by Vivian Barz
She chuckled. “Life is full of surprises, hmm?”
He said, “Don’t I know it.”
She watched him carefully as she spoke. “It looks like maybe some parts of your dreams could be true.”
“You’re joking.”
“Remember how you said the name Milton was important to the case?” He nodded, and she continued. “As it turns out, the next-door neighbor to Gerald Nichol is named Milton.”
Eric was shocked. “I had no idea. Honestly, I didn’t.”
Susan seemed relieved. “I believe you. And there’s more to it than that.”
“There is? Do you think Milton the neighbor relates to the case—has Gerald hurt him?”
“No, but I’ll get to all that in a sec. First, I want to show you the photos, okay?”
“Sure. Okay.”
Susan opened one of the three files she’d come with and extracted a stack of about two dozen photos of missing boys, all matching the general age and physical description of Lenny Lincoln. She spread them out on the table in front of Eric. “Take your time. Really look at the photos and let them sink in.”
Eric hunched forward so that he could inspect the images more closely. “Jesus. Are all these kids missing?”
“I’m afraid so.”
He shook his head, murmuring, “Where did they go?”
“I wish I knew.”
After a few minutes, Eric said, “I’m sorry; I don’t recognize any of these boys. I really wish I could have helped you more.” He was visibly deflated. He also looked more than a little worried. “I was hoping that I’d stop seeing the boy if I could help identify him.”
“In your dreams, you mean.”
Eric couldn’t quite meet Susan’s eyes. He hated being a liar. “That’s right.”
After a moment, she said, “That’s okay. I’d rather you not recognize any of these boys than make a false identification. Sometimes, I think people are so eager to help out that they almost feel that they have to choose someone. They think that they’re somehow failing us if they don’t, so they start picking at random.”
Susan put the photos away and then produced a new batch from the second folder. She spread them out on the table.
“Oh,” Eric said. “I didn’t realize you had more.”
She nodded, watching him carefully. “How about these kids? Any familiar?”
Eric looked longer this time. “I’m sorry, but no.” He raked a hand through his hair, sitting back. “There’s a couple in here who look close, but it’s not him.”
Silently, Susan swept up the photos. From the third and last folder, she produced a new batch. She was about a quarter of the way through when Eric leaped from his seat.
His skin broke out in gooseflesh. “Him!” Eric snatched up a photo and turned it so that she could see. His hands were shaking badly. “That’s him.”
“Are you positive ?”
“I would stake my own life on it. That. Is. Him.” He rubbed the length of his arms, suddenly freezing. “Who is he?”
“Eric, that was a boy named Lenny Lincoln. He disappeared in the early sixties while playing outside with his older brother. That brother’s name? Milton.”
Eric’s mouth dropped open. “I don’t believe it.” He was having a hard time formulating his thoughts, his urge to let out a shriek strengthening. He struggled to find a logical explanation for what was happening, and his fright only deepened when he failed to find one. How could he possibly be seeing a child who’d been dead for decades? If he was losing his mind—having some kind of episode —how was it that Susan was verifying his claims? He folded his arms across his chest and stared at her hard. “You aren’t messing with me, are you?”
“Why would I do a thing like that?” Her expression was serious enough that she left little room for skepticism. “I have no reason to mess with you.”
Eric took a seat and carefully set Lenny’s photo back down on the table. “I suppose not.”
“Eric, Milton lives next door to the Death Farm, and he was living there even way back when his brother disappeared,” Susan said. “Lenny’s body was never found. They thought maybe an animal attacked him, dragged him off. Gerald was living on the farm at the time.”
In the pit of Eric’s gut was a bowling ball made of ice. “I . . . I just can’t . . . are you saying that one of the kids they found on that farm is Lenny Lincoln? That must be it, right?”
Susan did not answer. She clasped her hands in front of her on the table and said slowly, very slowly, “I’m not saying this is the case, but I have to ask you this, Eric. Is there any possible chance you could have gotten confused about any of this?”
Eric frowned. “Confused? How?” Could she know about his schizophrenia? He supposed she might if she’d delved into his history, though he believed medical records were confidential. Protected by law, even.
If Susan did know anything about his illness, she didn’t say. “Maybe you saw a photo of Lenny online or maybe heard something from someone in town?”
Eric was flabbergasted.
“I don’t mean to offend you or suggest—”
“No,” Eric said. “What you’re asking is reasonable. I’m just a little shocked by all this. I never thought my . . . my dreams would actually have any real relevance to the case.”
“Thank you for being understanding. Some people, you know, they take things personally. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask these kinds of questions.” Susan paused. “But can I ask you one more thing?”
“Shoot.”
“You didn’t have any dreams, did you?”
Eric chewed on her question for a moment. “No,” he finally admitted with a weak smile. “I didn’t.”
“Then what is it?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Eric puffed his breath out of his cheeks. “I . . . look, this is hard for me to explain because you’re only getting bits and pieces.”
“So tell me the whole story.”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m all ears.”
Am I really about to do this? he thought. You’ve already come this far, but you might as well kiss your chances with this amazing woman goodbye. “Okay, so when I was nineteen, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia.”
“Okay,” she said and then took a sip of coffee.
“That’s it? Okay?”
She chuckled softly. “You want me to freak out?”
Eric felt the tension seeping from his body. He found that he was even chuckling a little himself. “No, of course not. I just . . .”
“I’m assuming there’s more to it than that,” she said with a little shrug. “And believe me when I tell you that in my line of work, it takes a lot to shock me. Also, my mother is bipolar, so I’m not squeamish about mental illness the way a lot of people are. You have a disease; it’s not like you brought it on yourself. And you have it under control now, right? I mean, you’ve got this house, a job?”
“Sure. Yes, it’s been under control for quite some time.” Eric sipped some of his coffee, cleared his throat. “I’ve been taking medication for so long that it’s become second nature. I’m not perfect—”
“Nobody is.”
“But I’m also not sick sick, if you know what I mean.” She gave him a semiconfused look, and he clarified. “I’ll always be schizophrenic, but I won’t always have symptoms.”
“Oh, right, got it.” She nodded her head. “So then I’m not understanding what the problem is.”
Eric waved a hand over the photos on the table. “This is the problem. I can’t conceive how I could possibly know any of this. I’ve never heard of Lenny or Milton—I’ve only lived in town for a few weeks. I couldn’t even tell you the name of the street that Death Farm is on. The only things I do know about the case are what they’ve said on the news, which isn’t much. You can’t turn on the TV these days without hearing about the manhunt for that molester guy, Gerald. And before you ask, it hasn’t even occurred to me to ask a
nyone here in Perrick about the case—not that I know too many people in town. I don’t have children, so I have no need to check on neighborhood safety or kidnappings or whatever. It’s not a topic that interests me.” He thought a moment. “Well, I did overhear a couple of my students discussing the farm itself, how it’s scary that it’s so close to their own homes. Still, I just can’t see how . . .”
Susan gave him a patient look. “And your first thought is that you’ve been hallucinating all this? Which is why you lied about the dreams.”
“I don’t know what else to think.”
“Maybe don’t think about it at all.”
“Meaning?”
“Maybe it is what it is,” Susan said with a shoulder raised.
“Which is what?”
With a slight grin, she said, “I have absolutely no idea .” When she saw that Eric was grinning himself, she continued. “Look, I’m the last person to believe in psychic brouhaha or whatever, but I’m also not one to question facts. The fact is you know something, even if you’re not aware of it. I can’t get into details, but you mentioned some details about the case when you were at the station that extend beyond the realm of coincidence. Obviously, you have some kind of insight into this case, whether easily explainable or not.”
“You’re not freaking out? Because I am. I’m freaked . If you’ve seen some of the things I have . . .” Eric shook his head and added, “And thank you for believing me. I’m sure it must have taken a gigantic leap of faith for you to even come here.”
Susan hesitated, a battle seeming to take place in her police brain. “My boss wasn’t too keen on the idea,” she admitted. “Actually, I’m really not supposed to be here at all. I’ve sort of been banned from the case.”
“Is that right?” Eric said, his eyebrows raised.
“So now I’m going to have to ask you to have a little faith in me, in the things I’m telling you. To not ever mention, to anyone , that I was here.”
“Trust is a two-way street.”
“Exactly.”
They both went quiet, sipping their coffee.
Susan sat back in her chair, let out a little chuckle, and said, “Now I’m wondering if you’re thinking I’m a crackpot.”
“I can pretty much guarantee you that I would never think such a thing. People in glass houses and all that.”
She laughed and then was thoughtful. “I know this is a stretch—okay, it’s going to sound completely out there—but what if Lenny’s been coming to you because . . .”
Eric raised his eyebrows. “Because?”
Susan scrunched her reddening face. “Because he has a message?”
Eric nearly burst out laughing because of her mortified expression. “A message?”
“You said that in your visions or whatever they are, Milton’s name was important,” she said. “What if Lenny wants you to find Milton so that you can tell him that it wasn’t his fault that he disappeared?”
It was quite a leap, and yet it was . . . what, plausible ? Sure, why not, given how the rest of his knowledge about the case had come about. “How did you come up with this notion?”
Susan took a sip of her coffee and then explained, “When I was discussing the case earlier with a town historian, he mentioned that Milton has always felt responsible for his brother’s disappearance, maybe even still feels responsible.”
“But that’s ridiculous. They were just kids.”
“Sure,” Susan agreed. “But guilt is a bastard, right? Kid or not, Milton was the older brother, so maybe he feels like he failed at watching out for Lenny.”
Jim could learn a lesson or two from this Milton , Eric thought with faint sourness.
“I checked around,” Susan added. “In a small town like Perrick, you’re going to find that locals know a little bit of something about everybody.”
“Naturally.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “Milton is a recluse. He’s spent his entire life on the same farm where Lenny disappeared, almost as if he’s been waiting all these years for Lenny to return home. He also never married. Never had kids.”
“Seems that losing Lenny destroyed his whole future,” Eric commented, though he couldn’t help reflecting that his current situation wasn’t too far off from Milton’s. “That’s sad.”
“It is,” Susan said. “And it’s about to get sadder. Milton is terminally ill. Testicular cancer. He’ll probably be dead by this time next year.”
“How awful. My dad died of prostate cancer,” Eric said. “It’s no picnic.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks,” Eric said automatically and then quickly moved on. “So you think Lenny wants Milton to go in peace, something like that?”
Susan nodded. “That’s pretty much exactly what I was thinking. Who knows? It might give Milton some peace to know that he didn’t lose Lenny, that Lenny was taken .”
“Sure, I could see that.”
“It will be easy enough to prove that it is, in fact, Lenny’s body if Milton consents to giving us DNA,” Susan said. “Which I’m guessing he will.”
“I’m getting the feeling that there’s something else you need from me,” Eric said, wary.
Susan colored. “Am I that obvious? I was hoping you might want to come with me to Milton’s house. You know, because of all that you’ve been seeing? I would have said something sooner, but I didn’t want to ask you until . . .”
“Until what?”
Susan tapped a finger on the files. “I wanted to see if you’d correctly identify Lenny.”
“Of course I’ll go with you to Milton’s,” Eric said. “But I can’t promise he’ll believe anything that I say.”
Susan gave Eric a lopsided smile. “All we can do is try.”
“So when do you want to go?”
Susan pulled her keys from her pocket. “Now work?”
“I’ll get my coat.”
CHAPTER 28
Milton Lincoln was not what they had been expecting, which was a frail old man with a shuffling walk, pilled cardigan sweater, and croaky, scratched-record voice. The Milton who opened the door to Susan and Eric, while thin, was tall, strong looking, and sinewy, a willful workhorse who bucked the very notion of retirement. His weather-beaten face, tanned from decades of hard labor, boasted blue eyes that were sharp and wily.
The Lincoln farm was straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The fences were painted crisp white to match the house, its porch swept clean enough to eat from, the bright-green yard trimmed with nary a blade out of place. Milton’s truck, a sturdy seventies model with a camper shell, was faded brown yet immaculate. The barn, positioned about a hundred yards back from the house, was painted a clean brick red.
It was difficult to believe that this was a man dying of cancer. When Eric’s own father had been terminal, making it to the bathroom on time was a grand achievement. Milton Lincoln evidently wasn’t planning on going out to pasture without a fight.
Milton didn’t look at all surprised to see them. “Was wondering when you guys would come back,” he said as he opened the door, sweeping an arm across his body. “Come on in.”
Once they were inside, Milton gave Eric a cursory glance. “You aren’t with the law, though, are you? Else you’d be in uniform too.”
Eric smiled pleasantly. “You’re right. I’m not.”
“You’re not with the news?” Milton asked with a squint. “Had lots of reporters from the TV come knocking. Vultures, the lot of them.”
“No, I’m not with the news. I’m . . .” Eric looked to Susan for help.
“Mr. Lincoln,” Susan said. “You mentioned other officers have come by?”
He nodded. “Though not police like you. FBI, they were.”
Susan said, “We’re not here in any official capacity, Mr. Lincoln.”
“Oh?”
“No.” This time it was Susan who looked to Eric.
“Mr. Lincoln,” Eric began, “we’re here about your
brother, Lenny.”
Milton was flabbergasted. “My God . . . it’s been years since anyone has spoken that name to me. What’s this about?”
“Maybe we should sit down for this,” Susan suggested.
Susan and Eric burst out laughing as soon as they were back in the cruiser.
“He thinks we’re both completely nuts, doesn’t he?” said Susan with a snort, which intensified their hysteria.
“Oh yeah. Completely nuts.” Eric grinned. “But it was still sweet that he humored us.”
Susan grew serious as she glanced up at the rearview mirror, the farm shrinking as they made their way down the driveway. “Seriously, though, I hope we didn’t upset him. I thought he was going to pass out when we brought up Lenny.”
“I did too. But at least he agreed to come in and give a DNA sample. He could tell that our hearts were in the right place.”
“And thank goodness for that ,” she said, looking over at Eric. “I’d hate to have him file a complaint with my boss, since our little trip wasn’t exactly sanctioned.”
Eric smirked. “Bit of a rebel, are we, Suze?”
“I plead the Fifth,” she said and then went quiet for a beat. “You’d think Milton would actually want to believe us, you know, because of him being terminal.”
“He’s probably just stuck in his ways,” said Eric. “Imagine what it must have been like for Milton, having the two of us show up at his door about his brother, who’s been dead for decades. At least you’re a cop. I’m just the idiot standing next to you.”
“You have a point,” Susan said with a snicker. “Hey, what was the deal with that photo?”
“Photo?”
“I saw you looking at that frame with Lenny and his horse—and how dang cute was Lenny, by the way? I keep thinking of him as this freckled little thing, which is weird, since he’d be in his early sixties if he were alive today.”
“I never thought of it like that, but you’re right.”
“But your face when you looked at that photo.” Susan frowned. “It was like you had seen a ghost.”
