by John Hart
“But they did. African slaves, Indian slaves. They learned to read and they took to the Bible; but they had to do it in private, ’cause they understood the danger of it, too. They were smarter than the slave owners thought they were. They knew they’d be punished for their faith. Sold off. Killed, maybe. So they’d worship in the woods and in the swamps. Secret places. Hidden places. You see?”
“No.”
“Think of them as hiding places for church. They called these places “hush arbors,” and they’d go there to worship in secret, to hide their faith from the whites that didn’t want to share their religion.”
“Hush arbors? Like the place on the map.”
Johnny nodded. “They were too smart to build a church because they knew somebody would find it. But woods are just woods, a swamp is just mud and water and snakes and shit. So that’s where they’d go. They’d sing their songs to God, dance on the dirt, and testify to their new faith.”
“That’s in the book?”
Johnny looked away, hesitated. “Some of it. Not all of it.”
“Not all of what?”
“There was a slave named Isaac, who was a preacher of sorts. He taught those who couldn’t read. He spread the word, even though he knew the danger of it.” Johnny swatted a mosquito, rolled it off his neck and squeezed blood between thumb and fingertip. “They were discovered eventually, and three slaves were lynched right there in the hush arbor, strung up from the trees that made their church. They were going to hang Isaac, too, but his owner intervened. He stood the mob down with a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other. They say he called God down from the heavens and threatened to shoot the first man who took a step. Nobody had the courage to chance it. He saved that slave’s life.”
Jack was enthralled. “What happened next?”
“He took Isaac home and hid him for three weeks, waited for the mob to cool down, waited for some guilt to set in, I guess. Then he gave that slave his freedom, and he gave him the land where his people had worshipped.”
“And been lynched.”
“That, too.”
“And you want to find this guy there?”
“Isaac Freemantle lived there the rest of his life. Maybe Freemantles still do. The trail goes right to it. Probably how they got to town and back.”
Jack frowned. “How do you know all this? You say it’s not in the book.”
“My great-great-grandfather’s name was John Pendleton Merrimon. Same name as me.”
“Yeah. So?”
“He was the one with the gun and the Bible.” Johnny tossed a stick on the fire. “He’s the one that set Isaac free.”
“Get out.”
“Truth.”
“And you want to go out into the swamp, to find this guy’s great-grandson or whatever, a killer, so you can ask him about Alyssa?” Johnny nodded in absolute certainty, and Jack shook his head. “You think he owes you?”
“I don’t think he knows who I am.”
“You’re an idiot. I mean, you are off the fucking reservation.”
“Off the reservation.” Johnny’s voice was bitter. “That’s funny.”
“It’s not a joke. This is stupid, Johnny. It’s mental.”
“No take-backs. That’s what you said.”
Jack scrambled to his feet and sparks popped in the fire. “Jesus, Johnny. This guy just killed two people. He’ll kill us, too. Sure as shit.”
Johnny rose as well. “That’s why I took this.” He pulled Steve’s gun from the holster, and fire devils danced in the metal.
“You’re insane.”
“And you’re coming with me.”
Jack looked around, as if for help; but there was nothing there. Light pushed dark and the sky pressed down. Jack opened his hands and begged with his eyes. “It’s been a year, Johnny.”
“Don’t you say it!”
Jack swallowed, took a desperate look at the scrub beyond the fire; then he said it. “She’s fucking dead, man.”
Johnny swung with all he had. The blow struck the side of Jack’s face and he went down in the dirt. Johnny stood over him, his breath like glass in his throat, the gun a dead weight in his hand. For that instant, his oldest friend was not his friend, but his enemy; Johnny wondered why he’d ever thought that Jack could be more than that. Then he recognized the terror in his friend’s face.
The heat drained out of Johnny, and he became aware of the sky, suddenly dark and huge. He saw himself through Jack’s eyes, and knew, freaking knew, that he was the crazy one. But that changed nothing.
“I have to go.”
Johnny’s fist fell open. Jack pushed back in the dirt.
“Please, don’t make me go alone.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Hunt drove Katherine Merrimon back to the small house at the edge of town. He tried once to make conversation, but she was unresponsive. Stopping in the drive, he peered through the glass and frowned. “When you saw the strange car on the street the other night, where was it parked?”
Katherine pointed and Hunt looked up the street, past the distant light. “It was just sitting there. Its engine was running. I’d never seen it before.”
“What kind of car?”
“I thought it was a police car.”
“Why a police car? What makes you say that?”
“It had that look. A big sedan. The shape of it. It looked like a cop car.”
“Lights on the roof?”
“No. Just the shape of it.” She gestured at the car in which they sat. “Like this.”
“A Crown Victoria?”
“It just looked like this. American. Big. I don’t know. It was dark. I don’t care about cars. I don’t know about them.”
“And it took off when?”
“When I started walking toward it.”
“Which direction did it go?”
She pointed, and Hunt frowned again. “I don’t think you should stay here, not with all that’s happened.”
“Where else would I stay?” She waited for an answer. “Your place?”
“I’m not like that, Katherine.”
“All men are like that.” She could not hide the bitterness.
She held his gaze and Hunt was struck by the intensity of it. So jaded, so weary. Damn Ken Holloway, Hunt thought. Damn him for making her like that.
“I was thinking of a hotel. Something anonymous.”
She must have heard the hurt in his voice. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was unfair. You’ve been nothing but aboveboard.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“Johnny might come home. I need to be here for that.”
“Katherine—”
“No.”
“Then I want a squad car on the street.”
“No to that, too.”
“It’s not safe here,” Hunt said. “Things are happening that we don’t understand.”
“A police car would scare Johnny. If he did run away, I want him to know that he can come home. How will he know that if the cops are parked in front of the house?” Katherine opened her door. “Thank you for the ride, Detective. I’ll be fine from here.”
Hunt stepped out of the car and put his hands on the roof. “I’d like to check the house.”
“I need to be alone.”
Hunt studied the street because her pain was killing him. He’d seen her courage before, and he’d seen that courage fail. It had been like watching a redwood fall or a river die. He looked at the dark house, then at her. “Please,” he said.
“If you insist.”
Hunt found the broken window three seconds later. “Back in the car,” he said, and drew his service weapon. “Get in the car and lock the doors.”
She bolted for the door.
“Katherine!”
“I changed the locks. Don’t you see? It’s Johnny.”
Hunt caught her on the steps and pulled her back. “Wait,” he said. “Just wait.” Then he called out. “Johnny.” He tried the door. It
opened easily. “Johnny. It’s Detective Hunt and your mother.” Nothing. Hunt held up a hand. “Stay here.”
Inside, Hunt flicked on the lights. Glass shards glittered on the carpet. He checked the back rooms, turned on every light. When he came down the hall, he found Katherine in the living room. He holstered his weapon. “Nobody. It’s empty.”
She sat on the sofa and held herself still.
“Is anything missing?” She said nothing, and Hunt stepped closer. “Has anything been stolen?”
She looked up, eyes wet and vacant.
“I’m going to check the yard,” Hunt said. “I need you to look around and tell me what you see.”
“It won’t do any good. I haven’t seen anything for most of a year. I wouldn’t know if something was missing.”
Hunt understood the comment, but let it go. “Check Johnny’s room. Start there.”
“Alright.”
She moved to the hallway. Johnny’s light burned. She heard Hunt leave the house, then she stood in the entrance to Johnny’s room. She realized, looking in, that it was unfamiliar to her. How many times had she been in this room, she wondered. Three times? Five? And how many times sober? None, she thought. The year behind her was a blur of days. She ate. She slept. Ken Holloway came and went.
Her son’s room was strange to her.
Her son, she realized, was strange to her.
She checked the closet, but did not know what should be there. Same thing with the drawers and the shelves. There was no recollection of buying clothes, or of washing them. Johnny had been doing that, she realized. He cooked. He cleaned. She covered her mouth, overwhelmed.
Where was her son?
She found the suitcase under the bed. It was old and battered, vaguely familiar. She dragged it out and heaved it up onto the bed. She opened it and froze.
Alyssa’s face.
Johnny’s and her husband’s.
Photos covered the inside of the lid. It was a collage of sunshine and her children; life, like a promise. Her eyes burned, her throat closed, and she touched one of the photographs.
Alyssa.
She had one arm around her brother’s neck. They were grinning like imps.
Johnny.
In the suitcase, she found an eight-by-ten photograph of her husband. He wore a blue T-shirt and a belt of tools. He stood sideways to the camera, an angular, strong man with a wide smile and hair so black it gleamed. Dark glasses hid his eyes, but she knew what they would look like, blue and sharp and unflinching. For a moment, she was overwhelmed with regret for the blame she’d dumped on him, for the horrible thing she’d said. Then the anger spiked: It was his fault! She should never have been walking home alone.
But the anger was wasted. “Where are you, Spencer?”
There was no answer to that. He was gone.
Her fingers touched the other items in the suitcase, Alyssa’s things. Her stuffed animals, her diary.
How?
She’d burned this, all of it. Burned everything during three bad weeks of drug-fueled insanity. She lifted a stuffed lamb from the bottom of the case and pressed her face into it, trying to find some small scent that lingered.
“Katherine.”
Hunt’s voice was a distant thing. The toy came away wet. “Go away,” she said.
“Property’s clear.” He was in the hall. His steps put a vibration in the wood and the vibration found her knees.
“Don’t come in here.”
He stopped in the door.
“Don’t come in.” She felt a break, somewhere deep, a flow of memory so keen and strong that it took down every wall she’d built. Without the drugs, she was naked in the river.
“Katherine—”
“Leave me alone.” The lamb was soft in her hands. “I’m begging you.”
Hunt backed away, and she heard the front door close. She looked at the lamb: the shiny, black eyes, the fleece so white it could be a cloud on a perfect day. She buried her face and drew in a breath, but there was no girl smell left. There was the scent of an old suitcase and of the unclean space beneath an empty bed.
She waited for Hunt’s car to leave, then rose on numbed legs and opened the door. The night air was a fog that tasted of growing things. She crossed the drive to the edge of the yard, to the high weeds where she’d last seen the wink of white and orange. It took several minutes to find the bottle of oxycontin and carry it back inside. She locked the door. Her fingers shook and the pills tumbled out. She selected four of them, spilled them on her tongue and swallowed them dry. Then she went back to Johnny’s bed, cupped the lamb beneath an arm and laid herself on the covers. She stared at the photographs, and for ten long minutes she endured the pain; then a soft and heavy hand pressed her into the mattress; it took her to a place where she could bear to touch the pictures that her son had hidden for so well and so long. She could say their names without hurt, and in her mind’s eye, she could see them move.
—
Hunt made a slow drive through the area. He checked side streets and driveways, but saw nothing that looked out of place. Houses were quiet and still, their driveways cluttered with pickup trucks, utility vans, and tired cars. No big sedan with its engine running. No silhouette behind glass.
When he circled back to Katherine’s street, he chose his place with care: far enough from her house to be unobtrusive, close enough to see if anyone came calling. She didn’t want a patrol car on the street. Fine. But he refused to leave her alone, here on the dark edge of things. He pulled off the road, rolled down his window and turned off the engine. He checked the time. Late.
Pushing down a twinge of guilt, he dialed his son and told him to lock the house, set the alarm.
“You’re not coming home, tonight?”
“I’m sorry, Allen. Not tonight. Did you get some dinner?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Hunt looked at his watch again. He cursed his wife for leaving, then remembered the things his son had said. Maybe it was his fault. Here he was again, another night away from his family because of the job. He stopped himself.
Not because of the job.
Not entirely.
He looked down the road to where Katherine’s drive spilled gravel onto warm blacktop. He saw lights through the trees, and wondered if he would be here, watching, if it was just another victim. If it was anyone but her.
“Listen, Allen—”
But the signal was dead. No one was there.
Hunt hung up the phone and settled lower in his seat. He watched for strange cars, and for Ken Holloway. He thought of her alone in that swaybacked house, and when, hours later, he dozed, he dreamed of taking her away from it. They were in his car, windows down, and he saw her the way she’d been. Wind whipped her hair. She put a hand on his face, said his name, and light made clear, sweet water of her eyes. It was a good dream, but he woke cramped and unhappy. The sun was low, in his face, and the dream was as false as a trick of light. His phone was ringing.
“Yeah.” Hunt scrubbed sleep from his eyes and sat higher.
“It’s Yoakum.”
The sun sliced in mercilessly. Hunt dropped his visor. “What is it, John?” Hunt glanced at the time: 7:21.
“I’m out at the Burton Jarvis site.” Yoakum paused and Hunt heard a voice in the background. A dog chuffed twice. “You need to get out here.”
Hunt’s fingers found the key in the ignition. “Talk to me.”
“We’ve got a body.”
“Is it Alyssa Merrimon?”
Yoakum cleared his throat. “I think we’ve got a lot of bodies.”
—
The Jarvis house was dark and silent when Hunt rolled into the drive. No patrol cars. No other detectives. There was Yoakum, pale and unshaven, popping mints from a metal tin. His shoes were slicked with mud, his pants wet from the knees down. Next to him stood Mike Caulfield, one of the department’s few officers dedicated to the canine unit. A veteran of thirty years, he was tall and stooped, with lar
ge, callused hands and a lick of hair so black that it had to be dyed. He wore thornproof overalls, equally wet and muddy. On a leash, at his side, sat the same mongrel dog that he’d used to search Levi Freemantle’s property. They met Hunt when he stepped out of the car.
“Yoak.” Hunt nodded, looked at the dog handler. “Mike.” They looked oppressed, both of them. The dog neither moved nor blinked. He watched his handler. “You haven’t called in support yet?”
Yoakum snapped the lid on his tin of mints. “I wanted you to see this first.” They started walking toward the woods behind the house. “Tell him, Mike.”
Mike’s head bobbed. “I woke up early this morning. Normally, when I do that, I like to go hunting; but I decided to give this place one last run.” He gestured ahead. “I’ve been working a grid, see, in a pattern out from the shed. But I decided, screw that, just for once, just to stretch my legs. I got out here at five and took a straight line for the river. That’s about two miles.”
They walked past the shed, still draped with yellow tape. Mike moved without hesitation, ducking branches, talking as he moved. “I got a bit more than a mile in when Tom started perking up. Another hundred yards, and he went ape shit.” Mike ducked his head again, embarrassed. “Relatively speaking.”
“I was at the station early,” Yoakum said. “I took the call.”
They pushed through a thicket, crossed a narrow stream that ran quick and light across a bed of exposed granite. The sun angled between gray-skinned trunks. The temperature rose. Yoakum slipped once and went down on a knee.
“What’s that smell?” Hunt asked. It was sickly sweet and furtive. A hint one moment, then a good, strong stench the next.
“The dump is that way.” Mike pointed. “A mile or two. You can smell it when the wind gets up.”
They walked farther, and Hunt saw the dog’s ears come up. His head rose, nose up and sniffing; then he dipped his nose to the ground and started pulling. The handler caught Hunt’s eye. “See what I mean?”
They passed through a final thicket and entered a wide, shallow depression. Hardwoods towered like monuments. Dead leaves, damp and rotting, made a carpet of the forest floor. Three orange flags protruded from the earth. They were small, mounted on thin, stiff wire. Otherwise, the earth was undisturbed. “You’re sure these are bodies?” Hunt asked.
