by Vivian Barz
Susan balked. “Maybe I don’t want to find anyone. I don’t have time for all that. I need a relationship like I need a hole in the head.”
“I’m not saying you should marry the guy. But it wouldn’t kill you to go on a date with him.”
“Says the man who once told me that I should always be choosy about who I go out with because—”
“You end up marrying who you date. I know,” Ed said. “And it’s true.”
“Okay, then.”
“I only mean that you should try getting out more.”
“I get out,” Susan said in a voice that lacked conviction.
“Is that right?” Ed folded his arms across his chest. “When’s the last date you went on?”
Susan pursed her lips.
“That’s about what I thought.”
Changing the subject—she had not quite worked up the nerve to get into the real reason she’d come—Susan leaned over Ed’s shoulder and scanned the article. “Sounds like they just keep repeating the same story over and over.”
“Yup. And they’re not even getting it right either.”
Susan saw an opportunity, and she took it. “Hey, speaking of that . . . there’s nothing in there about the current body count, right?”
“Well, there is, but they’ve still got it at fourteen.”
“So they’re off by seven.”
Ed nodded. “The FBI want to play their cards close to their chests on this one . . .” He set the paper down. “And just how would you know that the current count is twenty-one?”
Susan spoke fast. “Before you get mad, I was only doing my job.”
“How’s that?”
It was too late, Susan saw. Ed already looked mad. Or dangerously close to the edge of anger. “The FBI were the ones who requested that I take tips.”
“So?”
“So I didn’t want to waste your time—or the FBI’s time—by bringing a potentially credible tip to you without first doing some fact-checking.” She left out the part about her already checking a few facts down in the records room before Eric Evans’s arrival.
Ed, now leery of her claims, narrowed his eyes. Still, much to Susan’s relief, his anger seemed as if it had diffused. Not entirely, but it had lessened enough. “Okay, what’s this tip, then?”
Susan drummed her fingers on the table. “This is a weird one, but I had a guy come in earlier and tell me that he had a dream about the farm and the numbers twenty-two and twenty-three.”
Ed grunted. “He dreamed it? Just exactly how bad did he smell?” He flapped a hand dismissively and made a move to go back to his paper. “I thought you said this was a credible tip.”
“That’s the thing,” she quickly said, shaking her head. “He didn’t seem crazy.”
“The really crazy ones never do, Marlan.”
“No, I mean he was normal . He’s a professor over at the college, and he was, you know, dressed well and didn’t reek like a dumpster. He was good looking, funny.” Susan scratched at her upper arm, frustrated. “He just seemed so sincere .”
Ed folded the paper and pushed it aside. “You sweet on this guy or what?”
“No! Of course not.” Maybe. Yes. “He also said that he wanted to keep his name out of things. From what I’ve seen, the real crazies always want credit—they’ll say just about anything to get their names in print. But Eric, he actually seemed kind of embarrassed that he’d come in.”
“Eric, huh?” Ed said as he took a slurp of coffee. “So then why did Eric come in?”
Ed was being dismissive, which Susan had expected. He would hear her out, but it didn’t mean he’d listen. It was better than anger, she supposed. She answered, “He said he’d never forgive himself if something bad happened to a kid because he’d stayed quiet.”
“How thoughtful.”
Susan ignored the sarcasm. “He also said that in his dream he saw jacks and a ball—like the kid’s game.”
“So?”
Overcome with irritation, she said, “Jacks and a ball were found on one of the bodies .” She folded her arms across her chest. “And I know for a fact that information hasn’t been released to the public.”
Ed pursed his lips. “And just how did you come across this information?”
Shit. “Oh, you know . . . I just heard it around,” she said, her eyes wide with feigned innocence.
“You’re going to get yourself in trouble if you go meddling.”
“I wasn’t meddling. It was fact-checking .” Susan raised her shoulders and pooched out her lips. “Hey, I can’t help what people tell me.”
Coffee slurped. “Just watch yourself.” And then more sternly: “I don’t want to have this conversation with you again. You need to listen to me: stop interfering and let the FBI do their thing. I’ve worked too hard and am too close to retirement to have you making trouble for me. I’ve got my pension to think about—and how losing it would affect Shirley and the kids—so I won’t have you jeopardizing it over this absurd Gerald Nichol crusade of yours.”
“Understood.” Susan got up and fixed herself a cup of coffee so that she’d have a moment to compose herself. As she joined Ed at the table, she said offhandedly, “But that’s strange, no, that Eric would know about the game. The jacks and ball?”
“Susan—”
“Hey, you told me not to meddle anymore . I’m asking you about stuff I’ve already learned.” Susan cupped her hands around the mug tightly. Ed was easily the most stubborn person she knew, which was unfortunate, given that he was her boss. He was a good man, but he had an ass-backward way of doing things, an unwillingness to think outside the box that was almost neurotic.
“Mm-hmm. Right.” Ed sighed, resigned.
“No more questions about the case,” Susan promised. At least, no more questions for Ed . “So . . . what do you think it means?”
“Hell, Marlan, it’s a case involving kids, so this Eric probably had a lucky guess about the game.”
“What about the numbers—twenty-two and twenty-three? There are twenty-one children’s bodies at the morgue currently, but the news is still reporting it as fourteen. Don’t you think it’s weird that he’s mentioned the numbers that immediately follow the current number?”
“I think you might be reaching,” Ed said. “Even if the FBI aren’t talking, it doesn’t mean the locals aren’t. Maybe he knows someone who’s giving him information about the case.”
Susan was dubious. “He just moved to town, so I doubt it. I don’t know; it all seems a bit too coincidental.”
“You mean a bit too bullshitty.”
Susan disregarded the remark. “There’s more. Eric said there was a boy in his dreams in overalls. The boy I found by the telephone pole was wearing overalls.”
Ed rolled his eyes. “Look around! We’re in farm country.”
Susan might as well be talking to a brick wall. “He also mentioned the name Milton. He thought maybe it was the name of one of the missing kids. Ring any bells?”
“The FBI tell you as much as they tell me,” Ed said, but he averted his eyes.
“Milton Lincoln is the brother of Lenny Lincoln, the boy who disappeared back in the sixties.”
Ed’s voice was tight as he said, “How did you learn that? Who, exactly, have you been talking to?”
Susan shook her head. “That’s not the point. I still think Overalls Boy is Lenny Lincoln—I brought this up after I spoke to Mary Nichol, so this is not some new conspiracy theory that I’ve cooked up.”
Ed’s fury was returning. “We almost done here?”
Susan was feeling pretty miffed herself. Why did Ed even bother showing up for work anymore? She hadn’t even gotten to the part about the woman Eric claimed to have seen, but she really couldn’t see the point now. It would only add to Ed’s irritation toward her. “But you haven’t given me anything , Chief. Any thoughts on what I’ve told you?”
“Here’s my thoughts: you’re taking the ravings of a crazy old woman and an ev
en crazier man as gospel.” Ed sat back and shook his head, evidently appalled. “And here I thought that I’d trained you better than that. I’m starting to get a little afraid for you, kid, what this will do to your career.”
Susan decided not to press her luck. “I appreciate your concern.”
“Good,” Ed said, calming down, picking at a hangnail on his thumb. “Now, do you really want to know what I think?”
Not really. “Sure.”
“I think this guy, Eric, is messing with you.”
“Why would he, though? He has no reason to. It’s not like he has nothing to lose like some of those other nuts out there.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “He just moved to town for a job—a good job. Why would he take the risk?”
“Beats me. Who knows why people do half the things we arrest them for?”
Agitated, Susan screeched her chair back from the table. Maybe Ed was right, and she was only buying into Eric’s story because she was “sweet” on him.
A little gentler, Ed said, “Okay, what would you like me to do, Marlan—have the FBI bring this guy, Eric, back in for questioning? You think he’s up to something—maybe in cahoots with Gerald Nichol?”
Susan shook her head fast. “No! God, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to bend your ear about it; that’s all.”
Ed finished the rest of his coffee in one big gulp. “I could run a quick background check on the guy, if it makes you feel better. Might as well use my big security clearance for something.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “Would you mind?”
“Yes, but I’ll do it anyway.”
Susan grinned. “Have I ever told you that you’re the best?”
“Yes, but you can do it again,” Ed said. “But I’m serious when I tell you: stop poking around. I’m only checking on this guy because I think he stinks. Maybe if I can get you to see it, too, you’ll drop it. But this has got to stop. I mean it.”
“Okay. Loud and clear,” Susan agreed with a nod, though his words had fallen on deaf ears.
CHAPTER 26
Susan did not sleep well that night once again, the conversations with Eric, Ed, and Sal continuing to niggle at her.
Ed’s unwillingness to hear her out was at the root of much of her irritation. She found it disgraceful that he had zero interest in speaking with Milton Lincoln, given all the facts she’d presented. She honestly couldn’t see what harm it would do, but Ed, it seemed, was terrified at even the possibility of upsetting the FBI. Rather than ending his career on a spark, he’d rather just fade away. Susan felt guilty for her disloyalty, but she almost wished that he’d just quit now , if this was to be his attitude.
There were also several details about Overalls Boy that bothered her, the most compelling being that he’d been moved. Why him and not the others? And was he Lenny Lincoln?
Then there were Eric’s claims. Out of all the twenty-one children he could have claimed to have seen, why Overalls Boy specifically? And how could he possibly know about the woman? Ed clearly thought the professor was a lunatic, but Susan wasn’t so sure—and it wasn’t because she had the hots for him.
Susan had been exposed to enough bullshitters in her line of work to last three lifetimes, and Eric didn’t have any telltale signs of one. He didn’t want credit. He wasn’t trying to use his information (vague as it was) as a bargaining tool to hedge punishment for past crimes he’d committed. Above all, he acknowledged that his statement sounded crazy.
Susan arrived at work to find Ed lurking by her desk. She felt guilty once more as it dawned on her exactly how irritated she was by his presence, particularly because the man himself seemed to be in high spirits.
“Ah, there you are,” he said as she approached. He was holding a file, which he waved above his head triumphantly. “Did I call it, or did I call it?”
“Call what?”
“Your man’s a cuckoo banana.”
“What do you mean?” she said, reaching for the file. “What man?”
Ed moved it out of her reach. He licked a thumb and pretended to root through the papers, clearly about to enjoy delivering whatever information he had. He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “Eric Evans was arrested in Massachusetts in ’03 for drunk and disorderly.”
Susan frowned. “So? One drunk and disorderly does not a cuckoo banana make.”
“I’m not done. They realized he wasn’t drunk once they got down to the station, so they 5150ed him—”
“No way!”
“Yep, shipped him off to the mental ward. He’d forgotten to take his meds that day or something.” Ed flicked a hand. “The guy’s a schizo.”
Susan reached for the file, and this time Ed let her take it. She read a few lines, shaking her head. “Shit.”
“You can see for yourself. He’s nuts.”
“But he didn’t . . .” Susan flapped the file against her thigh. “I don’t think he was off his meds when he came in. I’m telling you, he didn’t seem nuts.”
“You mean other than claiming to dream about dead kids.”
“Are there no other arrests on his record?”
“No others that I could find,” Ed said, taking the file back from Susan.
Susan cocked her head. “So then it was an isolated incident?”
Ed made a snorting sound. “Isn’t one 5150 enough? I’m thinking you just might actually be sweet on this guy.”
“I won’t dignify that with a response,” Susan said and then pursed her lips. What she really wanted to say was this: Even schizophrenics could be psychic, couldn’t they?
Crazy or not, Eric knew something. He just might not be aware of it.
Yet.
CHAPTER 27
Eric was moving the steamer trunk, now fully restored, into the bedroom when his phone bleeped with an incoming call from a number he didn’t recognize. It turned out to be the last person on the entire planet he’d ever expect to call.
Dream Woman Susan.
She wanted to know if she could stop by his place in an hour and show him some photos of missing boys, see if any of them might be a match to the child he kept seeing in his dreams. He casually told her of course she could, though internally he was dubious of her motives. As far as he suspected, she thought he was a crackpot. And how could she not after he’d gone into the station spinning tales about dreams of found passports and missing children? He bristled with embarrassment every time he thought of it, which was often.
Eric began buzzing around his home in a panic as soon as the conversation ended, wiping down surfaces and fluffing cushions, stuffing piles of dirty clothes (and loose papers and shoes) into the hamper. He was a naturally neat person, but he’d been a little lax with cleaning as of late because he’d been up to his neck in grading, which his assistant would typically do. If he had one.
He’d given his students their first quiz, and most had bombed with a D grade or below despite the extended office hours he’d offered each day after class. Only seven students in total had bothered to show, and naturally these were the serious students who really didn’t need the extra help.
He’d also dumbed down the material drastically (though he would have never admitted this to anyone at the college), understanding that he was no longer dealing with students who might intend to make a career out of geology. The quiz had been straightforward enough.
Question: How old is Earth ?
Answer: 4.56 billion years old .
Question: Did dinosaurs and humans coexist ?
Answer: No .
These were facts Eric felt anyone who’d made it past primary school should know. But the answers his students had provided were so glaringly obtuse that Eric, at about halfway through his grading, had truly begun to wonder if they weren’t just fucking with him.
Answer: We don’t know how old Earth is since language hadn’t been invented when the first humans were alive, so they had no way of writing records down .
Answer: Humans only exi
sted with later “famous” dinosaurs like T. Rex and Velociraptor . (Clearly dinosaurs they’d gleaned from Jurassic Park .)
And these were supposed to be college-level students? What were they actually teaching young kids these days?
Jake, not surprisingly, had aced the quiz. He’d technically scored 103 percent, since he’d correctly answered all the extra-credit questions. (Eric really had given his students every chance to pass.) Alas, if only all his students were as good as Jake.
Eric was feeling exceedingly nervous about Susan’s arrival, primping as if preparing for a date. When Eric thought about it, her visit would mark the first time since Maggie that he’d be in his home one-on-one with a woman he was interested in romantically. The notion both frightened and excited him.
Maybe this was just the push he needed. Maggie had obviously moved on from him (she’d moved on even before they were off ), so perhaps it was high time he returned the favor . . . not that an on-duty cop showing him photos of missing children qualified as moving on.
Still, it was a start.
Susan arrived in her cruiser five minutes earlier than her projected time, in full uniform. As Eric watched her come up his walkway, he pondered what it would be like to have her come over for a social visit instead, sporting, say, a dress and heels, a girly purse under her arm instead of grisly police files. In appearance, she was the reverse of Maggie—brunette to Maggie’s blonde, petite to her tall, blue eyes to her brown—but in his eyes, she was just as beautiful. Maybe even more, since she hadn’t screwed Jim.
“Nice to see you again, Eric.” Susan smiled as she entered. “Thanks for taking the time to see me.”
Eric, now more nervous than ever, tried to keep his voice steady. “It’s my day off, so you caught me at a good time.” He showed her to the living room and offered her a drink. She accepted a coffee and suggested that they sit at the kitchen table instead so that she could spread the photos out for him to examine.
After they got settled at the table, Eric said, “I was actually really shocked when you called—I was beyond embarrassed after I saw you. I assumed you probably thought I was insane. I bet you never would have guessed when we met at Luna’s that I’d come down to the station with a story like that.”
