The Last Child

by John Hart

  “And you won’t say anything?”

  “Not if you do what I tell you.”

  “Swear?”

  “Just go, Uncle Steve. Go to work.”

  Uncle Steve slipped past, hands still up. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  But Johnny had nothing else to say. He closed the door, then spread the map on the kitchen counter. The red pen was slick between his fingers. He smoothed his palm across the wrinkled paper, then slid a finger to the neighborhood he’d been working for the past three weeks.

  He picked a street at random.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Detective Hunt sat at the cluttered desk in his small office. Files spilled from cabinet tops and unused chairs. Dirty coffee cups, memos he’d never read. It was 9:45. The place was a mess, but he lacked the energy to deal with it. He scrubbed his hands across his face, ground at the sockets of his eyes until he saw white streaks and sparks. His face felt rough, unshaven, and he knew that he looked every bit of his forty-one years. He’d lost so much weight that his suits hung on his frame. He’d not been to the gym or the shooting range in six months. He rarely managed more than one meal a day, but none of that seemed to matter.

  In front of him, he’d spread his office copy of the Alyssa Merrimon file. A well-thumbed duplicate was locked in a desk drawer at home. He flipped pages methodically, reading every word: reports, interviews, summaries. Alyssa’s face stared out at him from an enlarged copy of her school photograph. Black hair, like her brother’s. Same bone structure, same dark eyes. A secret kind of smile. A lightness, like her mother had, an ethereal quality that Hunt had tried and failed to identify. The way her eyes tilted, maybe? The swept-back ears and china skin? The innocence? That’s the one that Hunt came back to most often. The child looked as if she’d never had an impure thought or done an ill deed in her entire life.

  And then there was her mother, her brother. They all had it, to one degree or another; but none of them like the girl.

  Hunt scrubbed his face one more time.

  He was too close, he knew that; but the case had a grip on him. A glance at the office showed the depth of his fall. There were cases here that needed work. Other people. Real people who suffered just like the Merrimons did; but those cases paled, and he still did not know why. The girl had even found her way into his dreams. She wore the same clothes she had on the day she disappeared: faded yellow shorts, a white top. She was pale in the dream. Short hair. Eighty pounds. A hot spring day. There was no lead up when it happened; the dream started like a cannon shot, full-blown, color and sound. Something was pulling her into a dark place beneath the trees, dragging her through the warm, rotten leaves. Her hand was out, mouth open, teeth very white. He dove for the hand, missed, and she screamed as long fingers drew her down into some dark and seamless place.

  When it happened, he woke sheeted in sweat, arms churning as if he were digging through leaves. The dream found him two or three nights a week, and it was the same every time. He’d climb from bed sometime close to three, shaky, wide-awake, then put cold water on his face and stare long into bloody eyes before going downstairs to pore through the file for whatever hours remained before his son woke up and the day put its own long fingers on his skin.

  The dream had become his personal hell, the file a ritual, a religion; and it was eating him alive.

  “Good morning.”

  Hunt jerked, looked up. In the door stood John Yoakum, his partner and friend. “Hey, John. Good morning.”

  Yoakum was sixty-three years old, with thinning brown hair and a goatee shot with gray. Thin but very fit, he was dangerously smart, cynical to a fault. They’d been partners for four years, worked a dozen major cases together, and Hunt liked the guy. He was a private man and a smart-ass, but he also brought rare insight to a job that demanded nothing less. He worked long hours when they needed to be worked, watched his partner’s back; and if he was a little dark, a little private, Hunt was okay with that.

  Yoakum shook his head. “I’d like to live the night that made you look like this.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  Yoakum’s grin fell off and his words were brisk. “I know that, Clyde. Just messing with you.” He gestured over his shoulder. “I have a call you might want to take.”

  “Yeah. Why is that?”

  “Because it’s about Johnny Merrimon.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Some lady wants to talk to a cop. I told her that I was the only real cop here today. I said, Emotional wrecks, yeah, got one of those. An obsessive compulsive that used to look like a cop. She could have that guy, too. Both, in fact. At the same time.”

  “What line, smart-ass?”

  Yoakum showed his fine, porcelain teeth. “Line three,” he said, and left with an easy swagger. Hunt lifted the phone and punched the flashing button for line three. “This is Detective Hunt.”

  At first there was silence, then a woman’s voice. She sounded old. “Detective? I don’t know that I need a detective. It’s not that important, really. I just thought someone should know.”

  “It’s okay, ma’am. May I have your name, please?”

  “Louisa Sparrow, like the bird.”

  The voice fit. “What’s the problem, Ms. Sparrow?”

  “It’s that poor boy. You know, the one that lost his sister.”

  “Johnny Merrimon.”

  “That’s the one. The poor boy …” She trailed off for an instant, then her voice firmed. “He was just at my house … just this minute.”

  “With a picture of his sister,” Hunt interrupted.

  “Why, yes. How did you know?”

  Hunt ignored the question. “May I have your address, please, ma’am?”

  “He’s not in trouble, is he? He’s been through enough, I know. It’s just that it’s a school day, and it’s all very upsetting, seeing her picture like that, and how he still looks just like her, like he hasn’t grown at all; and those questions he asks, like I might have had something to do with it.”

  Detective Hunt thought about the small boy he’d found at the grocery store. The deep eyes. The wariness. “Mrs. Sparrow …”

  “Yes.”

  “I really need that address.”

  —

  Hunt found Johnny Merrimon a block away from Louisa Sparrow’s house. The boy sat on the curb, his feet crossed in the gutter. Sweat soaked his shirt and plastered hair to his forehead. A beat-up bike lay where he’d dropped it, half on the grass of somebody’s lawn. He was chewing on a pen and bent over a map that covered his lap like a blanket. His concentration was complete, broken only when Hunt slammed the car door. In that instant the boy looked like a startled animal, but then he paused. Hunt saw recognition snap in the boy’s eyes, then determination and something deeper.

  Acceptance.

  Then cunning.

  His eyes gauged distance, as if he might hop on his bike and try to run. He risked a glance at the nearby woods, but Hunt stepped closer, and the kid sagged. “Hello, Detective.”

  Hunt pulled off his sunglasses. His shadow fell on the boy’s feet. “Hello, Johnny.”

  Johnny began folding the map. “I know what you’re going to say, so you don’t have to say it.”

  Hunt held out his hand. “May I see the map?” Johnny froze, and the hunted animal look rose again in his face. He looked down the long street, then at the map. Hunt continued: “I’ve heard about that map, you see. I didn’t believe it at first, but people have told me.” Hunt’s eyes were hard on the boy. “How many times is it now, Johnny? How many times have I talked to you about this? Four? Five?”

  “Seven.” His voice barely rose from the gutter. His fingers showed white on the map.

  “I’ll give it back.”

  The boy looked up, black eyes shining, and the sense of cunning fell away. He was a kid. He was scared. “Promise?”

  He looked so small. “I promise, Johnny.”

  Johnny raised his hand and Hunt’s fingers closed on
the map. It was worn soft and showed white in the folds. He sat on the curb, next to the boy, and spread the map between his hands. It was large, purple ink on white paper. He recognized it as a tax map, with names and matching addresses. It only covered a portion of the city, maybe a thousand properties. Close to half had been crossed off in red ink. “Where did you get this?” he asked.

  “Tax assessor. They’re not expensive.”

  “Do you have all of them? For the entire county?” Johnny nodded, and Hunt asked, “The red marks?”

  “Houses I’ve visited. People I’ve spoken to.”

  Hunt was struck dumb. He could not imagine the hours involved, the ground covered on a busted-up bike. “What about the ones with asterisks?”

  “Single men living alone. Ones that gave me the creeps.”

  Hunt folded the map, handed it back. “Are there marks on other maps, too?”

  “Some of them.”

  “It has to stop.”

  “But—”

  “No, Johnny. It has to stop. These are private citizens. We’re getting complaints.”

  Johnny stood. “I’m not breaking any laws.”

  “You’re a truant, son. You’re ditching school right now. Besides, it’s dangerous. You have no idea who lives in these houses.” He flicked one finger at the map; it snapped against the paper and Johnny pulled it away. “I can’t lose another kid.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Yeah, you told me that this morning.”

  Johnny looked away, and Hunt studied the line of his narrow jaw, the muscles that pressed against the tight skin. He saw a small feather tied to a string around Johnny’s neck. It shone whitish gray against the boy’s washed-out shirt. Hunt pointed, trying to break the mood. “What’s that?”

  Johnny’s hand moved to his neck. He tucked the feather back under his shirt. “It’s a pinfeather,” he said.

  “A pinfeather?”

  “For luck.”

  Hunt saw the kid’s fingers go white, and he saw another feather tied to the bike. The feather was larger, mostly brown. “How about that one?” He pointed again. “Hawk? Owl?”

  The boy’s face showed nothing, and he kept his mouth shut. “Is that for luck, too?”

  “No.” Johnny paused, looked away. “That’s different.”

  “Johnny—”

  “Did you see in the news last week? When they found that girl that was abducted in Colorado? You know the one?”

  “I know the one.”

  “She’d been gone for a year and they found her three blocks from her own house. She was less than a mile away the whole time. A mile from her family, locked up in a dirt hole dug into the wall of the cellar. Walled up with a bucket and mattress.”

  “Johnny—”

  “They showed pictures on the news. A bucket. A candle. A filthy mattress. The ceiling was only four feet high. But they found her.”

  “That’s just one case, Johnny.”

  “They’re all like that.” Johnny turned back, his deep eyes gone darker still. “It’s a neighbor or a friend, someone the kid knows or a house she walked past every day. And when they find them, they’re always close. Even if they’re dead, they’re close.”

  “That’s not always true.”

  “But sometimes. Sometimes it is.”

  Hunt stood as well, and his voice came softly. “Sometimes.”

  “Just because you quit doesn’t mean that I have to.”

  Looking at the boy and at his desperate conviction, Hunt felt a great sadness. He was the department’s lead detective on major cases, and because of that, he’d taken point on Alyssa’s disappearance. Hunt had worked harder than any other cop to bring that poor child home. He’d spent months, lost touch with his own family until his wife, in despair and quiet rage, had finally left him. And for what? Alyssa was gone, so gone they’d be lucky to find her remains. It didn’t matter what happened in Colorado. Hunt knew the statistics: Most were dead by the end of the first day. But that made it no easier. He still wanted to bring her home. One way or another. “The file is still open, Johnny. No one has quit.”

  Johnny picked up his bike. He rolled up the map and shoved it into his back pocket. “I have to go.”

  Detective Hunt’s hand settled on the handlebar. He felt specks of rust and heat from the sun. “I’ve cut you a lot of slack. I can’t do it anymore. This needs to stop.”

  Johnny pulled on the bike but couldn’t budge it. His voice was as loud as Hunt had ever heard it. “I can take care of myself.”

  “But that’s just it, Johnny. It’s not your job to take care of yourself. It’s your mother’s job, and frankly, I’m not sure she can tend to herself, let alone a thirteen-year-old boy.”

  “You may think that’s true, but you don’t know anything.”

  For a long second the detective held his eyes. He saw how they went from fierce to frightened, and understood how much the kid needed his hope. But the world was not a kind place to children, and Hunt had reached the limit with Johnny Merrimon. “If you lifted your shirt right now, how many bruises would I see?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  The words sounded automatic and weak, so Hunt lowered his voice. “I can’t do anything if you won’t talk to me.”

  Johnny straightened, then let go of his bike. “I’ll walk,” he said, and turned away.

  “Johnny.”

  The kid kept walking.

  “Johnny!”

  When he stopped, Hunt walked the bike over to him. The spokes clicked as the wheels turned. Johnny took the handlebars when Hunt offered the bike back to him. “You still have my card?” Johnny nodded, and Hunt blew out a long breath. He could never fully explain his affinity for the boy, not even to himself. Maybe he saw something in the kid. Maybe he felt his pain more than he should. “Keep it with you, okay. Call me anytime.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t want to hear about you doing this again.”

  Johnny said nothing.

  “You’ll go straight to school?”

  Silence.

  Hunt looked at the clean, blue sky, then at the boy. His hair was black and wet, his jaw clenched. “Be careful, Johnny.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  People were not right. The cop had that part straight. Johnny had peered over more fences and into more windows than he could count. He’d knocked on doors at all hours, and he’d seen things that weren’t right. Things that people did when they thought they were alone and no one was watching. He’d seen kids sniff drugs and old people eat food that fell on the floor. He once saw a preacher in his underwear, hot-faced and screaming at his wife as she cried. That was messed up. But Johnny was no idiot. He knew that crazy people could look like anybody else. So he kept his head down. He kept his shoes laced tight and a knife in his pocket.

  He was careful.

  He was smart.

  Johnny did not look back until he’d gone two full blocks. When he did turn his head, he saw that Detective Hunt still stood in the road, a distant speck of color next to a dark car and green grass. The cop was still for an instant, then one arm rose in a slow wave, and Johnny rode faster, careful to not look back again.

  The cop scared him, and Johnny wondered how he knew the things he knew.

  Five.

  The number popped into his head.

  Five bruises.

  He pedaled harder, pumped his legs until the shirt on his back clung like a second skin. He went north to the far edge of town, to the place where the river slid beneath the bridge and widened out until the current went flat. He rode his bike down the bank and dropped it. Blood pounded in his ears and he tasted salt. His eyes burned from it, so he wiped at them with a grubby sleeve. He used to fish here with his father. He knew where to find the bass and the giant cats that hugged the mud five feet down, but none of that mattered. He never fished anymore, but he still came here.

  This was still his place.

  He sat in the dust to untie hi
s shoes. His fingers shook and he did not know why. The shoes came off, then he touched the feather to his cheek and wrapped it in his shirt. The sun put fierce heat on his skin, and he looked at the bruises, the largest of which was the size and shape of a large man’s knee. It wrapped around the ribs on his left side and he remembered how Ken held him down with that knee, shifted his weight whenever Johnny tried to squirm out.

  Johnny rolled his shoulders, tried to forget about it, the knee on his chest, the finger in his face.

  You’ll fucking do what I fucking say …

  Open hand slaps to Johnny’s face, first one side, then the other, his mother passed out in the back room.

  You little shit …

  Another slap, harder.

  Where’s your daddy now?

  The bruise had yellowed out on the edges, gone green in the middle; and it hurt when he pushed it with a finger. The skin went white for a second—another perfect oval—then the color rushed in. Johnny scrubbed more salt from his eyes, and when he moved for the river, he stumbled once. He stepped in and river bottom pushed between his toes; then he dove, and warm water closed above him. It wrapped him up, shut out the world and bore him tirelessly down.

  —

  Johnny spent two hours at the river, too worried about Detective Hunt to risk more of his search, too ambivalent about school to make going worth his time. He swam across the river and back, made shallow dives from flat rocks baked hot by the sun. Driftwood lay in silver stacks and wind licked off the water. By late morning he was physically worn, stretched out on a flat rock forty feet downriver from the bridge, invisible behind a willow that dragged long strands in the black water. Cars made the bridge hum. A small stone clattered on the rock beside his head. He sat up and another pebble struck him on the shoulder. He looked around and saw no one. A third rock glanced off his leg. It was large enough to sting. “Throw another and you’re dead.”