have at it, Dubya. She’s in the Twilight Zone.”

  Truer words were never spoken, thought Willow. You don’t know the half of it.

  * * *

  • • •

  When Willow and his apprentices arrived for their visit, she’d only been dead a few minutes.

  In the wake of the chaos, the police hadn’t yet been called; the staff was somewhat startled to see that detectives were already on the scene. (Willow immediately phoned Owen to apprise him.) The nurses looked grim, steeling themselves for the hassles, controversy and general shitstorm that came with a suicide on the ward. Hangings were the hardest to defend, almost always blamed on a lapse in vigilance and protocol. At least the girl’s method was unusual; it would have been difficult to foresee or
prevent. She had stuffed the sheets of an entire roll of toilet paper down her throat and suffocated.

  The three of them went for a look.

  The room bore the lonely messiness of panicky, failed medical intervention. Daniel ignored the body on the bed, focusing on the drawings that Honeychile had been working on.

  Lydia went straight to the girl. She tenderly touched Honeychile’s forehead. “I guess this is what I’ll look like,” she said, as if talking only to herself. “After the moment of balance.”

  The poignant moment reminded Willow of one of those high-end sci-fi flicks where androids have existential crises.

  “No you won’t,” said Daniel. “Because she didn’t have a moment of balance. I don’t know what she had.”

  He held up one of her sketches, a finely detailed drawing of a naked angel with huge wings colored like a Monarch butterfly. Above the angel’s head, Honeychile had written RON.

  Willow and Lydia came closer.

  “Ron,” said Lydia. “Do you think that’s the killer?”

  Daniel shook his head and said, “I recognize this.”

  “From where?” asked Willow.

  “An album. I’m a metalhead and know whence I speak.” He tore a blank page from the back of Honeychile’s notebook and then took a crayon and wrote RON.

  He filled in the blanks, before and after the name:

  I R O N B U T T E R F L Y

  “See?” he said. “It’s from the cover of Scorching Beauty. A totally underrated record, by the way.”

  5.

  He told Lydia that he needed a few things from his old place in Smiths Creek, which he actually did, mostly a leather jacket that he missed. But Daniel hadn’t been there in weeks and really just wanted to be alone with himself—alone, one might say, with whatever agglomeration he’d become. He was tired of his child-tenant’s intrusions and was compelled to reflect on who he once was. He even longed to see Rachelle.