by Aaron Dries
Chapter Fourteen
Starke entered his house a detective, slipped off his shoes and became a husband and father. It was five in the morning. The world was blue.
He went to the fridge and opened the door, looking for answers to mysteries he could never comprehend. So he closed it and settled for water instead.
Starke was fifty-six and he felt every one of those years as he undressed. He showered downstairs in the hope of not waking his wife, Pina. Everything ached and cracked as he lumbered around the bathroom, toweling himself dry. The steam made him lightheaded.
As he climbed the steps, he thought about life and his career. He thought about murder. He sighed.
Starke shuffled past the empty bedrooms in the hall. His two daughters had moved out years before but their beds were always kept made in case they wanted—or needed to come home. Seeing the rooms in the dim light made his heart ache.
He entered his bedroom; the familiar scents and the warmth from the ducted heated making him feel calmer. Pina had the covers pulled up to her nose. Her ash-blonde hair was pulled back in a bun. For the time being he was happy that she was sleeping, unaware of evil and melancholy.
It was now a quarter to six.
He sat on the bed and looked out the window. The blinds were drawn. He could see the Sydney skyline, the lights of the city still burning in the clouds above. Starke had raised his children here, walked these streets many times over, and found comfort in seeing Centre Point Tower, the Norman Foster “goal-post” building. From here in the suburbs the city was structured and unmoving. From here he couldn’t see the swamp for the trees.
There was a crucifix on the bedside table next to a glass of water with Pina’s false teeth clinking around inside. Starke slipped off his Rolex and set it on the paperback beside his side of the bed. The mattress groaned when he slid under the covers.
Over the rise of Pina’s shoulder he could see the sky lightening outside. If it hadn’t rained the night before there may have been a frost.
His thoughts turned to the case. The faces of parents whose children have been murdered all looked the same—at this point, anyway. They stared, uncomprehending and yet were forced to comprehend. They were forced to act reasonably upon feelings they could not reason because they were numb with shock. Their faces were always gaunt and hallowed, as though the life had been ripped right out of them. That expression would change day by day.
Starke closed his eyes and snuggled in close to his wife. She smelt of shampoo. He liked that. It smelt like home. “We’re nothing,” he whispered to her sleeping form. “We’re dust.”
The bedside phone rang. Starke had been dreaming about his father. The ring had infiltrated the fantasy, confusing them both. His father had looked at him, frightened by the noise and turned to stone.
“Hello,” Pina said, shaking of her grogginess. “Yeah, he’s here, Roy.”
Roy, Starke repeated in his head. That would be Roy Gordon, assistant investigator. The last he’d seen him, Roy had been escorting the forensic unit down into the mall. He was a good man, strong of will. Starke was fond of him.
“Nicholas?” Pina said, rolling over, phone in hand. “It’s Roy.”
“Thank you, darlin’,” he said, taking the receiver. He cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” said the voice on the phone. “But I thought you’d want to know.”
“Know what, Roy?”
“Well, we pulled the surveillance footage—just like you asked. There were initial tech problems with it, something about a time code bleep or whatever—that’s why it took so damn long to rip. The footage is crystal clear.” He paused and for that, Starke was grateful. He was digesting the information. “Nick, I’ve got a copy of it here and you’re gonna want to see it.”
“What’re you trying to tell me, Roy?”
Cold light shone in through the bedroom window. There were no birds.
“Nick, this isn’t going to be the investigation we thought it would be.” Roy sighed and then continued. “Aw, shit, boss. The kid wasn’t pushed. He jumped.”
Chapter Fifteen
James Bridge—a tiny community, though it often felt overcrowded.
It lurked at the crossroads of two main highways and in the summer its primary draw card was the War Memorial public pool, which would always fill to capacity with locals and visitors from theta parishes. The Bridge was where families stopped for overpriced food on the way to the nearby vineyards, nothing more.
However, the town did call to the occasional curious tourist. James Bridge was the location of a nasty, high-profile massacre over ten years ago. Such morbid, camera-toting tourists were not often welcomed; the “affair” as it was so aptly referred to, was a blemish on the town’s already slight reputation. But the stigma remained, and so it would stay until the history books were rewritten, or until people no longer cared.
On Saturdays there would be craft stalls or barbecues outside the IGA. Two highly competitive video stores dueled for customers, each operated by fierce, racist owners. For those in search of an MSG hit, you could buy Chinese food at three different locations. And of course, there was the unmanned police station perched on Houghton’s Hill, with its illuminated sign shining all year ’round, always flickering and swarming with a beard of moths. The town knew better than to put trust in that empty husk.
Like ship to siren, The Bridge was the type of place people were drawn to, only to crash with rudder beyond repair. Stranded with no choice but to set up camp, work, retire and then die.
On the way into town there was a sign.
We Have Two Cemeteries, No Hospitals—Drive Carefully, it read.
Marshall had lived in James Bridge until he left for Southeast Asia. He said goodbye to his parents expecting to return within the year, hopefully tanned and all thing going well, with a little loose change still in his pocket. Instead he came back with a pregnant fiancée, broke and having spent a significant amount of time in Vancouver, not as tanned as expected. Bobby Deakins, the town mailman, and his wife Mavis, gave their son and his new wife everything they could afford and waved them goodbye, as the newlyweds made the two-hour journey south towards Sydney.
Over the years spent in The Bridge, Marshall had watched things rust, observed the roads spreading outwards like cancer. Development sites rose and small businesses closed. This was the way things went.
Noah would be buried in the cemetery behind the Catholic church adjoining the primary school. The hole in the ground had been opened next to Marshall’s grandfather. When the dust settled, the two cemetery caretakers sat on the small shovel truck smoking cigarettes, shaking their heads.
“Tough deal,” one said.
“Fuckin’ A,” said the other.
Bobby and Mavis lived at 29 Russell Street, a single-story weatherboard cottage. It was halfway up a hill of similar houses, central to town. The street was lined with cars of many colors, all speckled with raindrops. The clouds hung low overhead, threatening to pour at any given minute.
People arrived with their casseroles, cakes and sympathy cards, everyone looking at the police cruisers with concern. “This is a bad business,” said an elderly friend of the family. She brought flowers.
The stream of visitors filed into the house, leaving their respective umbrellas in one of two buckets at the front door. Drop sheets lined the hallway, protecting the carpets from the mud. The oil heater was on in the living room, combating the flood of cold air rushing into the house every time someone entered.
Mavis Deakins was in the kitchen with a small circle of friends all dressed in black. She held their hands.
Her husband, Bobby, was in the living room. He was a heavy-set man with a bulging stomach held in place by his shirt. Through jowls and stray hairs shone a face designed to laugh. His company betrayed his nature. Like most men his age, Bobby had “his chair”. It sat in the corner of the room near the oil heater, but today he gave it up for his son.
It had b
een five days since Marshall’s son had died and he’d been fielding reporters, welfare officers and the police the entire time. Their house in Sydney had been torn apart and emptied by investigators, searching for evidence that would incriminate Claire and himself in Noah’s suicide. Health workers, DOCS and the Joint Investigative Response Team had stripped the family computer hard drive and cross-examined them. Starke explained to Marshall that there would be no counseling services offered to Claire and him because forensics social workers were not permitted to provide their services to parents under suspicion of child abuse resulting in death. He was very sorry and believed in their innocence.
Marshall left the room and shouldered his way through the crowd. People looked at him as he passed, their faces shifting portraits of concern and pity. He slipped into the bathroom and locked the door.
He put the toilet seat down and sat, his shoulders hanging how. His joints ached, pain in his temples. He hadn’t eaten in thirty hours and could feel the faint outline of his rib cage through his shirt. His knuckles were bruised and cut from where he’d punched a hole in his bedroom wall.
Claire felt the hands of strangers on her flesh. Repulsed, she drew away. Everywhere she turned she saw round, wet eyes following her. Old people with stroke-induced drawls hobbled after her. She walked out the back door of the house, hoping to step out into a Canadian landscape where the Vancouver chill would cool her anger, and where her mother would be standing, strong and undefeated.
Instead, she saw her in-laws’ overgrown backyard. People she didn’t know surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke. A pathetic clothesline.
“Claire?”
She turned towards the voice, wiping her eyes. Her vision was blurred from hours of crying. The out-of-focus shape stepped closer, his delicate Asian features slipping into form. It was her coworker Benny. In his hand he held a red envelope embellished with fine gold drawings. Inside was a hundred dollars. Benny had explained to her once over coffee and investment documents that it was Chinese tradition not to give flowers at funerals; flowers wilted and died, reminding everyone of how fickle life was. Money was the more sensible option.
Claire ran forward and collapsed into his arms. They cried together.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said.
Marshall stepped up to the pulpit and unfolded the two sheets of paper in his hands. His fingers brushed against the polished wood for a moment and he was stunned by how cold the wood was.
Hundreds of faces stared at him. There was a cough, the flash of a camera.
The paper felt heavy in his grip and when he looked down at it, he saw that his sweat was bleeding into the words, making them blotch and run. He told himself to keep his voice calm and clear, and not to cry. He didn’t want all these people to see him at his weakest. He didn’t want their pity.
Marshall looked at the first word, sensing its weight; he felt small and worthless beneath it. He began to speak, blood coursing through his body. He could sense himself talking but only snatches of what he was reading seemed to congeal in his ears.
“…Thank you all for being here with us today… Your sympathy has humbled us… To the people who are part of the ‘Blue Ribbon Remembrance’, we thank you, too. This organization has been putting small blue ribbons all over town in Noah’s memory. I’ve been told that this practice has spread nationwide…
“Today, we bury our little boy. Like any parent, we had hopes for our son… I see you all here today and it assures Claire and I that Noah made an impression, that he touched the lives of many. We now come to realize that this was his unspoken gift…
“…We still struggle to understand why a child was taken so young. But with grace we take heart in knowing that we, like Noah, are loved. Loved in ways we sometimes do not understand…
“…Noah, you came into our lives when we too were young and you made growing into adulthood an adventure that made us strong, dedicated people. For this, we thank you…
“…Our son: when you are alone, we will be there with you. Just as you walk with us in our hearts, we walk with you…
“…We love you.”
Chapter Sixteen
There’s no sadder sight than that of a child’s coffin, Starke mused as he watched the mahogany lid drop below the lip of the grave. He swallowed hard, his dry throat clicking. His notepad was as heavy as an anvil in his breast pocket, the pen beside it not a pen at all, but a scalpel used to cut open already bleeding wounds, to inflict more pain on people who didn’t deserve it.
Starke had been a detective for too long. He’d seen and heard it all. A long time ago he’d come to realize that the mystery was a mere formality. At the end of the day, only two things mattered—innocence and guilt—and he didn’t need a forensics crew or a jury of his peers to adjudicate this case. It was natural to suspect, but it was natural for a seasoned detective to know. Instinct. Perception. These were the cornerstones of his profession.
I hate this job.
The crowd was black with white faces. It swarmed and expanded like a flight of sparrows in the air. Lost at its center were the parents of the dead child. There was weeping and there was laughter. People talked amongst themselves and in time, the news crews drove away in their vans. The church bell tolled across the wintery landscape.
Simone’s eyes hurt. She hadn’t slept the night before and had even considered skipping the funeral. Some time after two in the morning she started justifying reasons not to attend. I don’t really know the family. I’ve only met Claire a few times. I don’t even really know what Noah looked like. But she did know Marshall, and she cared for him. Of late she had been spending more time editing with her boss than she had been spending with her boyfriend, Tim.
She remembered how Marshall had been acting the last time she’d seen him. He had been his usual, joking self. His self-depreciating remarks about the kids’ birthday video, gushing over his love for out of print Robert Bloch books. And little did they know that within hours his son would be dead. And the way he died. Simone shivered.
By four a.m. the edit was finished, burnt to DVD and put inside the corporate slipcase. She locked the office and walked down the empty corridors of the building. Back in her apartment she lay in bed, glasses resting on her chest. The ceiling was alive with shifting lights thrown from the passing cars outside. A humidifier hummed on her desk.
She decided to attend the funeral, rolled over and continued to not sleep.
Tim didn’t come with her because he had to study for his final exams, so she walked to the reception alone. She staked out a place at the far end of the school hall, uncomfortable and sweating in her jacket. She held a cup of tea in one hand, the DVD in a plastic bag over her wrist. Holding them made her feel less naked, less vulnerable.
Somewhere around five that morning she’d turned on her laptop and Googled Marshall’s name. There were a few sporadic hits regarding short films and corporate video websites. Simone read with a casual interest, her face blue in computer glow. After a few minutes she searched for Noah’s name. There were multiple responses, so she refined the search by excluding the recent articles about his “highly suspicious” and “tragic” death.
Australia, she typed.
Child.
She plugged in her headphones and listened to some music, hoping it would tide her to sleep. It wasn’t working.
She entered the words school and Sydney..
A local high school website scrolled into Simone’s life, the words reflecting in her dirty spectacles. Underneath the subject in the description below were the words Noah Deakins, highlighted in yellow. Simone fingered the touch pad and the small arrow rolled over the name. She clicked, the sound loud enough to be heard over the music.
The site itself was unsophisticated. The background twinkled with cheesy falling-star animation. What the hell does a nighttime sky have to do with primary school? Simone wondered, smirking. The school name and crest sat upon a clip-art banner. It reeked amateur and she safely as
sumed the site was built by an overzealous parent, or even one of the students themselves. There were photos of the grounds, statues and random, smiling faces hovering above the subtitles: HOME, HISTORY, CONTACTS, STORIES and LINKS.
Simone hit control F and searched for Noah’s name. Nothing.
She entered the STORIES page. There was a link to back issues of the school newspaper and magazine, feature articles and a rundown on recent charity activities. She directed the arrow to the newspaper and magazine tab, clicked again and waited for the small, flipping hourglass to twirl and disappear.
Control F.
In the display box she typed the name and hit DONE.
Everything went black and Simone saw her reflection in the screen. Why are you doing this, she asked herself? Because I can’t sleep. Because I’m curious. It’s natural to be curious. I have no idea who this kid is and I’m going to his fucking funeral in a matter of hours. That’s fucking why.
A moment passed and the screen filled with listed stories. She scrolled through and saw Noah’s highlighted name in a number of them. Simone clicked on the first.
STUDENTS UNITE FOR CHARITY ART EVENT, read the headline.
Below was a color photograph of moderate resolution. In it were three young students, smiling at the camera, paintbrushes in their hands. The article was from two years ago. Simone scanned the fine print beneath the photo.
Students Noah Deakins, Sally Rialto and Busy Shepert paint the town red.
Simone’s heart skipped a beat. That’s him, she thought. That’s Marshall’s son. The dead boy. The young face peered at her from the screen, haunting him. Noah looked just like the photograph Marshall had of his wife on his desk, their features and hair color were identical.
