The Last Child

by John Hart

  “Why would I agree to that?”

  “Because I’ve been carrying you for a year.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Second.” He raised his voice, slapped two fingers into an open palm. “I want you to back off Ken Holloway. The man has more money than God, more friends in high places than either of us could dream up, and I don’t need that kind of headache. Other than sleeping with a woman that apparently holds some interest for you, he’s never done an evil thing in his life, far as I can tell. No arrests. No charges of any kind. So if he wants to put his finger on your chest, you take it like a man. And if he wants to slum it with Katherine Merrimon”—the Chief put one finger squarely on Hunt’s chest, shoved hard—“you let him.”

  —

  Hunt watched the Chief storm off. He was a little man, with a little man’s priorities, and Hunt had larger concerns; so he buried the conversation, flushed it. Forgot it.

  Ah, crap. Who was he kidding?

  Threading his way through the winding corridors, he eventually reached the pediatric hall where they’d placed Johnny. Hunt was not allowed to see the boy, but he hoped to find the doctor and a change of heart. What he found instead was an austere woman who sat, knees clenched together, on a bench down the hall from Johnny’s room. She had gray hair, pulled back, and a severely cut suit. Hunt recognized her.

  Social Services.

  Shit.

  The woman caught his eye and began to rise, but he turned away before she could say anything. He made it to the lobby, but stopped when he heard Katherine’s voice. “Detective Hunt?”

  Standing beside the elevator bank, she looked like hell. Hunt crossed to her side, and they found themselves strangely alone in the crowded room. “Katherine,” Hunt said. “How’s Johnny?”

  She rubbed one arm, then lifted hair from her eyes and Hunt saw that she was on the verge of a breakdown. “Not good. He was cut seven times, two of them pretty deep.” She traced a finger beneath each eye before the tears spilled out. “It took two hundred and six stitches to close the wounds. He’ll be scarred for life.”

  Hunt looked beyond her. “Is he awake?”

  “Not now. He was, briefly.”

  “Did he say anything at all?”

  “He asked about Alyssa. He wanted to know if we found her.” Hunt looked away, but she put a hand on his arm. “Is it the same man?”

  She was asking if Burton Jarvis was the man who took her daughter. “It’s too early to say.”

  “Is it?” She squeezed, and Hunt saw the hope and dread that filled her up.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We’re looking into it. We’re checking. When I know something, you’ll know it, too. I promise.”

  She bobbed her head. “I should get back … in case he wakes up.”

  She made to leave and Hunt stopped her. He thought hard before he spoke. “Katherine.”

  “Yes?”

  “Social Services is going to want to speak with you.”

  “DSS? I don’t understand.”

  “Johnny was gone all night. In your car. He was almost killed by a known pedophile.” Hunt paused. “I don’t think they’ll let Johnny stay with you.”

  “I don’t understand.” Then, quickly, “I won’t allow it.”

  “He came in wearing feathers. He had rattlesnake rattles and a skull on a string around his neck. I don’t know a judge that would let him stay with you. You’ve seen the press outside? That’s national media. CNN. FOX. They’re calling him the Little Chief, the Wild Indian. It’s a story now, and that makes it political. DSS will take action because they have no choice.”

  The defiance melted. “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please.” Her fingers tightened on his arm. “Please.”

  Hunt looked up and down the room. In seventeen years, he’d never crossed the line, but here it was, as clear as any line he’d ever seen. In full control of himself, Hunt stepped over it. Why? Because some things mattered more.

  “They’ll do a full evaluation,” he said. “That starts with a surprise inspection of your home.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You need to go home now. You need to clean up.” Her hand moved up, touched a strand of limp hair. Hunt paused, but some things had to hurt. “You need to lose the drugs.”

  “I don’t—”

  Hunt stopped her. “Please don’t lie to me, Katherine. Right now, I’m your friend, not a cop. I’m one friend trying to help another.”

  She held his gaze for as long as she could, then looked down.

  “Katherine, look at me.” She tilted her face, and it was naked in the harsh light. “Trust me.”

  She blinked away dewdrop tears, and her words came with effort. “I need a ride.”

  Hunt peered through the glass doors, took in the crowd. The reporters. The cameras. He found Katherine’s hand with his own. “This way.” Hunt led her down successive corridors, onto an elevator, then outside through a double door at the back marked FOR DELIVERIES ONLY. “Car’s this way.”

  “What about my car?”

  “Impounded. Evidence.”

  Twenty feet into the hot sun, she took back her hand. “I can manage.” But when they got to the car, Hunt saw that she clearly could not. A flush burned her cheeks and her fingers twisted white. She pressed against the door and kept her head down.

  At her house, Hunt pulled the car as close to her door as he could. “Do you have money for a cab? To get back to the hospital?” She nodded. “My number?”

  She swept hair from her face, met his gaze, and some small pride glinted in her eyes. “I have several of your cards.” She opened her door and heat spilled in. He watched her legs swing away, her hand on the top of the door. When she leaned in, her voice was clipped. “I love my son, detective.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m a good mother.”

  She was trying to convince herself, but the wide pits at the center of her eyes made the statement a lie. Johnny was in the hospital, and she was still stoned. “I know you are,” Hunt said; but that’s not what he believed.

  I know you were.

  I hope you will be again.

  Hunt put the car in reverse.

  She stood in the dirt and watched him go.

  —

  Thirty minutes later, Hunt was at the shed, working the scene with Yoakum and several techs. His back was to the house. “Heads up,” Yoakum told him.

  “What?”

  “Chief.”

  Hunt looked down the trail and saw the Chief push through the last bit of low vegetation. Two assistants followed him. A uniform held branches out of his way. “I just did this,” Hunt said.

  “Good things come in fat packages.”

  Hunt crossed his arms over his chest. If the Chief decided to check up, that was fine, but Hunt wasn’t going to look happy about it. The Chief stopped fifteen feet away to survey the scene, hands on hips, chin at an angle.

  “Did he see this in a movie?” Yoakum whispered.

  “Button it, John.”

  “It’s Patton. Shit. The man thinks he’s George C. Scott.”

  The Chief lurched into motion and closed the last gap, his small entourage bunching up behind him. He nodded once to Yoakum and showed Hunt his serious eyes. “Walk with me.”

  Hunt turned his palms, taking in the dense woods, the thick undergrowth. “Where?”

  The Chief studied the dense growth. “Give us a minute.” His assistants melted away. “You, too, Yoakum.”

  “Me?” Hand on his chest. Eyes shocked.

  “Get lost.”

  Yoakum got behind the Chief before he started goose-stepping, but Hunt was in no mood for humor. He stared at the Chief and the Chief stared back. Tension ramped up, but the Chief broke first. “About earlier. Maybe I was out of line.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And maybe I wasn’t.”

  The Chief studied the tall trees, the wall of forest. The shed was a speck
in a sea of green. “If you tell me that you’re not too close to this, I’ll accept it.”

  The gaze held. “It’s just another case.”

  “Okay.” A tight nod. “We’ll play it like that, but consider this your absolute last final fucking chance. Now, before I change my mind and fire you for being such a poor liar, tell me what you’ve learned out here.”

  Hunt pointed toward the house, which was invisible beyond the trees. “We found where Jarvis tapped into his circuit box. The cable is buried two inches down. The shed is completely off the grid. And you saw the trail in. It’s barely a footpath. None of this is visible from the road or the house. No permits. No utilities. It’s a shell. A dead zone.”

  “Any luck with the kids?”

  “They’re sedated. The doctor won’t let me see them.”

  The Chief stepped into the shed and Hunt followed. He felt his skin crawl. “As you can see, the walls are padded with mattresses, probably for sound baffling. The windows are packed with fiberglass insulation and sealed with industrial plastic. Again, to muffle sound, but also to keep the site black. Look at this.” Hunt stepped to the far wall and pointed at a small, ragged hole. “This is where she tore out the hook that held her cuffs.” The hook had been bagged and numbered. Hunt picked it up and felt cold metal through the slick plastic. He held it out for the Chief, who touched it once, then knelt and placed a finger on the hole in the wall. It was a shallow hole. The concrete was crumbly and dry. “Tough kid,” Hunt said.

  “So how’d she get out of the shed?”

  Hunt led the Chief to the door and stepped outside. He gestured at the lock. It was a Yale, big and brass and solid. It was in the locked position, secured to the steel, U-shaped hasp. “He locked the lock, but failed to lock the door.”

  “Accident?” The Chief lifted the lock, let it drop and swing. “Or arrogance?”

  “Does it matter?”

  A shrug. “The gun?”

  “Unknown. It could have been in the shed all along. She could have found it in his house. That was unlocked, too.” Both men looked again in the direction of the house. Nothing was visible through the trees. Before dawn, though, with lights burning, Tiffany would have seen it. “I’m guessing he was intoxicated. We found liquor and drugs. The autopsy should tell us.”

  “Any sign that there may have been other children?” The Chief kept his tone professional.

  “Are you asking about Alyssa Merrimon?”

  “Not specifically.”

  The Chief was unflinching, his eyes implacable, as Hunt peered into the deep woods. “We’ll need the dog,” Hunt said. “If she’s buried out there, I want to find her.”

  “Not much light.”

  Hunt’s voice was bleak. “I’ve already made the call.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Behind the thin walls of a house that was not her own, Katherine Merrimon stared into the bathroom mirror. She’d recognized the lie in the cop’s face, felt it like a slap. So she asked herself the hardest question.

  Was she a good mother?

  Her skin stretched across the bones of her face, washed out and too pale. Hair hung with more weight than it should, and her fingers shook when she raised them to her cheek. She saw how chipped her nails had become, the way dark flesh rose up around her eyes. She looked for something familiar, but the eyes were cardboard eyes.

  An image of Johnny pressed into her mind. He was bandaged, bled white; and his first thought had been of his sister.

  Alyssa.

  The name channeled through her lips, almost took her down. She gripped the sink until one hand rose. She found the mirror, and with great loathing, she opened it. Pill bottles lined three shelves. Orange plastic. White labels. She picked a bottle at random: Vicodin. She got the top off, dumped three pills into her palm. They could take it all away, the kaleidoscope memories, the loss.

  Sweat trickled down her back. Her mouth went painfully dry and she could feel how they would be on her tongue—the hard swallow and the short, bitter wait. But when she lifted her gaze to the mirror, she saw those cutout eyes, and they looked faded, like copies of copies. They were the same as Johnny’s eyes, and they had not always looked like that. Not for either of them.

  She tilted her hand and allowed the pills to fall. They made small sounds as they struck the porcelain. In a sudden frenzy, she scooped out all of the bottles, raked them into the sink. One by one, she tore them open, dumped the pills into the toilet. One bottle. Twenty. She emptied them all and flushed the pills down.

  Fast.

  It had to be fast.

  She carried the empty bottles to the kitchen, threw them in the trash and hauled the bag outside. Time collapsed as she cleaned and scrubbed. Floors. The refrigerator. Windows. The hours became a hot blur of sweat and ammonia. She stuffed sheets into the washing machine, poured liquor into the weeds and threw bottles into the open can where they shattered and burst as she spun and went back for more. In the end, she confronted the same mirror. Blood hammered in the soft place beneath her jaw. She turned the water scalding hot and scrubbed her face until it hurt, but the eyes still looked wrong. She tore off her clothes and stepped into the shower; but it was not enough.

  The dirt was on the inside.

  —

  Johnny woke alone in a strange room. He heard footsteps beyond the door, a muted voice. A doctor was paged over an intercom, and bits of memory came back. He touched the bandages on his chest, felt pain, then tried to sit as nausea pushed through him. Colors spiked at the edge of his vision: dull red through the window, flat white under the door. He looked for his mother and the walls twisted. When he sat, he saw remnants of soot under his nails, hints of berry juice and blood stains on his fingers. His feathers were gone, but that didn’t matter anymore. He closed his eyes and felt Jar’s impossible grip. He smelled car leather, felt the long, cold lines as Jar crushed his neck and slashed him with his own knife.

  Johnny pulled his hands beneath the sheet, but still felt the warm, spongy hole in the back of Jar’s head. He heard sounds that went from hard to wet and remembered that Jar was dead. Johnny rolled onto his side and closed out the light.

  The door opened so quietly that Johnny didn’t really hear it. He sensed the movement of air, the presence of someone by his bed. He opened his eyes and saw Detective Hunt, who looked haggard, his smile forced. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he said, then gestured at the chair. “Do you mind?”

  Johnny straightened against the pillows. He tried to speak, but the world was wrapped in cotton.

  “How do you feel?” Hunt asked.

  Johnny’s eyes settled on the gun whose butt showed under the detective’s jacket. “I’m okay.” The words sounded thick and slow and false.

  Hunt sat. “Can we talk?” Johnny did not respond, and Detective Hunt leaned forward. He made a steeple of his fingers and put his elbows on his knees. The jacket gapped open so that Johnny could see the worn holster, the black lacquer that seemed to coat the steel. “I need to know what happened.”

  Johnny didn’t answer. He was transfixed.

  “Can you look at me, son?”

  Johnny nodded, but his eyes felt too heavy to lift.

  “Johnny?”

  Johnny stared at the gun. The checkered grip. The white bead of the safety.

  His hand moved, all on its own, and the cop was dimming, even as Johnny stretched for the gun. He just wanted to hold it, to see if it was as heavy as it looked, but the gun receded into a ball of soft light. A weight came onto Johnny’s chest. It pressed him into the mattress and he heard the cop’s distant voice. “Johnny. Stay with me, Johnny.”

  Then he was falling, and somebody drove black spikes into his eyes.

  —

  Katherine ironed her clothes and dressed. She fought to keep her fingers steady, but the buttons felt very small. She dried her hair, combed out the tangles, and debated over makeup. In the end, she looked like a normal woman stretched over the bones of someone very i
ll. When she called for a cab, she had to think hard to remember the numbers on the house; then she sat on the sofa’s edge to wait.

  A clock ticked in the kitchen.

  She kept her back straight.

  When the sweat began to form, it started between the blades on her back. She imagined the taste of a drink and heard the lullaby of one more forgotten day.

  It would be easy.

  So very, very easy.

  The decision to pray stole across her like a shadow. It was as if she’d blinked, then opened her eyes to an absence of light so distinct, it made her look up. The temptation rose from a deep place in her soul, a once-fierce heat now compressed to something black and cold. She fought the temptation, but lost, and when she knelt, she felt like a liar and a fake, like a traveler lost in a night of ceaseless rain.

  Words, at first, refused to come, and it felt like God, himself, had closed her throat. But she dipped her chin and strove to remember how it felt. Nakedness. Faith. The humility to plead. And that’s what she did. She begged for strength, and for her son to be well. She begged God for help, silently, ardently. She begged to keep what she had: her son, their life together. When she stood, she heard the sound of tires on gravel, and it sounded like rain. And then the sound stopped.

  Ken Holloway met her at the door.

  His suit was creased, the tie a rich purple, loose around his neck. Katherine froze when she saw the displeasure on his face, the sweat on his collar. She stared at the brush of hair that covered the back of his hand.

  “What are you doing?” He cupped her chin with a thumb and two hard fingers. “Who are you so dressed up for?” She could not answer. He squeezed her chin. “I said, who are you so dressed up for?”

  “I’m going to the hospital.” Small voice.

  Ken looked at his watch. “Visiting hours will be over in an hour. How about you pour us a drink and you can go tomorrow? First thing.”

  “They’ll wonder why I’m not there.”

  “Who will wonder?”

  She swallowed. “DSS.”

  “Bureaucrats. They can’t hurt you.”