Here After

by Sean Costello

  Graham sighed and looked into the front seat. This was cool, too, riding in a police car. He sat inside one once when he was little and his JK class visited the police station on a field trip, but that one was parked and there were no guns in it. This one had a huge shotgun up there. He could see the driver’s gun, too, sticking out of a brown holster. Graham liked the driver, a big guy with a bent nose, because when they were leaving the park he said, “Hey, little man, wanna hear the siren?” and Graham said sure. That was wicked cool, racing down the street with the siren going, everybody looking at them and getting out of their way.

  Now they were turning into the hospital. Graham had been here once before, when he got stitches in his head. Risa was watching him that day, too. She made him go into a boring music store and started looking at CDs. He got mad because he wanted to go to Wal-Mart and Risa wouldn’t let him, so he sat on the floor to wait for her. When she was finally done, he stood up too fast and bumped his head on a shelf. It didn’t hurt that much—not until later—but it bled a lot and Risa got all weak and fainted. That part was funny, and they both got a ride to the hospital in an ambulance, which was cool, but not as cool as riding in a police car.

  Graham hoped they didn’t use any of that sting-y stuff on his elbow. He really didn’t like hospitals.

  The police car parked behind an ambulance, and now Graham saw his mom and dad running toward them. His mom’s face was all red and she was crying really hard, even his dad’s eyes were wet, and when his mom opened the door and scooped him into her arms, Graham started crying again, too.

  On his way into the emergency department, Graham saw the police lady who'd talked to him at the park. She said her name was Vickie, and Graham thought she was too pretty to be a policeman. She smiled at him, then followed them through the automatic doors, saying something to his dad Graham couldn’t hear.

  * * *

  They made a bathroom stop in Parry Sound, about a hundred and fifty miles north of Oakville, just before six that evening. Peter suggested they top up the tank, but Roger insisted they keep moving. The gas bar was lined up six cars deep at every bay, and Roger said that half a tank in a car like this was more than enough to get them where they were going.

  When they were back on the road, Peter asked Roger what the plan was.

  “Scope the place out,” he said. “Who knows, maybe I can nab the son of a whore myself.”

  Peter glanced at Roger now, not liking what he saw in the man’s face, the deadly intent. He said, “We don’t even know where the Cade family lives. And even if we did, we can’t just camp out on their doorstep. Shouldn’t we just find a place to stay and let the police do their jobs?”

  Roger said, “That news update I told you about? They showed an interview with one of the Cade’s neighbors, an old guy mowing his lawn. He pointed across the street at their house. They blotted out the street number, but the front door’s bright yellow and there’s a fire hydrant at the curb. And I’m sure I heard one of the reporters say something about the park being just a couple of blocks from their home.”

  “What about letting the cops do their job?”

  “Look at the wonderful job they did with Jason.”

  Peter had no reply.

  They drove in silence for a while after that, until Roger found a rock station on the radio and started drumming on his legs. The man was a vat of raw adrenalin, exuding a caged, manic energy, and he was making Peter nervous.

  Peter had never been involved with such a volatile individual. He and Roger were completely different personalities, Roger a man of action, the kind of guy who threw the first punch in situations Peter had always done his best to avoid. And while that made them an unlikely team, Peter could understand how Roger felt. No matter how much an injustice affected an individual or his family, in many cases there was only so much the police could do. Only so many man-hours they could devote, only so much emotional investment they could provide. In many ways it paralleled the situation in medicine, even where the families of colleagues were concerned. How many late nights keeping vigil with David had he secretly cursed the nurses for taking so long to bring his son’s pain medication or change his bed when he soiled it? And how thin had he judged their excuses about short staffing and impossible patient loads? But it was all true. In the majority of these situations, for physicians as well as the police, a point inevitably arrived at which priorities had to be shifted, hope tempered or even abandoned.

  But there was no way he could talk to Roger about any of this now. The man was amped, three years’ worth of dread, guilt, and bottled fury suddenly given focus, however elusive the object of that focus might be. But the kidnapper—the faceless predator who had come into Roger’s home and stolen the most precious thing in it—had just hours ago struck again in a place Roger could not only see, but could physically place himself in.

  “The thing I can’t understand,” Roger said now, shouting over the music and giving Peter a start, “is why the guy keeps going after these look-alikes. And why such huge gaps of time in between? The first one, what was his name?”

  Peter turned the music down and said, “Clayton Dolan.”

  “That was six years ago, right? Then Jase, almost three years now. If it’s some weird kink he’s got and he, you know...kills them after, why wait so long in between?” Roger’s face was brick red now, saying these things out loud clearly tearing him apart. “If it’s a sexual thing, wouldn’t he want it all the time?”

  Peter didn’t like the way the conversation was going. Over the summer he’d watched a documentary on a serial killer from Wichita or someplace like that, a man who had evaded capture for thirty years and left a string of corpses in his wake. What had struck Peter about this guy was the uneven periodicity of his crimes, the man going on savage binges for a while, then stopping all of a sudden, slipping into a period of dormancy that on one occasion lasted thirteen years. Watching the program, Peter had decided that in situations of extreme deviancy, the familiar parameters of reason simply could not be applied. These people just did what they did when they did it. And once they were captured, if they were willing to discuss their crimes at all, often seemed as baffled by their behavior as the rest of the world.

  Cringing inside, Peter said the only thing he could think of: “It can’t be easy finding kids who look so much alike.”

  “That’s exactly my point, though. What’s with that? If you’re into blond, blue-eyed and dimpled, you could probably find three or four like that in every grade school in the country. An endless supply. I remember picking Jase up at school a few times and seeing these three little girls all about the same age who I thought must be sisters, but they were always picked up by different people. Why be so specific?”

  Peter had no answer. He said, “Roger, I really don’t know,” and leaned a little harder on the accelerator, keeping his eyes aimed straight ahead now, the man beside him a coiled cobra, ready to strike.

  * * *

  The nurse at the hospital did use the sting-y stuff, but she said it would only hurt for a minute and it would keep his scrape from getting infected. His brother Greg got an infection once from a bug bite, and Graham remembered how nasty-looking the pus was that Greg squeezed out of it. It looked like yellow mayonnaise, and Graham knew he didn’t want any of that in him. So he let the nurse use the sting-y stuff, and it wasn’t that bad. She put ointment on it after that, then a weird bandage that looked like an octopus with four legs. The doctor who checked him over said he was a hundred percent and he could go. The fun part was, he got to drive in the police car again, this time to the police station.

  When they got there, the police lady sent Risa away with another policeman, then took Graham and his parents into a special room called an interview room, though Graham couldn’t see anything special about it. It was just a room, with a couch and a coffee table and a lamp and a big mirror on the wall. It reminded him of the family room at his friend Scott’s place, except smaller and with no TV. There
was a box of toys in the corner the police lady said he could check out while she went to her office to get a few things, but they were mostly just baby toys, big clunky trucks made of plastic and a few silly dolls.

  The police lady asked Graham to sit on the couch between his parents, then sat in the big comfy chair across from him. Graham had kind of wanted that chair, but it was nice to sit with his mom and dad, except his mom kept squeezing his hand too hard. The police lady put something on the coffee table that looked like a radio, then pressed a button on it. A little red light came on and Graham saw that it was a tape recorder, like the one his uncle Brian used when he played his guitar, except smaller.

  “So, Graham,” the police lady said, looking right at him now. “My name’s Vickie Taylor—remember?—and I was hoping you and I could have a little chat. My memory’s not that great, so if it’s all right with you I’m going to use this tape recorder. Would that be okay?”

  Graham shrugged and said, “Can I hear it after?”

  Vickie smiled. “Sure, if you’d like.”

  Graham said, “You want to talk about what happened in the park?”

  “Yes, but not right away. I thought maybe you could tell me a bit about yourself first.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, how old are you?”

  “Six, but I’m small for my age. Everybody always thinks I’m five or even four.”

  “What grade are you in?”

  “Going into one.”

  “That’s awesome. And what about your day today? What did you do before you went to the park? Did you sleep in late?”

  Graham’s mother, Angela, smiled nervously and said, “Not this guy. Gray’s a real early bird—”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cade,” Vickie said, “but I’d prefer if Graham answered my questions for now. I’ll be talking to you and your husband individually later on.”

  Christopher Cade was rubbing Angela’s back now, trying to help stave off a fresh wave of tears. When it came anyway, he grabbed the Kleenex box off the coffee table and handed it to his wife. Angela plucked out a handful and wiped her eyes with it, apologizing to Vickie for the lapse.

  “Perfectly understandable,” Vickie said. “It’s been a trying day for all of you. But it’s almost over.”

  Graham felt like crying again now, too, his bottom lip quivering, but he held it in, trying to be brave for his mom.

  “Graham?” Vickie said. “Can you tell me about your morning? You got up early and then what?”

  “Got a bowl of Cheerios and watched TV.”

  “What’d you watch?”

  “My Dad the Rock Star, then The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show.”

  “Yeah? My daughter Samantha loves Bugs Bunny. Then what did you do?”

  Graham shot a quick look at his dad. “Played on my brother’s X-Box.”

  “Would he thump you if he found out?”

  Graham grinned and said, “Yup.”

  “Let’s not tell him, then. When did you go to the park?”

  “After lunch. Risa didn’t want to because she broke her foot when she dropped her computer screen on it, but Mom said she had to because she’s supposed to babysit me this summer. For money. Her cast is green. I signed it. No way she can catch me now.”

  “Are you a fast runner?”

  Graham nodded proudly. “My dad calls me ‘The Flash.’”

  “Do you go to the park a lot?”

  “Every day. I like the monkey bars.”

  “How do you get there?”

  “Walk. It’s only two blocks. Risa’s got a walking cast. It’s got a rubber thingy on the bottom.”

  “And when you were walking today, did you notice anybody watching you or following you?”

  “No.”

  “How about at the park?”

  “Nope. If you mean the man who grabbed me, I’ve never seen him before. He had smelly winter clothes on and a blue ski mask. I didn’t like that mask.”

  “His clothes were smelly?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What did they smell like?”

  Graham looked at his mom and said, “Musty.”

  “Good for you, Graham,” Vickie said. “Did you notice anything else about him?”

  “He was strong.”

  “Did he say anything to you?” “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He told me not to be afraid. He kept saying, ‘I got you, I got you.’”

  “Did he use your name?”

  “No.”

  “Did he have an accent?”

  Graham thought he knew what that meant, but he wasn’t sure. “You mean, like the Crocodile Hunter?”

  “Yeah, but not just Australian. Any accent.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay. Did he say anything else?”

  Graham looked down at his feet. He didn’t want to say the rest. He heard his dad say, “Graham?” and mumbled, “He called me a baby,” without looking up.

  Vickie said, “A baby? How did he say it?”

  “I’m six. I’m not a baby.”

  “I know that, Graham, but maybe that’s not what he meant. Do you remember how he said it?”

  Graham looked at Vickie now. “He said, ‘Don’t be afraid, baby.’”

  Vickie looked at Graham’s mom and dad, then said, “And that was it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you notice anything else about him?”

  “His shoes were dirty. They had yellow laces.”

  “What about after the other man pulled his mask off? Did you see his face?”

  “No. When he was carrying me I could only see the ground.”

  “What about after he dropped you?”

  “The sun was burning my eyes, but I saw he had no hair.”

  “Did he have a moustache or anything?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, kiddo. Do you remember all the people with cameras and microphones in the park?”

  “The reporters?”

  Vickie smiled. “That’s right. Do you remember talking to them about how you got away?”

  “Yes. I bit him.”

  “And you told them someone told you to bite the man?”

  Graham looked at his dad and said, “Yeah. Tommy Boy.”

  Vickie said, “Tommy Boy?”

  Graham didn’t feel like talking anymore. He said, “Can I go to the bathroom?”

  “Sure, sweetie,” Vickie said. “I just need to know this one last thing.”

  Graham folded his arms and clenched his teeth. He didn’t like talking about Tommy Boy because nobody believed him, especially his dad.

  Now his dad said, “Tommy Boy’s his imaginary friend.”

  The police lady looked at his dad and Graham could tell she was annoyed. She said, “Why don’t we let Graham tell it?”

  Graham said, “Just because you can’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not there,” and felt bad right away for getting angry at his dad. More quietly, he said, “His real name is David.” Then he looked at Vickie and said, “Are we finished now? I really need to go to the bathroom.”

  “Okay, Graham,” Vickie said. “That’s enough for now.” She stood and held out her hand. “Come on, I’ll take you to the boy’s room.”

  Graham stood up and took her hand, but it made him feel funny. He said, “Can my dad come, too?” and felt better when the police lady said of course.

  Dad held his other hand and they went out to find the bathroom.

  * * *

  By six o’clock that evening, lead investigator Vickie Taylor felt she had a complete enough picture of the case to present it to her boss, Staff Sergeant Rob Laking, who headed up the Criminal Investigations Division. Laking was a firm but approachable guy in his mid-forties who had played professional hockey in his early twenties, until a nasty knee injury cut that career path short. Laking had two kids of his own, teenage girls upon whom the sun rose and set—his office was cluttered with pictures of the two
of them, filling every space that wasn’t already occupied by hockey memorabilia or mug shots—and he took cases of this nature very personally.

  Laking was on the phone with one of his daughters when Vickie came into his office. After giving her an acknowledging nod, he pointed at the phone, winced, and whispered, “Sit.” Then, into the phone, said, “Kel, this’ll have to wait till I get home,” and shook his head. Then, “But—”

  Amused by the spectacle of this tough, ex-hockey-star cop being cowed by a teenage girl, Vickie sat in the chair facing his desk and waited.

  A few seconds later, Laking said, “Kelly, I have to go,” and hung up the phone. Grinning, he looked at Vickie and said, “Car Wars.” He saw the case folder in Vickie’s lap and said, “What’ve you got for me?”

  Vickie flipped the folder open and started peeling out documents, giving Laking a synopsis of each as she handed it over. “Thirteen eye-witness interviews, freshly transcribed. They all tell pretty much the same story as far as events are concerned. We’ve got the videotape anyway, so most of it’s moot. Four composites, taken from the four guys who got close enough to get a look at him after the mask came off—the two bikers and a couple of park employees who were there weeding flower beds.”

  Laking arranged the computer-generated sketches on the desk in front of him and shook his head, saying, “Great. The guy’s bald. That much I got from the news.” He picked up the third sketch in the group and showed it to Vickie. “This one looks like my mother-in-law, only cuter.”