Black Water

by Ninie Hammon

  Bailey leapt out of the front seat as soon as he pulled the cruiser to the curb and hurried through the throng of humanity toward the lighted archway that proclaimed Wasuski Brothers Traveling Carnival. She started off into the crowd once they passed beneath the archway but Brice grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t make me bust you for gate crashing.” He pointed to a booth where a demure line of people waited patiently to hand the lone attendant their money. “That’s where you pay for admission.”

  “But—”

  “Which means that’s the man you saw stamp the little girl’s hand, right?”

  She lit up, and would have marched up to the man and launched into an impromptu interrogation if Brice hadn’t told her firmly, “I’ll handle this.”

  Now in uniform, the crowd allowed him and Bailey through and the sheriff tipped his hat to the man taking admission money. The man looked up at him with tired, bloodshot eyes and Brice knew his questions would be useless, but he asked them anyway.

  “Have you been here all night taking admission?”

  “Yeah. Listen, we got all the city permits. You need to see Ralph in that trailer—”

  “I’m looking for a little girl. About so high.” Brice held out his hand to indicate a child somewhere between five and ten years old. “Braids. You seen her?”

  “You’re joking, right?” The man offered a mirthless smile that revealed teeth so broken and rotted it looked like he had a mouthful of half-chewed Oreos. “You know how many kids come through here every night? You think I remember every one of them?”

  “I’m not asking if you remember all of them. I’m asking if you remember one little girl with braids.”

  The man sighed. “No, I don’t remember any little girls with braids — satisfied?” He used his chin to indicate the long line of parents and children awaiting admission. “You got any more questions?”

  “Thank you for your time.” Brice stepped out of the way.

  Bailey looked around, frantic, trying to get a look at every kid in sight. The place was packed, children ran here and there in small groups or walked along with their parents. Hundreds of them. They rode the rides, flew around and around on the Tilt-A-Whirl, sat atop the horses on the merry-go-round, stood at booths trying to win stuffed animals, or waited to buy popcorn, cotton candy, caramel apples, snow cones, corn dogs and funnel cakes. Even if they’d had a full description of the child, maybe even if they’d had a photograph, their chances of culling her out of the herd were next to nothing.

  Bailey must have come to the same conclusion because her shoulders slumped.

  “Let’s go take a look at the Mad Walrus,” Brice suggested, and they made their way through the crowd to the green-and-blue contraption decorated with sea creatures that featured spinning cups.

  Bailey searched the faces in the crowd, but Brice could tell she had accepted the impossibility of their task.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “The clock has started ticking.”

  “Clock?”

  “The stamp on the little girl’s hand. She got it tonight. That ink will last — what? Two days, three, and swimming every day, probably less.”

  She suddenly looked worn out, totally spent. “Tomorrow’s the Fourth. Think about it — people setting off firecrackers, drunk maybe, on drugs, or merely inexperienced and careless. Sounds like a recipe for an explosion to me.”

  She let out a long, frustrated breath. “Let’s go. I’m tired, sunburned and my skull feels like it’s attached to my head with roofing nails. I suspect tomorrow’s likely to be a big day.”

  She turned and headed slowly back to the front gate and Brice followed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Bailey leaned her head back against the head rest in the sheriff’s cruiser and closed her eyes. With them open, her vision was pulsing to the rhythm of the thud, thud, thudding pain in her temple and that was making her dizzy. She was … go on, admit it — she was weak. Hadn’t counted on that, but found that she didn’t have the strength she expected. Well, what did she want? She did, after all, have the business end of a .22 shell lodged inside her skull.

  The sheriff got into the cruiser and shut the door. She didn’t open her eyes. He didn’t start the motor.

  “Bailey, I know how badly you want to find this little girl. I wish I could do more to help.”

  “Thanks.” She hoped he would take the hint and not continue to talk. He did, put the key in the ignition, started the engine and pulled away from the curb, driving slowly to make his way upstream through the fish swimming downstream toward the carnival they were leaving.

  The sound of the calliope slowly faded.

  And then she heard singing. The voice soft. She couldn’t make it out at first.

  Almost Heaven. West Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River.

  John Denver.

  Life is old there, older than the trees. Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze.

  She began to sing along.

  “Take me home, country roads, to the place I belong.”

  She had never been a fan of country music, but John Denver was one of the golden oldies she had grown up listening to. She loved all his music, and she relaxed back into the seat and breathed deep.

  “West Virginia, mountain mama, take me home, country roads.”

  The music was so soft it was hard to hear. Without opening her eyes, she said, “Would you mind turning it up a little?”

  “Turning what up?”

  “The radio.”

  “There’s no radio in this cruiser, at least not that kind.”

  It took her a moment to process that, because she could still hear the music.

  “Then where’s the music coming from?”

  “I hate to sound like a ventriloquist dummy, but what music?”

  “John Denver. Country Roads. Don’t you hear it?”

  “No.”

  She opened her eyes and looked around.

  “You don’t hear music.” But it wasn’t a question this time. He answered anyway.

  “No”

  “I do.”

  He said nothing.

  She concentrated, could hear the second verse of the song, then something in the background. She strained to hear it.

  “Bailey…?”

  “This morning, I woke up to the smell of bacon frying and fresh coffee. Only there were no elves in my kitchen making me breakfast. I went into the kitchen, sniffed, and the smell was still so strong my mouth watered. And I could hear voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. I went from one room to another, but it was always like the voices had just moved out of that room into the next.”

  She paused, and when she continued there were equal parts awe and certainty in her voice.

  “I am … connected to this little girl, somehow. Sounds wacky, but no wackier than all the rest of this. On some level, in some way, I have been hooked into this little girl’s consciousness and sometimes I can … be in her world, smell her smells, hear what she hears.”

  “Do you hear voices now?”

  She was quiet, listening.

  “Yes, children’s voices. Chattering, the kind of white noise you hear in a school hallway. Laughter.”

  He said nothing else. She listened. The song concluded. The voices faded.

  Without opening her eyes, she asked, “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

  He deftly side-stepped the question.

  “I think you’re having an auditory hallucination, hearing sounds that are not really present in the real world.”

  “Hallucination? Well, that’s crazy, don’t you think?”

  “Right now, I don’t know what to think.”

  She opened her eyes and sat up. Might as well get to it, there wasn’t likely to be an opportunity to broach the subject smoothly and effortlessly. She just walked to the edge of the cliff and jumped off.

  “You called me ‘Miss Cunningham’ the other day. Why?”

/>   He looked surprised but got control of it quickly.

  “Because that’s what you told T.J. your name was.”

  “My name is Bailey Donahue. Says so on my driver’s license, car registration, credit cards … library card, or at least it will if I ever get a library card.

  “Then why’d you tell T.J. it was Jessie Cunningham?”

  There it was. Simple, direct question. She could tell him the truth, fess up. And after all, why not? He was a police officer, for crying out loud. If she couldn’t trust a cop, who…? Truth was, nobody was safe … not even a county sheriff in West Virginia.

  “Cunningham was my maiden name,” she lied. “I was recently divorced and I took back my maiden name. I mean, I intend to take back my maiden name, haven’t gotten the paperwork done on it yet.”

  She ignored the Jessie/Bailey discrepancy and gratefully, so did he.

  “Yeah, why bother going to court to change your name when you don’t plan to be alive to use the new one?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that,” she snapped. Then added in a soft but firm voice, “Not the suicide … not any of it. The only thing you and I have to discuss is a little girl we have to find.”

  They both fell silent. When he pulled up in front of her house, she immediately opened the door to get out, but he reached out and took her arm.

  “I didn’t mean to pry. I won’t push you. You are who you say you are and your past is none of my business. You don’t owe me any explanations.”

  She looked at him.

  “Well, you do owe me something.”

  “And what is that?”

  “My gun back.”

  He reached past her and opened the glove box and took out her revolver. He dug around in the bottom of the glove box for the cartridges, then held both out to her.

  She took the gun, and cupped her hand for him to pour the cartridges into it.

  “You’ll call me tomorrow, when the guy picks up the chair?”

  “I’ll call. Just know that holidays in a resort community are … it gets crazy. But I promise I’ll call.”

  “I have to be there, see the little girl, make sure she’s the right … and then…”

  “And then I’ll take it from there. One step at a time, remember.”

  She nodded, then spoke quieter, “And tonight, if anything … bad … happens tonight—?”

  “If I find out anything at all, I’ll let you know.”

  Bailey got out of the car and walked wordlessly into the house.

  Sheriff McGreggor stood in the shade of a huge sycamore tree watching an emergency medical technician bandage the hand of a twelve-year-old boy, while a West Virginia State Police trooper tried to calm his nearly hysterical mother. He turned to the trooper’s partner.

  “I just love holidays,” he said, “particularly ones where untrained amateurs and children entertain themselves with explosive devices … said no police officer ever!”

  “Copy that!” said the trooper.

  “My first call this morning was to the Fantastic Bob’s fireworks stand on Route 19 where someone — I’m betting idiot teenager and I suspect I can put my finger on exactly which idiot — thought it would be fun to light a packet of Black Cats and throw it through an open window. It’s a miracle the whole place didn’t go off like a bottle rocket.”

  The trooper gave the sheriff a knowing look.

  “I had three reports before noon today about kids riding bikes down the streets in Fairmont tossing lighted firecrackers into any car with a window rolled down.”

  The radio mic on the sheriff’s shoulder beeped.

  “Sheriff McGreggor, this is dispatch. I have a 911 call from a Daniel Ragland, who said you wanted him to notify you about a subject who came to pick up a chair.”

  The sheriff started back to his cruiser, keying the microphone to speak into it.

  “I’m on the other side of Lankford. It’ll take me fifteen or twenty minutes to get to the marina. Any other unit closer?”

  “Ten-four. Unit two is ten-seven on Ridge Road at the Esso Station.”

  Ten-seven meant out of service. Fletch loved barbecue, and the food truck that parked in front of the station had the best in town.

  “Dispatch unit two, then, tell him to hold the subject until I get there.”

  “Ten-four.”

  The sheriff got behind the wheel of his cruiser and set off toward the marina, down winding roads that meandered through the mountains and hollows in no particular hurry to take anybody anywhere. He turned on his lights and siren. Ragland had said the dude who wanted the blue chair was belligerent. The sooner Brice got there and talked him off the ledge, the sooner…

  Yeah, the sooner what? He had put off Bailey with the one-step-at-a-time mantra, but now that the Michelin Radial was about to make contact with the asphalt he had to admit to himself and pretty soon to her, that he had no idea what he was going to do next. Say they found the right guy and he actually did lead them to the mythical little girl, however reluctantly. What was Brice supposed to say?

  Uh, my friend here painted a picture of…

  I have it on good authority that…

  Sir, your houseboat is going to blow up tonight, and I know that because…

  Brice had no legal authority to impound the guy’s boat to prevent him from taking it out on the lake, though he might be able to push the envelope and get the water patrol to inspect the craft, maybe find the source of whatever it was that was about to explode.

  But if they found nothing, then what? He’d have to stand on the dock while the guy, other passengers — and that little girl! — sailed away.

  And Bailey would go crackers if she found the little girl, connected to her — whatever that meant, and then had to watch her ride out of the marina to what Bailey believed was her certain death.

  He reached into his pocket and took out his cellphone, punched Bailey’s number. She answered on the first ring.

  “I just got a call that the guy is at the marina right now to pick up the chair. I’ve sent a deputy to detain him until I get there.”

  “Thank God!” she cried, with such fervor he could hear tears in her voice. “I had nightmares all night. I kept jerking awake, thinking I heard an explosion. I bet I’ve paced a hundred miles this morning. I’ll leave right now for the marina.”

  “Bailey, wait. You do realize, don’t you, that when we find the little girl, if we find the little girl, I have no legal—”

  “You’ll think of something.”

  She hung up.

  Bailey had been up, dressed and pacing before the first streaks of dawn lit the morning sky. True dawn didn’t come here the way it did in other places. The eastern horizon was on the other side of the mountains, so “dawn” was watching the black velvet sky — so full of bright stars you could gather them like plucking blackberries off a bush — begin to turn some shade of dark gray. Then the light just grew. The beautiful colors of sunrise, blue, pink and gold, weren’t visible here and she missed that, missed watching dawn take over the day.

  She had finally gotten out of bed when the lighted numbers on her bedside clock proclaimed 3:30. She was only occupying space there, anyway, not actually sleeping. The nightmares had washed over her as soon as she shut her eyes.

  She saw the boat, sparkling with light in an empty nothingness of black lake joined to a starless black sky with no horizon. The boat was still in the water, floating motionless in darkness and Bailey was racing toward it on a jet ski. When she got within sight, she saw the little girl alone on the top deck of the boat, which was lit up as bright as a baseball field for a night game. She was sitting in a blue Adirondack chair and when she saw Bailey coming toward her on the jet ski she raised her hand to wave.

  Suddenly, the black world burst into bright light like a lightning bolt had ripped a hole in the fabric of darkness. The boat exploded with a mighty roar, blew apart into thousands of chunks of flaming debris with such force that pieces struck Bailey in the fa
ce. She let off the throttle and the jet ski idled to a stop as burning debris rained down out of the sky into the water all around her. There was no chair, no little girl, just a fireball on the water. While she watched, the boat turned up on one end, like the movie version of the Titanic, and sank down into the black water.

  Bailey had jerked awake at the sound of the explosion, but the dream continued to play out in her head even after she woke. After the first nightmare, she’d gotten up, gone to the kitchen and fixed a cup of hot chocolate. Chocolate had caffeine and probably wasn’t the liquid most conducive to sleeping, but it was what she’d wanted. She’d tried to go back to sleep a couple of times after that, but each time she felt herself drifting off, the world would explode around her in bright light and flames and she would jerk awake, shaking.

  When she finally got up, she dressed in denim shorts and a Pittsburgh Pirates t-shirt. She had loved playing sports in school but watching others play never interested her. Aaron had been a die-hard Pirates, Steelers and Penguins fan and had purchased t-shirts, hats, jackets, sweatshirts — black-and-gold everything for her anyway. Even bought a “terrible towel,” the kind fans twirled in the stands during Steelers’ games. She always felt close to Aaron now when she wore them.

  After brewing a cup of strong black coffee, she’d headed out toward the porch, passed the closed door to the studio. She had closed that door behind her when the three men had left. And when this was over, when they’d found the little girl — and saved her — Bailey had plans for those paintings. She would take them both, the one T.J.’s mother had painted and her own, out into the backyard, pour gasoline on them and set them on fire. She would watch them burn to ash. And she would never, never again paint another picture with a window in it.