The Tramp (The Bound Chronicles #1)

by Sarah Wathen

  “Wait a minute, Mike. We’re talking about kids here. ‘Not a good guy,’ maybe, but how does that correlate with killing someone?”

  “Does John know him?” Mike repeated.

  “I have no idea. Why do you suspect him?”

  “Just a hunch. Let’s say something I read,” he murmured, then turned his head toward the kitchen and hollered, “Hey John, that you skulkin’ around back there?”

  John had been loitering close enough to appear within seconds, padding around the corner in bare feet, politely curious. “Sir?”

  “You have any dealings with a boy named Sam Castle? Used to go to Andrew Jackson.” Mike rose from his seat to stand in front of John, cocking his head in the manner of one listening to a small child.

  “I’ve talked to him once or twice, but we’re not really friends.” John used the new air of forced unconcern that James noticed had settled over his son during the past few days.

  “What do you think of him?”

  “I don’t,” he shrugged, and then amended his statement to sound more kind, when Mike snickered and clapped him on the shoulder. “I mean, I don’t really know him. He seems alright.”

  “You be up for a trip down to Finley Hollow, to talk to him? You and your dad?”

  John looked to his dad.

  “Is that really necessary, Mike?” There’s something else there. What is it, son? “We don’t want to get involved in law enforcement activities.”

  Mike’s pitch rose in humorous defense, “I just want to ask a few questions, clear up some foggy details.”

  John bristled. “Am I a foggy detail?”

  James gave his son a warning look.

  “Ho! Fiesty, I like that.” Mike let loose a stilted guffaw and wrestled John around the neck, adding a noogie that deepened his scowl.

  “Relax,” James mouthed to his son’s sour mug, strangled in Mike’s bicep.

  “You Robinson’s, I love you guys,” Mike laughed, hanging an arm around James next as he rose to stand. “You all follow me, this won’t take long.”

  “We’ll take the Mercedes, meet you around front,” James called after him, motioning towards the garage. “Son, grab your coat, it’s getting chilly.”

  “Mercedes. You Robinson’s…” Mike chuckled, disappearing through the front door.

  John shoved his feet into a pair of flip-flops, then headed for the garage without bothering to get a jacket. “At least he didn’t handcuff us and toss us into in the back of his cruiser,” he muttered.

  “Should he have, son?” John jerked one shoulder up as he pushed past him. “The more you tell me, the more I can help you, John,” James hissed, resisting the urge to grab the top of his arm and yank him back to look his father in the face.

  “Yeah, like you’d listen.” He opened the car door and flounced into the passenger seat, then settled with his arms folded, staring straight ahead and affecting boredom.

  James closed his eyes and prayed for patience, reminding himself that John had just lost a friend—probably a close one, and in a terrible way. Descending into his seat, he watched the side of his son’s face and wondered how much John actually knew about the details of Antonio’s death.

  “Have I not been listening?” he asked. When James didn’t get an answer, he sighed and punched the button on the garage door remote. “Have you been trying to tell me something?” His son sat as still as a statue next to him. “Is there something that you want to tell me now, John?”

  John turned away to gaze out the car window in reply, and James noticed with a groan that a deputy had been waiting in the police cruiser to accompany them. He’d hoped that it would just be the three of them—and that the Castle house would be empty when they arrived. But so far the errand was ratcheting in drama, instead of fading into a non-event. The two officers waved as James slowed to a stop and let the cruiser take the lead down their long driveway.

  Please don’t turn on any sirens, Mike. He didn’t, and James relaxed a fraction, as they turned onto Riverbend Road.

  When they came to the intersection with the state road, he glanced at John, contemplating the countryside. He looked disinterested, but his brain was likely buzzing with activity. James resigned himself to a long, apprehensive ride, and began sorting through the events of the past few weeks in his mind, trying to remember when his habitually cheerful son had become so glum. He thought he could trace it back to well before Antonio’s death.

  John broke the silence after they had only driven a short distance, to James’s surprise. “Have you ever felt like this place is…I don’t know, a little off?”

  “Small towns are all a bit weird, I think.”

  “No, not weird.”

  “How would you describe it?” James ventured, fearing his son would lapse back into the personal censorship that he had been practicing for the last several days—the last several weeks really. He hadn’t been trying to ignore John’s moodiness, just unsure of how to react.

  John thought for a while before replying. He watched the cows in the fields, clumps of elm trees, the sunset in the distance—turned just enough away so his dad couldn’t see his face. “I don’t know. Sort of dangerous. Somehow.”

  “Dangerous?” After several minutes of dead air, James prodded, “I suppose when a good friend is killed like Antonio was, the world seems a lot more dangerous than it used to.”

  “I’m not only talking about Antonio. Something…unsettling is going on. More than unsettling. I think I felt it when I was little, but I just couldn’t recognize what my instinct was telling me. Now that I’ve been gone for a while and came back, though. Or maybe because I’m older now…” He shrugged and looked at his hands. “It’s stronger now.”

  “You are older now, son. Things can get pretty jumbled in your head, at your age. I understand why you feel confused.”

  “I don’t feel confused, Dad, I feel protective. Aggressively protective.”

  James cleared his throat and began, “Well—”

  “It’s not hormones that I’m talking about.”

  “Why do you think I would mention hormones?” James chuckled.

  “Because you cleared your throat and squeezed the steering wheel in exactly the same way when I asked you what a condom was. When I was ten?”

  You remember that from when you were ten? James didn’t remember a condom discussion, but he was certain that John could recite every one of his father’s embarrassed sexual context blunders, word for word.

  “I worry about Candy, yes. But not because of why you think.”

  “Well, you both experienced your share of danger when you were little here, John. When Candy was kidnapped, well, that was something no child should ever have to think about. You, or her.” James shuddered at the memory, rising so unwelcomed into his mind. “You saved her from probably a very horrible outcome, though, John. You should be proud of that.”

  “I didn’t save her.”

  The words were bitten out, and James glanced over to see that John had his fist jammed against his mouth in a grimace of anguish, his eyes lost beyond the racing fields outside.

  “Of course you—”

  “I’m not just talking about Candy either. It’s more than that. Don’t you care about those drawings that Grandpa made in the hospital? Do you think that’s normal?”

  James racked his brain for the “drawings,” knowing he was in trouble if he couldn’t remember something. He had been working so much since he got there, taking over Dad’s business and simultaneously keeping his own afloat remotely.

  “They weren’t just drawings.” John finally turned towards him, gesturing with his whole arms. “I don’t know why I know that, but I do.”

  “Okay, I understand.”

  “No, you don’t. There was a giant release when Antonio died, like something was…I don’t know, satisfied. Fo
r a minute. I felt it in the air and in the ground. Like a sigh.”

  “Were you there, when Antonio died?”

  John’s face fell, and he turned away. He was sullen, closed again.

  “John, were you?”

  James watched him fume for several seconds, glaring out through the front windshield, before he finally answered. “No.”

  “Well, I’m glad. If that’s true. The boy died horribly.” He breathed a sigh of relief, but something that his son said left him worried. He had to ask, “Do you know how he died?”

  “He was shot.”

  “Yes.”

  “In the face,” John said, so bluntly that he almost sobbed the words.

  James’s jerked his head in reaction; he couldn’t remember the last time John had cried. His suspicions returned to the possibility that he had witnessed at least some part of the macabre scene. No, that’s insane. How could my own son have been involved with a murder? In any way?

  It was unthinkable. He forced the possibility out of his mind.

  “I don’t know how much you know, but the shooting wasn’t the worst of it, John,” he began, bracing himself for what needed to be said, before the news was all over town. “Someone, well…”

  “I know about the rest. You and Sheriff Jameson weren’t as quiet as you thought you were.”

  “Oh.” James ran a hand through his hair, embarrassed. Did he hear everything? My god... “I’m sorry about that, son.”

  John lapsed back into silence and James turned his focus to the taillights of Mike’s cruiser, wary of the deepness of the night falling around them. He wondered how to prepare himself or his son for the confrontation that lay ahead. Mike obviously wanted John there as a decoy for his schoolmate. A pawn. What was the consequence for John, then? For that matter, what was the consequence for this poor kid, Sam? James rubbed the bridge of his nose, wishing the drive would last a few minutes longer. Way before he was ready, Southern Cove came into view.

  The rusted welcome sign across the entrance to the trailer park was rimmed with old-fashioned light bulbs, oddly reminiscent of the oldest section of Las Vegas. Many of the bulbs were burned out and several sputtered on and off at the end of life. Gnarled, scrubby bushes framed the sign, illuminated from below by a spotlight pointing heavenward, highlighting the twisted ugliness of the needled shrubs. Their car rolled down a narrow lane, lined with mobile houses and broken-down cars mounted on cinderblocks. Several residents sat on stoops or folding chairs in front of their homes, and James felt the heat of their stares. A visit from Sheriff Jameson seemed ordinary, but not popular.

  The cruiser stopped in front of a nondescript mobile home and James parked alongside. He turned off his headlights with trepidation. Here we go.

  “Maybe the Benz wasn’t such a great idea, Dad.” John’s voice was full of teenage scorn, as he got out of the car. He eased his door closed, embarrassed.

  James’s cheeks burned as he realized the truth of his son’s words; the abject poverty surrounding them glared brighter than the shine on his Mercedes. There was nothing for it, though. He shut his car door as quietly as John had and turned to face the Castle residence. Light shone dimly behind small, curtained windows, and he could hear the rise and fall of a television laugh-track as they approached the door. “John, I think we should let the officers go first.”

  “If they’re going to use me to get to Sam, I’m not going to cower in the background,” John said, striding ahead with purpose.

  “I’ll do the talkin’, son.” Mike met him on the steps and rapped on the door.

  Brave John. James was willing to linger behind the others. John had never been one to hide from responsibility or shy from a challenge. That part of his nature was what gnawed at James as he watched his son; he had never seen John look so unsure before. What did he mean about danger? In Shirley County? All James could do was wait for him to open up again, since pushing would have the opposite effect.

  A woman’s muffled answer sounded from inside the door after Mike’s second, more insistent, knock. James steeled himself for the unknown, as he heard her grappling with the latch on the other side.

  “…second…”

  Mike turned back to exchange a knowing look with his deputy. When the woman inside finally conquered the door handle, she stumbled over the threshold with the force of the swing, still hanging onto the latch. “Damn thing,” she mumbled.

  “Mrs. Castle?” Mike’s voice was louder than it needed to be. He leaned down and craned his neck to place his face in her line of vision.

  “Yes, tha’s me.” The woman brought her eyes together with an effort. When she realized she was talking to a sheriff, she snapped to as much attention as she could muster.

  “Oop, there we go,” Mike teased, resuming his full height as she wiped her mouth and produced a dutiful smile.

  “Can I hep you?”

  “I think you may need a little help yourself there, Mrs. Castle. You doing alright?” Mike turned back to grin at James, who remained stone-faced. The deputy snickered, but John held his composure. “Okay, okay,” Mike chuckled. “You Robinson’s… Mrs. Castle, we’d like to have a word with your son, Sam. He home?”

  “Sam?”

  “Your son. Sam Castle is your son, is he not?”

  “Yes, he is.” She looked behind her, confused. “He’s not here?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you, darlin’.”

  “Yes. No, I mean he isn’t...” She looked behind her again, peering into the house as if she hadn’t thought to check whether or not her son was home before that moment.

  “Mind if we have a look around, sweetheart?” Mike asked. He mounted the step to tower over her diminutive form.

  “No, nah a all, ociffer.”

  James smiled and eased past her through the doorway. His chest swelled with pride as he heard his son’s quiet, “Thank you, ma’am.”

  James was surprised to find the house well-kept and clean, sparely appointed and sparsely furnished as it was. He suspected Mrs. Castle to be the kind of addict who scoured the house clean with guilt after a binge. He had known several of that variety in his time, and had even dated a few. There didn’t appear to be much else to see but an unfortunate woman with a bad habit, if the kid wasn’t home. James wanted to reassure his son that their errand was almost over, and he tried to catch his eye, but John was staring at the floor, concentrating on his thoughts. Curious about the nature of his son’s relationship with this Castle boy, James realized he probably wasn’t going to tell him if he asked, so he let it go and began to wander through the tiny house.

  “...have any idea where he is tonight?” Mike was asking, standing closer to the woman than he needed to. James felt his shoulders recommence their tensing. “Rick, shut off that television. Don’t keep a very good watch on your son, do you?”

  “Well, I think e’s working.”

  “Working?” Mike motioned to his deputy, who pulled a notepad from his shirt pocket and began scribbling. “Where does he work?”

  “I think…”

  “Where does he work?” Mike repeated.

  “I think he works on a delivy truck. De-liv-er-y truck,” she said, slowing down to tackle the longer word. James squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

  “So late at night?”

  “Yep.”

  Mike shook his head at the deputy. He scratched his last line out and replaced the notebook in his pocket, rolling his eyes in disgust and sauntering away to snoop through the rest of the house.

  “When was the last time you saw Sam?”

  “Mmmmm…”

  “Haven’t seen him in a while, huh?”

  “Who?”

  “Sam. Your son.”

  “Sam’s here?”

  “Sheriff. I think you’ll want to see this,” the deput
y called, leaning out of the doorway to an adjacent room.

  “Tha’s Sam’s room.” Mrs. Castle lit up, pleased to offer relevant information. She jumped off her perch in the living area and followed the men into her son’s bedroom.

  The room was a typical teenage boy’s room. Dirty clothes were flung here or there, and shoes and a skateboard tumbled out of an open closet door. The bed was a simple mattress on the floor piled with pillows and blankets. There was a bookshelf against one wall with a surprising number of books lined up on two shelves, and various knick-knacks of mysterious importance scattered on the other. A pretty nice electric keyboard. A small chest of drawers sat perpendicular to that, with a drawer pulled open, the clothes rifled through but mostly organized. Shelving had been hung high above the furniture, probably to make more storage space in such a small room, but the shelves lay empty. Those were all the normal things one might expect to see in a kid’s room, but the walls were where normality ended.

  James had wandered in with his eyes cast down, scanning the floor basically uninterested, but he caught his breath when he looked up. The largest expanse of open wall space, over the bed, was covered with densely drawn black figures; some were lunging forward, some were falling back, and others were simply standing, staring back at the viewer or screaming at another figure. It was difficult for James to discern whether or not the figures were humanoid, but they struck a familiar chord, albeit one of terror. They were fantastical and alien—more than he could comprehend, with strange, extra appendages and body parts that morphed into inanimate forms. The overlapping, the detail, and the depth were fascinating and almost beautiful, if not for the basic savagery. There was anger and pain laid bare, so raw that James could feel the emotion of the drawings starting to take over. He looked away for relief.

  “God, those are intense…” he murmured.

  He heard John’s intake of breath, as he entered the room.

  Shit. James worried whether or not his son should be seeing such gruesome, morbid imagery so soon after the death of his friend.