But for now, he simply wants to watch her from inside the hole in the wall. The darkness is his friend, his ally, his camouflage. When the time is right, he will use the darkness to his advantage and spring himself on her. He will take her back to his home in the ground and then he will have all his little kittens to himself. He will watch them dance together.
Their faces will become his own.
The closer I come to the figure seated in the chair, the more easily I can make out his identity. My insides go entirely south, and my heart breaks. I reach once more into my pocket for my lighter and produce a tall flame that lights Sam up in an orange glow. His body is attached to the chair with duct tape. The thick tape has been wrapped around his mouth and all the way around his head making it impossible for him to make any kind of sound other than a very low moan.
His eyes are open wide but not from the blood that is dripping into them. Instead, they are opened wide because he no longer possesses eyelids. He no longer possesses a nose, or ears, or hair. In the orange glow of the lighter flame, his under-skin is pale white and streaked with the blood that is pouring from capillaries and exposed veins, and it makes my teeth ache just to look at him.
But I look at him nonetheless, not as a good friend or lover, but as something that is entirely foreign. Something no longer human. I am caught up in a state of paralyzing disbelief. It’s almost impossible for me to shift my gaze from what used to be his face past his blood-soaked shirt down to his lap. There, resting on two thighs taped close together against the chair, I make out his semi-automatic. It’s been placed upon another sheet of green construction paper.
Killing the flame, I wipe the tears from my eyes, attempt a lucid thought. The Skinner has been expecting me the entire time. Is it possible the creep is looking at me right this very second? That he lurks in the dark shadows of this old, insect-infected basement? Maybe the goosebumps that have popped out of my skin are not due to the creatures that thrive down inside this horrible space, but instead, the result of those eyes focused on me, watching me, waiting for me.
I once more flick the lighter on with my thumb, take another couple of steps forward until I’m standing over Sam. I reach down into his lap, slide away the drawing, peer down at it. It contains another image that has been sketched by my son. It shows he and Molly seated beside a body that is also taped to a chair just like Sam.
Robyn.
In the picture, the two children are wiping tears from their eyes with their hands. Michael Jr. has drawn the tear drops so that they aren’t falling but pouring out of their eyes. He has also drawn the blood that is dripping from the chair-bound body onto the floor.
I grow dizzy, and for a beat or two, I’m convinced that I am about to faint on the spot, my body collapsing onto the damp floor like a sack of bones and blood. But I cannot —will not —allow that to happen. I must do what I can to stay awake, stay alert. Not while the beast has my children.
Breathing, slowly, steadily, deeply.
Dear God, please wake me up from this dream . . .
Words are written beneath the drawing. Words I would rather avoid altogether. Because the words are as sickening as the picture itself.
The words say, “KILL ME.”
The tears flow from my eyes as fast as the tears depicted in Michael Jr.’s drawing. I stare into Sam’s exposed eyeballs, and I am convinced his own tears are combining with the blood that continually pours out of him along with his moans and groans.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?!” I scream. “What the hell do you want from me, Skinner?! What do you want from us?!”
The flame on the lighter is burning my thumb, blistering it. But the hurt is nothing compared to the severe pain in my chest and in my heart.
“Oh, Sam,” I say through my tears. “How could this happen to you? How could I have let it happen? Pulled you into this nightmare?”
His moans are louder now, more forced. He’s moving his head in a circular motion like he’s telling me to put him out of his agony.
With a trembling hand, I reach for the pistol. I grip it, lift it up, feeling its heavy, solid weight. I thumb the safety off and aim for Sam’s bleeding, skinless face. I place my finger on the trigger. I’m crying so hard my vision has become entirely blurred. But I’m so close I can’t miss.
His moans are becoming screams, his head bobbing back and forth. He’s telling me to do it.
You have to do this, Michael whispers into my ear.
Bec, just get it over with, Molly says. For his sake. He’s gone already.
“Dear God in heaven, please forgive me.”
I pull the trigger.
Sam’s head slumps forward. Now, there is no more moaning coming from his taped mouth. No more painful gyrating of his skinned head. The blood drips from his face onto the packed gravel floor, and even that will cease very soon.
“Please forgive me, Sam,” I whisper.
Then a noise. A scraping sound, like rock moving against rock. I once more thumb the lighter, ignite the tall, orange flame. What I see is as unbelievable as it is frightening. A door-sized section of the wall is opening up, revealing a room or a tunnel on the opposite side. There’s a light coming from the space on the other side of the wall. It silhouettes the man or creature that is standing in the center of the open door. When he takes a step forward, and the orange light of the flickering flame strikes his face, I recognize the man entirely.
He is the man I killed.
He is Sam.
Detective Miller pulls into a short driveway belonging to a two-story bungalow that must be eighty years old. With its front porch, solid wood door, and big brick fireplace, the home is not all that different from the one he grew up in on Albany’s west side. He grabs the map off the cruiser’s passenger side seat and proceeds up the drive, hoping that the occupant is home.
Maybe I should have called first, he says to himself. But then why give them a chance to deny me a much-needed conversation?
Crossing over the stone pathway, he climbs the steps to the porch, approaches the wood door, and knocks three times. Waits. When he makes out footsteps, he knows the occupant is indeed home.
The door opens, and a small, somewhat portly, balding gray haired man answers the door. The man is still chewing whatever he took a bite of before opening the door.
“Help you?” he says looking up at the tall detective.
Miller pulls out his badge from the interior pocket of his blazer, flashes it, then returns it to the pocket.
“I’m Detective Miller from the Albany Police Department,” he says. “You’re Mr. John Jersik, I understand?”
Jersik nods.
“Mind if I come in for a minute, Mr. Jersik?”
“The misses and I just sat down for supper,” he says swallowing. “We like to eat early, get to bed early.”
“Early bird catches the worm, right?”
“Take it from an old contractor. You don’t begin the day with the sun you fall irreparably behind. And that costs you money.”
“Turns out that’s what I need to speak with you about,” Miller explains.
“I’m sort of retired.”
“I don’t need you to build something for me. I need you to take a look at a map and recall a project you were contracted to construct five decades ago.”
Eyes wide. “Five decades. Jeeze, I can’t remember what I ate for lunch yesterday. What’s this for?”
“It could be a matter of life and death for an entire family,” Miller says. “And that’s no exaggeration.”
Eyes wider. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
“I just did.”
He pushes the door open and Miller steps inside.
The house is lived in but tidy with a couch pushed up against the far wall under a picture window, just like it was in Miller’s childhood home. The aroma is wonderful and makes the Detective’s mouth water.
“Take a seat there on the couch,” he says, heading back into the kitchen. Miller
does as he’s told. Sitting there, he can’t help but glance up at the photos displayed on the fireplace mantle. A younger Jersik standing in the center of a group of business-suited men and women, each of them wearing green Jersik hard hats and holding shovels, the soles of their respective right feet pressing down on the blade in preparation to break ground for a new building. Another picture of he and the entire family standing on a sandy beach, the ocean looking blue and inviting behind them. By the looks of it, two little boys and a pretty wife. Then, two pictures of each boy, now handsome young men, on their college graduation days.
“One doctor and one lawyer,” Jersik says, stepping back.
Before I can respond to what he’s saying, a late middle-aged, gray-haired woman pokes her head out. She’s wearing an apron.
“I’m Jeannie,” she says. “We’re having meatloaf if you’d like to join us.”
Meatloaf. Is there no more succulent word in the American culinary archives? Miller thinks. He recalls coming home from work on a cold, rainy, snotty day, a meatloaf set out in the middle of the dinner table, a corked bottle of wine to go with it. His wife was one hell of a cook.
He purses his lips, gently shakes his head.
“That’s very kind of you. But I’ve already eaten.” He’s lying, and he senses from the look in her eyes that she knows it.
“Well, suit yourself,” she says. “How interesting it would be to speak with a police detective over dinner.”
“Perhaps another time,” he adds.
“I’ll keep yours warm, John,” she says, stepping back into the kitchen.
John awkwardly sits himself down in an easy chair that swivels on a hinge so that he can either face the couch or the fireplace. In this case, he’s facing Miller on the couch.
“That wife of mine,” he says. “Still doting after all these years.”
“You’re a lucky man,” Miller says. “You said something about your sons?”
“Oh yes,” he nods. “One’s a doctor now, and the other went into law. Had hoped they would go into business with me, but after a whole bunch of summers spent in the field laboring in the muck and the crap, they’d had a belly full.” He cocks his head to one side, reflectively. Maybe even regretfully. “I thought my being tough on them would build character, make them earn the respect of the other construction workers so that when they finally earned a spot in the office no one could say they didn’t work for their white collars. But, I’m afraid, all my strategy succeeded at was making them hate the construction business.”
Miller feels a little sorry for Jersik. For a man who seems to have everything a man his age could want, at least in the form of a healthy wife who still takes care of him, he still seems lonely. Or disappointed, anyway.
“But enough about me,” Jersik says. “You said you have some questions about a property I was hired to develop back when LBJ was smoking cigars in the White House?”
Miller retrieves the photocopy from his blazer pocket, lays it out onto the coffee table. Jersik pulls his reading glasses from the plastic case that’s shoved into the chest pocket on his gray button-down, slips them onto his nose while leaning forward.
“Garfield,” he says, the memories clear on his face. “Yah, I remember that project all right. Just about killed me. Garfield Estates, it was called. It was worth ten or fifteen million back in mid-1960s money. Big Manhattan developers. What they envisioned was not only a huge sprawl of contemporary housing units but also a small commercial district to go with them.”
“A community,” Miller says.
“More than that. A freaking town with its own zip code, its own post office, police force, fire station, supermarket, you name it. The works.”
“Memory is still fresh, I see.”
“You don’t forget a project of that scope. Especially when you’re the general contractor. And even more especially when the existing residents of Garfield Road find a way to pull the rug out from under you, even after preliminary construction has already begun.”
“I feel your pain,” Miller says.
“That would be quite the trick,” Jersik says. “I nearly went bankrupt when the project died. I’d put everything I had up to that point into it.” Now cocking his head in the direction of the kitchen. Lowering his voice, “To this day, not even the wife knows exactly how much of our savings got flushed on Garfield Estates.”
“I’m sorry,” Miller says. “But you said there was preliminary construction. Did that include building any basement foundations for the proposed houses?”
He nods. “I recall starting at least one house, putting in the cellar and laying the first floor, I believe, without the walls. But that’s not where I lost my shirt.”
“How’s that?”
“The town was going to boast a state-of-the-art sewer and res system.” Jersik pronounces res like rez.
“Res?”
He places his meaty index finger on the photocopy. “Yeah, they were gonna dam the stream — The Postenkill — and flood about one hundred acres to make a reservoir that would provide fresh drinking water for the entire city of Troy. Eminent domain would take the property and the city of Troy, in turn, would provide annual payments to the town thereby financing the entire operation. Brilliant if you ask me.”
“If it had gotten built.”
“Exactly,” he says. “If I’d known the project was gonna go bust I wouldn’t have financed the construction of all those underground tunnels.”
Tunnels. The word hits me like a brick.
“Which tunnels?” I say.
“Well, more accurately, sewer and water lines. Big ones that were meant to service the entire city and the new town.”
“How big exactly?”
He holds up his hand as if to indicate a certain height.
“Let’s put it this way,” he says. “Some of the pipe was six feet in diameter.”
Raising his hand, Miller pats the top of his head. “So then, a grown man could easily walk inside the tunnels without banging his noggin.”
“Well, maybe not you so much. But a short guy like me would have no problem. In fact, it’s one of the distinct advantages of using that diameter pipe. It can be easily maintained.”
It’s all making sense to Miller now. And scaring him at the same time.
“Where exactly are these tunnels? That is, they still exist today?”
He eyes the photocopy once more. “You got a pen, Detective?”
Miller reaches inside his jacket, pulls a pen out of the same pocket where he stores his badge. He hands it to Jersik.
The old contractor picks up a magazine set out on the coffee table, proceeds to use the spine as a straight edge. He draws three long lines that begin at various points within the proposed subdivision and extends them all the way to the edge of the paper. He hands Miller back the pen.
“That’s a rough estimate of where the tunnels are,” he says. “But the sewers will run all the way to the Hudson River because you could dump the stuff into it back then, while the clean water line runs into Troy’s waterworks on the edge of town. One, maybe two lines weren’t finished, and their runs end only after a mile or so. Maybe a little less.”
“That’s still quite a ways,” I say. “You think the tunnels are still there?”
He nods. “Those were prefabricated concrete pipes we installed back then. Trust me, they’re still there and will be until the second coming.” He smiles. “Christ, I wouldn’t be surprised you find somebody living in there.”
“Precisely,” Miller says.
“Really? That what this is all about?”
Miller picks up the photocopy, stands. He feels his pulse throbbing in his temples. If he could sprint out of the house now, he would. But that would be unnecessary and rude.
“In part,” he affirms. Then, “You’ve been an invaluable asset, Mr. Jersik. Even if the project didn’t work out the way you wanted it to all those years ago.”
Jersik gets up, follows Miller to the door.<
br />
“In some ways, it’s a Godsend,” he says. “I was never much for residential construction. All that sprawl ruins the country, destroys precious farmland. We need that land to feed people. Not to put houses on. After Garfield Estates went belly up, I switched to commercial construction exclusively. Seemed a more honest way to make a living.”
“Thanks for your time,” Miller says, opening the door.
“Oh, hey, Detective Miller,” Jersik says.
“Yes?” Miller, glancing at the smaller man over his shoulder.
“You mentioned my information could mean life or death for an entire family.”
“It is,” he says. “It will.”
“Can you tell me who they are?”
Miller, shaking his head. “I can tell you this. They’re no doubt one of the families who stopped Garfield Estates fifty years ago.”
Jersik purses his lips.
“If you see them again,” he says, “tell them I’m pulling for them. No matter what their circumstance.”
Miller feels himself growing a smile. A sad smile.
He says, “I just might take you up on that offer of a meatloaf dinner when this is all over, Mr. Jersik.”
“Door’s always open,” the old contractor says.
Miller steps out, the familiar sound of the old wood door closing reminding him of younger, simpler, happier days.
Shifting the aim on the semi-automatic so that it’s pointed at the center of Sam’s face, I thumb back the hammer.
“Ring around the Rosie,” Sam sings, “a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down . . .” When he says down, he extends the end of the word so it sounds like it is literally falling dowwwwwwwnnnnnnnn.
But then, what the fuck am I saying? This man isn’t Sam at all. Sam is dead. I killed him. I—Killed—Sam. Put the poor soul out of his misery.
“Come with me my little kitten,” The Skinner says through Sam’s mouth. “Your own little kittens are waiting for you.”
My vision, clouded in a haze of tears and red hot anger.
“Fuck. You.” I say.
The Ashes (The Rebecca Underhill Trilogy Book 2) Page 17
