by N. M. Brown
Prior to waking, Danny had been dreaming that he was back in his childhood home again, or at least it was a dream version of it, with secret doorways that led to interconnected rooms. There was something both familiar and unfamiliar about the place. In the dream, he had found an attic, which had never existed in reality. It was full of various toys from his childhood. They were all boxed up, and the boxes were piled in dusty corners like a long-forgotten shop display. Even in the thrill of the dream, Danny knew it couldn’t be real. His childhood treasure, a model of the Millennium Falcon, was there in a long box, but he remembered being away at college when his mom told him that she had cleared out his old room and tossed away the junk from under his bed. When he’d asked about the model, she said that she’d given it to a kid who lived down the block from them. Danny had felt ridiculously hurt, and embarrassed by his emotion, at the time, but his mom hadn’t understood. And yet, despite the fuss, here it was, leaning against Buckaroo and his first proper bike. That was how he knew the experience wasn’t real, but Danny moved toward it just as eagerly as if it had been. Perhaps, he believed, if he could just reach the box, and grasp the model tight enough, he could bring it back to reality when he surfaced. Yet as his bare feet crossed the dusty floorboards of the attic, the surface suddenly felt soft and he began to sink into the wood with the consistency of marshmallow. He stared down, wide-eyed, and watched the knots in the wood as they stretched and melted into strange spirals.
Eventually, he woke to find himself in the baking heat of the hospital ward, by his father’s bedside. His father remained blissfully asleep, a small mask providing him with fresh oxygen. His hair looked wispy and his chest was barely rising and falling.
Danny touched his hand.
‘Hey, Pop, I’m just going to grab a coffee,’ he said. ‘I’m not much use to you if I just sit here snoring.’
He left the small room and made his way past the brightly lit nurse’s station, toward toward the cluster of buzzing vending machines at the far end of the corridor. As he drew level with the reception desk, one of the nurses glanced up at him.
‘Oh, Mr Clark, somebody called asking for you earlier. It was about an hour ago. I came along and looked in but you were sleeping. I figured you could probably do with the rest.’
Danny frowned. ‘It’s not a problem. Who was it that called?’
‘A man. They didn’t leave their name, sorry, but they said they’d catch up with you later.’
‘Thanks,’ Danny said, and wandered a little confused to the machine. Perhaps Leighton had wanted to ask him something, or update him on his weird case.
After rummaging in his trouser pockets, Danny counted out the coins, slotted them in the machine, and selected a cappuccino. Eventually, when the humming and trickling had stopped, he crouched down and removed the warm cup from the machine.
As he turned around, with his dripping coffee cup in his hand, Danny found himself facing a familiar figure.
‘Hello, Officer Clark,’ Gretsch said with a self-satisfied smile. ‘I just thought I’d take a drive over to let you know that you and your idiotic partner are in some serious shit.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
The nurse who met Leighton at the white wooden stairs that lead into the Golden Cross Care Home seemed particularly welcoming. She smiled broadly and gripped the officer’s hand as she led him into the colonial style building.
‘Now, I must let you know that Mrs Cooper doesn’t get many visitors anymore,’ she said. Something in her tone of voice suggested that many probably meant any visitors.
‘Did she ever have many?’ Leighton asked.
‘Oh yes, she had weekly visits for a few years, but they stopped and then nobody came. I think she is perhaps happier that way.’
‘Not so good,’ Leighton said.
‘It’s possibly for the best. Visits seemed to upset her, especially the later ones. To be honest, I’m not sure if she’ll even speak to you.’
‘It’s okay, I’m just following leads. No pressure either way.’ Leighton smiled disarmingly.
‘That’s good,’ the nurse said with a sigh.
‘Is she in a separate room?’ Leighton asked. Given the subject matter he wished to discuss, he was hoping for a little privacy.
‘No, she’s currently resting in the day room. But you won’t be interrupted: the other residents are all outside. We try to give them as much fresh air and sunshine as we can – it tends to reduce depression and insomnia. But Mrs Cooper doesn’t like being in the sunlight, or too much heat. Understandable I suppose, given what happened to her. Anyway, we’re here.’ The nurse stopped outside a large white door and held it open for Leighton.
‘I’ll be at the desk, if you need me,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ Leighton said.
As Leighton stepped into the spacious day room of the care home, he found that it was empty except for a solitary woman. Her lack of motion meant that she could easily be missed. She sat in a white wicker rocking chair, which had been positioned beside a window at the far side of the room. Crossing the room, which smelled of lavender and cafeteria food, Leighton glanced absently at the numerous bookcases crammed with Western paperbacks and colourful board games. It didn’t seem such a bad place to end up.
Nearing the woman, Leighton discovered that she was looking out at the other residents of the care home, who were enjoying a picnic on a large lawn at the rear of the building.
‘Mrs Cooper?’ Leighton said softly.
The woman took a moment to respond, but eventually gave a small nod of her head and turned her face partly toward him.
‘I called yesterday,’ he continued, ‘and spoke to one of the nursing staff. My name is Leighton Jones, I was wondering if I could talk to you about your daughter.’
The elderly woman sighed. The sound seemed to come from a dark depth within her.
‘I have told the papers everything. Why can’t you people leave me alone,’ she said, and turned away from Leighton.
‘I’m not from any paper or magazine,’ he said, sitting in a nearby plastic chair. ‘I’m a police officer from Oceanside.’
There was a pause in Mrs Cooper’s breathing, as if she had taken a quick breath before she spoke. ‘If that's true then you’re a long way from home.’
‘It is true, and I am, but that’s how important this situation is,’ Leighton said gravely.
‘So, what is it that you want from me?’ she asked.
‘To ask you about Michael Stanton.’
For several moments, Mrs Cooper said nothing at all. The only sound in the room came from a large air conditioning unit that was mounted on the ceiling. As the silence between Leighton and Mrs Cooper expanded, the drone of the machine seemed to swell to a deafening level. Despite the fact he was a patient man, Leighton was almost ready to leave after five minutes of silence, but that was when Mrs Cooper finally spoke.
‘Why do you need to speak to me, has he done it again? I knew it was only a matter of time.’
‘Done what again?’ Leighton asked.
Mrs Cooper gave a small dismissive shrug.
‘Murdered somebody, I suppose – destroyed another family, like he did mine.’
‘The records say Stanton was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, which suggest that the jury believed he never intended to kill anyone. I take it you don’t believe that?’
‘That was a pathetic story that the defence lawyer came up with to save Stanton from the death penalty he deserved.’
‘He started the fire in the lumber store, rather than the house; is it possible that it could have been an accident?’
‘Look at me, Detective,’ she said, turning toward Leighton. The fire had roasted one half of her face entirely. The skin on her left side looked like pale melted wax, her ear was missing and her eye was an opaque ball. ‘This is what Michael Stanton did to me. He took away my only child and my husband, and broke my heart, body, and mind.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Leighton s
aid sincerely. ‘Did anybody figure out his motive?’
Eileen Cooper sighed. ‘He was obsessed with my daughter, Veronica – for quite a while it seems. I later discovered that he had been watching her, and following her around town, for months until he finally got to her. The high school counsellor knew, her friends knew, even his parents were aware, but sadly nobody thought it important enough to pass on to us.’
‘That’s terrible,’ Leighton said.
‘What makes it worse is that it was my own fault.’ As she spoke, Eileen Cooper began to weep, but only from her functioning eye. Leighton guessed that the tear duct had been fused closed on her other one.
‘What do you mean, it was your fault? How?’
‘I let that creature into our house that day – I invited him.’
‘Can you tell me what happened that day?’
‘I could, but I’d rather not. If you want to rake over the past, I’m sure the details are all there in the court records, as well as a few of the less principled crime magazines.’
‘Of course.’ Leighton nodded. ‘I never meant to upset you. I’ll leave you in peace. But one last thing: I know this might seem like a strange question, but when they found your daughter, did the medical examiner say anything about her teeth?’
‘Mr Jones, by the time the fire crew found my only child, all they had to identify her with were her teeth. If that’s what you mean.’
‘Thank you,’ Leighton said, and stood up. ‘I understand how difficult this must be.’
‘Do you have any children?’ Eileen Cooper asked, with her gaze fixed on Leighton’s eyes.
‘Yes, a daughter.’
‘Living?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you can’t understand how difficult this is, so don’t insult me by claiming to.’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Cooper. It was never my intention to upset you. I’ll go now.’
At that moment, something in Leighton’s demeanour must have convinced Eileen Cooper that he was worthy of being trusted with at least one piece of private information.
‘There is something to do with teeth that my daughter said. She told me Stanton had taken something from her drawer.’
‘What was it?’
‘A small box containing her first tooth. When she was just a little kid, my husband and I told Ronny that the Tooth Fairy never took your first tooth because it was such a special one. Hers was so small and perfect; I can still remember holding it, almost weightless in my hand. That day, after he had been in our house, Ronny told us that Stanton had stolen her baby tooth.’ As she spoke, the woman’s withered fingers toyed absently with a locket hanging around her wrinkled neck.
‘Did you mention the theft to anyone at the time of the fire?’
She shook her head. ‘I was in a medically induced coma for seven weeks. When I woke up, my husband and daughter were dead and buried, and my home was ash. All I cared about was seeing the murderer locked up. But I just wanted you to understand what kind of sadistic creature he was.’
‘But you got that wish, for a while at least. You know Stanton was released two years ago?’
Eileen Cooper nodded slowly, her eyes fixed on some distant spot. She grimaced as if still unable to accept this fact. ‘The son of a bitch only got six years for each member of my family – twelve years for a double murderer.’
‘That’s only because they said it wasn’t a double murder: they said it was accidental.’
‘They can say what they like, doesn’t make it true. I could see it in that young man’s eyes: he was all smiles, but there was nothing in his eyes but hatred. Shakespeare wrote “that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain”. Did you know that?’
‘No, I didn’t, but it does ring true in my own experience.’
‘I remember finding out that he had returned here after he was released. I felt like I’d been stabbed.’ She rubbed absently at her hands as she spoke.
‘Do you worry that he would come to the care home?’
‘If I ever see him, I’ll shove a fork in his eye and twist it – I keep one with me at all times, just in case. I may look old and frail, but I have the strength to do it.’
‘Why do you think he came back?’
‘To hide maybe. I don’t know. He came back to the town and even got a job mopping floors down at the Sanderson Clinic in town for a while. Of course, that was only until he was recognised and then word got around.’
‘What happened after that?’
Eileen Cooper shrugged. ‘I heard that after his father died, Stanton sold the family house and moved on, thankfully. I guess if you’re here to speak about him, you probably know where he ended up.’
‘Yes, I believe I do. Thank you for your time, Mrs Cooper,’ Leighton said with a genuinely affectionate smile. He stood up. ‘I know that dredging up the past can’t be easy for you.’
‘Look at me, Mr Jones.’ She held up a shiny and misshaped hand, upon which all of the fingers were shrivelled. ‘My burns will never heal – on the outside or the inside. My past is with me every damned minute of the day.’
‘I’m still sorry,’ Leighton said sincerely, and he turned around.
He was almost at the door of the room, several feet away from Mrs Cooper, when she called one last thing to him.
‘Mr Jones, if you do get the chance to encounter Michael Stanton, please promise me one thing …’
‘Sure.’
‘Promise that you will tread carefully. He’s a very disturbed man.’
‘I will,’ Leighton said, and then he left.
After he had gone, Mrs Cooper gazed out of the tall window, toward the gardens. Her face, usually contorted in pain, or lost in the sadness of untouchable memories, looked different today. Today she looked afraid.
The nursing assistant who had initially met Leighton, was sitting waiting for him in the cool corridor that lead to the reception. She was perched on a plain wooden bench, holding a thick ledger in her hands, and smiling self-consciously.
‘Mr Jones, before you go, can I ask you to sign this please? I forgot to ask you to complete it when you first arrived. We have to keep an accurate record – in case of any emergency.’
‘Of course,’ Leighton said. ‘Did you get in hot water with someone?’ he asked, as he sat down next to her and carefully lifted the book from her hands.
‘The home manager, Mr Rankin, likes to ensure that things are always done properly.’ When she said the word properly, the nurse rolled her eyes. ‘He likes to follow the staff around the place to make sure we are doing everything correct. The thing is, if he makes us leave a job to go back and do another one properly that just keeps the situation going.’
‘I honestly feel your pain.’ Leighton chuckled. ‘I have a boss quite like that myself, back in Oceanside. Listen, do you have a pen? If not, I have one in my jacket, but it’s in the car.’
‘Oh, see, I’m such a klutz!’ the nurse said as she quickly stood up. ‘Give me a second and I’ll grab one from the desk.’
‘No rush,’ Leighton said.
Whilst the nurse was gone, Leighton began flicking absently through the brittle pages of the visitors’ book. The information on each page was arranged in six neat columns: date, name of visitor, name of resident, visitor signed in, and visitor signed out. Because all of the other names were unfamiliar to Leighton, he found it easy to flick through the pages scanning for Mrs Cooper. As he looked through page after page, it became obvious to him that the elderly woman hadn’t received any visitors for years. And then suddenly, in September 2005, her name appeared. Leighton pressed his finger below her name and slid it along to see the name of her visitor. The name was Michael Stanton.
Leighton felt a momentary release of adrenaline somewhere deep in his abdomen. He went quickly through the earlier pages, and discovered that this had been the only visit Eileen Cooper had received from her daughter’s killer.
‘Here we go.’ The nurse had returned and was holding a ballpoint pen out
to Leighton.
‘Thank you.’ He took the pen and filled in his name. Then, standing up, he returned the pen and the book to the nurse.
‘That’s great,’ she said, sounding genuinely relieved. ‘I’ll show you where the exit is.’
They had only taken a couple of steps along the tiled corridor, when Leighton turned to the nurse.
‘Listen, I was just wondering, did anybody see what happened when Michael Stanton came here to see Mrs Cooper?’
The nurse stopped walking and deliberately checked over each shoulder before answering. ‘When I first started working here, about three years ago, Mrs Cooper had a regular visit every Wednesday from a man called Dale. Somebody told me that he had once been her daughter’s boyfriend. Whenever he was here, the two of them would be locked together in conversation about the past. It was the only time of the week you would see Eileen smile. I suppose they shared their memories.’
‘So, what happened?’
‘One Wednesday afternoon, Dale never showed up. I wasn’t working that day, but my friend Grace said that Eileen had sat in the day room waiting until near midnight, but Dale never called or showed up. And then the next day, he shows up.’
‘Dale?’
‘No, Stanton. The woman had probably hated the guy for nearly two decades, and then he shows up here.’
‘What did he want?’ Leighton asked.
‘It’s anyone’s guess.’ The nurse shrugged her shoulders. ‘Forgiveness, maybe?’
‘Did he get it?’
‘Well it was quite strange. I was on shift that day. At first, she was shouting and freaking out, but he said something to her and she just stopped. I had run through from reception, but by the time I got there she just waved me away. He was sitting next to her wearing his thick glasses and a Lakers cap.’
‘Could he have threatened her?’
