The Drowning Child

by Alex Barclay

  Ruddock nodded. ‘OK – I’ll do that.’

  She waited for him to leave, then opened up a legacy.com page for Roger Lyle. ‘Pillar of the community alert,’ she said, pointing to the screen.

  Gary and Paul looked at her.

  ‘Did you know that a local swim coach committed suicide last Friday at the retirement home?’ said Ren.

  ‘A couple of the guys in the command center were talking about it,’ said Paul.

  ‘Did they say anything else about him?’ said Ren. ‘Any weird vibe?’

  ‘No,’ said Paul. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Ren – want to swing by, check it out?’ said Gary.

  ‘Sure,’ said Ren. She googled it, then typed the owner’s name into her phone.

  Ren took the ten-minute drive to the Harvest Road Retirement Home, and went up to the front desk.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for Nadine Jacobs.’ She showed her creds.

  ‘Just one moment,’ said the receptionist.

  Nadine Jacobs came down to Ren, with the look of someone who had not been sleeping well. Her eyes were puffy, her hair in need of a brush.

  Suicide is not exactly great for business.

  ‘Hello, Ms Jacobs – I’m Ren Bryce, I’m with the FBI – could we talk somewhere privately? It’s about Roger Lyle.’

  Nadine frowned, but nodded. ‘Sure, absolutely – come with me.’

  They walked a hallway that was painted a dismal shade of gray and hung with wall art that was angular and aggressive. The lighting was cold and bright and the heating was high.

  What sensory fuckery is this?

  No wonder Roger Lyle didn’t want to hang around.

  Oh …

  I could do this all day.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Nadine, pushing her office door open, letting Ren walk in ahead of her.

  ‘Take a seat.’

  ‘Can you tell me a little about Mr Lyle?’ said Ren, settling in a chair.

  ‘About what happened on Friday?’ said Nadine.

  ‘Well … if you want to start with that. Or you could just talk to me about him as a person.’

  ‘OK,’ said Nadine. ‘Well, he was the swim coach here in Tate for many years. He taught most of the kids coming up, did extra classes, took them on trips …’

  Ding. Ding. Ding. ‘Was he a popular man?’ said Ren.

  Nadine gave a one-shoulder shrug. ‘Depends on who you ask,’ she said. ‘He got results. The kids did well, but they didn’t like his discipline. Obviously, a lot of the parents did – the stricter ones. The more laid-back ones thought he needed to lighten up – not that they would say that to his face.’

  ‘Are you from here?’ said Ren. ‘Did he teach you?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Nadine. ‘I’m terrified of the water.’

  Me too now.

  ‘Have you cleaned out Roger’s room yet?’ said Ren.

  ‘No,’ said Nadine. ‘We were going to wait until his son came by to pick up his personal effects. He asked that the room be left as is. And, he’s paid up until the end of the month, anyway.’

  ‘Did he have a wife?’ said Ren. ‘Are there any other family members?’

  ‘There’s just Jimmy,’ said Nadine. ‘He’s on his way here for the memorial. Roger’s wife – Jimmy’s mother – left him years ago. From what I can gather, it broke Roger’s heart. He threw himself into his work. It became all about the kids after that.’

  I bet it did.

  This could all be a coincidence. ‘Could I take a look at his room, please?’ said Ren.

  ‘Sure,’ said Nadine. As they walked the next hallway, this one a dirty shade of blue, Nadine turned to Ren. ‘May I ask, Agent, what your interest in Roger Lyle is?’

  Yes, you may. And I may feel free to lie in response. Can’t think of anything. ‘I’m afraid I’m not in a position to discuss that.’

  They arrived at Roger’s room. Nadine unlocked the door and pushed it open. It looked like a hurricane had swept through it. It was small, with a single bed, a closet, a chair and a table. There was a newspaper on the table, folded back to a completed crossword. Ren unfolded it to the front page. It was Tuesday’s edition of the Marion County Gazette, leading with Caleb’s disappearance.

  She turned to Nadine. ‘Could I trouble you for a glass of water, please?’

  ‘No problem,’ said Nadine. ‘There’s a cooler at the end of the hallway. I’ll just be a minute.’

  Ren bent down as soon as Nadine left, put on her gloves, and grabbed the wastebasket, tilting it toward her to get a look inside. There was a balled-up piece of paper. Ren opened it, flattened it out, read what was on it.

  What.

  The.

  Fuck?

  There were two dates handwritten on it: the date Aaron Fuller died, and the date that Caleb Veir disappeared.

  63

  Ren stood up, flipped the newspaper on to the crossword again, and compared the handwriting in the two.

  Not his writing on the note.

  There was a faint smell of citrus from the paper.

  Perfumey. Female.

  Ren took a paper evidence bag from her purse, put the page inside, and put it back in her purse. She opened the drawers, all of them half-filled with neat piles of clothes. She looked through them, found nothing. There was a stack of crime novels beside his bed. There was a suitcase underneath the bed. She slid it out and opened it. It was empty.

  Nadine came back in as Ren was standing up, and handed her a cup of water.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ren. She drank it and put the empty cup on the table.

  ‘Do the residents get out much?’ said Ren.

  ‘There are various outings organized every week,’ said Nadine, ‘residents can decide whether they want to go. If you mean Roger specifically – he hadn’t been on any of them.’

  ‘Has he had any visitors recently?’ said Ren.

  ‘Not since the Sunday before last – his son Jimmy came in that morning – he was heading off on vacation.’

  ‘Is your visitor log computerized?’ said Ren.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nadine.

  ‘Can you forward me details of visitors from last week?’

  ‘Sure, no problem.’

  Ren handed her her card. ‘Thank you.’ She paused. ‘Where did Roger Lyle live?’

  ‘Well, the house is for sale now,’ said Nadine. ‘But it’s on Richmond Road, just by the middle school.’

  Holy. Fuck.

  Ren drove to Richmond Road, and parked opposite the one house that had a FOR SALE sign in the front garden. She opened up her laptop and called up the CCTV photo of Seth Fuller on the same street. He was pretty much parked in the same spot.

  What is going on?

  Ren arrived back in Tate PD and filled everyone in on Roger Lyle, and Seth Fuller. Ren turned to Ruddock. ‘What do you know about him?’

  Please do not tell me he’s your best friend.

  ‘He’s very well-known in the community,’ said Ruddock. ‘He always kept very much to himself. He was strict with all the kids, strict with his son. He was a private man.’

  ‘Could you see him doing anything like this?’ said Ren. ‘He wasn’t in Harvest Road when Aaron and Luke were killed. Going in there could have been some very convenient timing. Have there ever been any rumors about him?’

  ‘No,’ said Ruddock.

  ‘CVIP’s estimate is that the man in the photos would be minimum mid-sixties now,’ said Ren. ‘He fits the bill in that sense.’ She put on gloves and pulled the piece of paper from the evidence bag. ‘This was the note from his wastebasket.’ She held it in front of Ruddock. He stared at it.

  Ooh … what do you know? ‘Do you recognize the writing?’ said Ren.

  Ruddock looked up at her. ‘No.’

  There is a battle behind those eyes.

  ‘It smelled a little citrusy earlier,’ said Ren. ‘It’s worn off now. It might be a woman.’

  Ruddock nodded. ‘Could be. Let’s see what the
lab comes back with, in terms of prints.’

  ‘What did the Veirs say about the sleeping bag?’ said Ren.

  ‘Both thought that the other brought it from before they were married,’ said Ruddock. ‘After that, their best guess was that the previous owners left it behind. But we contacted them, and it wasn’t theirs. The Veirs were horrified the sleeping bag had appeared in images of abuse.’

  Ren turned to Paul Louderback. ‘Can we send some guys to Richmond Road to check out Roger Lyle’s house?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Paul, ‘but that was already done as part of the neighborhood canvas last week.’

  ‘Can we get into the house?’ said Ren. ‘Get the keys from the real estate agent? Unless Lyle’s son lets us in when he arrives. Pretty shitty, though, when he’s coming back for his father’s memorial.’

  ‘If the house is up for sale, it’s likely we’re not going to find much in it,’ said Gary.

  ‘Let’s find out if they’ve got anything in storage,’ said Ren. ‘We need to know.’

  By the time Ren checked her inbox, there was one from Bob Freeborn in CVIP, forwarded by Ruddock. It had the first of the indecent images and videos. Ren started to look through them.

  Grim. Grim. Grim. Grim. Grim.

  64

  Jimmy Lyle pulled up in his rental car and parked on Pleasant Lane. He couldn’t park in the driveway on Richmond Road, he couldn’t alert the neighbors that he was back. He couldn’t stand to hear the doorbell ring, to see the porch fill up with casseroles, to feel his ears fill up with condolences, his eyes flooded with pitying looks, or tears, his body squeezed by warm, fat ladies who left their scent behind on his neck, and their unreliable fucking memories caught in his throat.

  He unlocked the gate, and started walking up the path through the back garden, his hands in his pockets, his head bowed. He stopped and looked up at the small bathroom window. He imagined being a boy, floating up to it, like the window scene in that old movie, Salem’s Lot: one boy on the inside, one on the outside. Inside Jimmy, Outside Jimmy. But in the movie, the horror, the ghastly boy, the smoke – everything was on the outside. Not in the Lyle house.

  Jimmy remembered that bathroom blurred with steam, the bath, this time, one time only, filled with boiling water. It was night time. His father was drunk. He didn’t notice. He didn’t notice until he heard Jimmy’s piercing screams, saw his red, falling-away flesh. He didn’t know that Inside Jimmy wanted someone to know, but that when they arrived at the hospital, Outside Jimmy won. Daddy won.

  Jimmy walked on. He was used to steeling himself when he knew he was about to face a reflective surface – this time, the windows at the back of the house, the glass kitchen door. He looked up when he got there and his reflection was clearer, starker than he expected. It took him a moment to realize why. The glass was black. Maybe the real estate agent had drawn the curtains. But he hadn’t heard from her all week. There had been no viewings. He walked closer. The curtains were moving. He walked closer again.

  The curtains were flies. Lots and lots of flies.

  65

  Seth Fuller stood by the pool table in The Crow Bar with his jacket on, waiting for Shannon to come out from behind the bar. It was midnight and there were only three customers left.

  ‘I’m going for a walk,’ said Seth.

  Shannon paused. ‘OK …’ She hugged him.

  He winced.

  ‘I forgot about your back – sorry,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry – I know I hug you too much.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s OK. I don’t mind.’

  ‘Should you really be walking that much, though?’ said Shannon. She touched his cheek lightly. ‘Your poor face. It’s so strange to see you with a black eye.’ She studied him. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Please stop worrying about me all the time,’ said Seth. ‘You’re freaking me out.’

  Seth walked through the woods by Lake Verny, down into Clyde’s workshop. He unlocked the door. He lit some candles on the worktop. He grabbed an empty crate from under the counter, flipped it over and sat down, elbows on his knees.

  He reached into his back pocket and slid out a slim white packet. He read the yellow print: FENTANYL 100mcg TRANSDERMAL SYSTEM. The warning – white on a triangle of red in the bottom right-hand corner – read: ATTENTION: ONLY FOR USE BY PATIENT FOR WHOM PRESCRIBED.

  Seth wasn’t sure if that was good English. Should it not have an ‘it is’ in there? ‘For whom it is prescribed’?

  He turned the packet over and over in his hands. He thought of the night he overdosed, how that prick Merrifield would have been happy to watch him die.

  It probably just looked like falling asleep, when, inside, your body was firing all kinds of pain around you, while you stayed. He liked being numb.

  And now he was in pain, all over. And he was in pain from the hug Aunt Shannon had given him. He thought of her, and it was just too overwhelming. When they lived in Tate, it was a little easier. But then she bought a bar on a lake. Then he was hanging over water. At first, he looked at it like a therapist would. Water hung over you – now you’re hanging over water. You have the power now.

  Tears slid down Seth’s face. He didn’t have any power. He was powerless. He would never have power.

  But he thought he would. He had made up his mind months ago that, one day, he would go back to face Roger Lyle – but only after he had made something of himself, when he was better, when he was running cruises on the lake or hiring out speedboats, when he was making money for himself, for Aunt Shannon, when he’d managed to abandon his fear of water, reclaim his love for it. He would wait a few years until he was married, maybe, when he had a beautiful wife who would help him heal from all the fucked-up shit that he had seen, all the fucked-up shit that had been done to him, all the fucked-up shit that had led him to drugs, to numbing, to prison, to almost dying, to wanting to die, over and over.

  And then Roger Lyle fucking killed himself. They’d laid him out in Longacres Funeral Home so people could pay their respects. The thought of mourners filing past that casket, paying tribute, had filled Seth with rage. He began to fantasize about walking in there, standing over that casket and firing a bullet into Roger Lyle’s brain so everyone could see just how damaged his head was.

  On Monday night he’d made up his mind to do it for real. He got hold of a gun and Clyde’s key to the funeral home and was all set to go. Even after Aunt Shannon took the gun from him, he’d been determined to go through with it, figuring he’d find some other way to mess with Lyle’s head – smash it with a crucifix or one of those cheap fucking swimming trophies lined up around the coffin.

  He’d made it all the way to the gates. And then an image had come into his mind of that beautiful girlfriend, whoever she would be, as he held her hands at that part of the relationship, the honesty part, the part where you laid it all out: your past, your fears, your regrets, the secrets you could only ever entrust to someone extraordinary, to someone you loved deeply. He knew he would love deeply. He knew he could.

  Then his heart had started to pound like a warning, his stomach had tightened, tears had spilled down his cheeks as he imagined looking a girl in the eye and telling her that he desecrated the corpse of an old man. The tears didn’t stop when he imagined looking her in the eye and not telling her.

  He couldn’t do it, so he’d walked away, walked into Gil Wiley’s fists. As if he’d fuck Isabella. She was beautiful, but she was married, and she was as damaged as he was. They knew what had happened to each other. They had been Roger Lyle’s favorites. They had never spoken about it until last Saturday when she showed up at Lake Verny. She had told him about going to see Roger Lyle, confronting him, trying to find out whether he was responsible for the drownings she had just heard about. And Roger Lyle had been hideous to her. He had been nasty, and dirty, and racist, and abusive. She had stayed strong in front of him, but had collapsed halfway down the road. Roger Lyle was undistilled evil. Isabella Wiley was brave.<
br />
  Seth tore the packet open, slid out the patch. He thought of Aunt Shannon again. Her sister was dead, Aaron was dead … all she had was him. He felt bad for her that an ex-junkie jailbird screwed-up piece of crap was all she had left in this sorry-ass world. He thought of her walking in on him, slumped on the floor, his sleepy, druggie eyes, knowing how weak he really was, after all the time she believed in him.

  She’s not going to walk in on me.

  I’ll be back in a while.

  He thought of her finding him dead.

  Like I’m going to freakin’ die. It’s just one patch.

  One grain …

  No way I’m going to freakin’ die. Like I’d let Roger Lyle win. Fuck, no. No way.

  Seth peeled the clear cover off the patch. He sucked in air, first through his nostrils, then his mouth, his chest swelling, more air, more, more. He stared at the patch again.

  I just need to dissolve for a little while. I just need my chest to rest.

  He placed the patch on his tongue. He closed his eyes. He breathed like Lockwood taught him.

  He thought of some lady lying all skinny in her bed, one patch down. Cancer-stricken. Stricken.

  What am I stricken with? The shittiness of people’s screwed-up fantasies, of early deaths, of just life, of injustice, of children in pain with no voices and no breath.

  Warm and liquid.

  His eyes started to close, his heart slowed.

  I don’t want to die. I’ve got this.

  You’ve got this, Seth.

  I’ve got the rest of my life.

  I’m tired.

  I’m so fucking tired.

  66

  Ren woke up with a start, her chest heaving, slick with sweat.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  She grabbed her cell phone and checked the time. Eight thirty.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  What happened?

  Nightmares. Neubig. Brinks. Courtroom. Matt. Gary. Witness box. Faces. Gunfire. Prison. Jesus. Christ. I hate this shit.