Walking the Bones

by Randall Silvis

  “It’s about the handyman. Maybe he’ll know something.”

  She paused for a moment, then said, “It’s been a nice night, Ryan. Please don’t ruin it.”

  He gave her hand a quick squeeze, leaned close, and kissed her cheek. And started them walking again.

  Seeing their approach, Richie pinched out the joint and slipped it into his friend’s shirt pocket while muttering a quick message. The friend slipped around the ATM and crossed quickly behind the corner of the bank.

  Richie smiled at DeMarco first, then at Jayme. “The music’s not much,” he said, “but you can’t beat a Southern night like this one, can you, folks?”

  DeMarco released Jayme’s hand, answered only with a half smile. “July 2014,” he said. “You were living here back then, is that correct?”

  Richie sniffed and tried to look unworried. “I was,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

  “How well did you know the Baptist church’s handyman, Virgil Helm?”

  “Know him?” Richie said, and appeared to be trying to remember. “Can’t say I really did.”

  “But you know who I’m talking about.”

  “I mean he’d come into the store every now and then, like most everybody else in town. Fill up a gas can, get something cold to drink. He rode a motorcycle, as I remember. I’m pretty sure it was a Yamaha. Black. Kind of beat-up. ’96, ’97? A Virago, I think. Good little street bike.”

  “But you didn’t engage in a lot of conversation, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Not for lack of trying,” Richie said. “The man didn’t talk much, simple as that.”

  DeMarco nodded. He maintained easy eye contact with Richie, kept smiling. Allowed the pause to make Richie uncomfortable. “Any idea where he might be now?”

  “Me?” Richie said. “How would I know that?”

  “A man doesn’t disappear into thin air without a bit of help. Somebody in this town knows something. And I figure you for the kind of guy on the receiving end of a lot of secrets.”

  Another pause. Richie shifted his weight, broke eye contact, rolled his shoulders so as to lessen the tension. “What’s a couple of Pennsylvania staties care about what happens down here?” he asked.

  DeMarco smiled. Jayme said, “We’re assisting local law enforcement, Richie. Just trying to grab a lead or two. Can you help us out?”

  “I would if I knew anything,” he said.

  “You must have heard something over the years. Rumors, gossip… Anything you can tell us will help a lot.”

  He turned his gaze to DeMarco again. “Lemme think on it a day or so, okay? See if I can come up with anything.”

  When DeMarco stretched out his arm to clap Richie on the shoulder, Richie flinched, flattened himself against the wall of the ATM. “Much appreciated,” DeMarco said. “So we’ll talk tomorrow. Enjoy your evening.” He turned and stepped away.

  Jayme gave Richie a final smile, then caught up with DeMarco. She slipped her arm into his. “Do you think he wet his pants?” she asked.

  “God, I hope so,” DeMarco said.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  DeMarco had a hard time falling asleep that night, neck stiff and legs tense. So he climbed out of bed and sorted through his belongings until he found a set of earphones. Back in bed he plugged the earphones into his cell phone and searched the internet for a talk radio program that might stop his mind from racing. Before Jayme came into his life he had often tuned in to a show called Coast to Coast AM that discussed everything from angels to men in black to star children to shadow people. On this night the subject was cryptid canines, with a special focus on the chupacabra, a large doglike creature famous for sucking blood from livestock.

  He fell asleep with the program still playing. In his dream, he awoke to see a boy, twelve or thirteen years old, standing beside his bed. The boy, wearing blue jeans and a yellow shirt, white sneakers with one lace undone, smiled, gave a nod, then walked to the bedroom threshold, his smile encouraging DeMarco to follow.

  DeMarco looked to Jayme. She was sleeping with one arm thrown over her eyes. So he slipped quietly over the side of the bed, found himself fully dressed but for his feet. Apparently he had gone to bed in khakis and a short-sleeved shirt. No shoes, no socks.

  The boy had stepped beyond the bedroom threshold now, into what seemed an encroaching gloom with an indigo hue. He motioned with his hand and mouthed, Come on. Hurry up.

  DeMarco took a last look at Jayme. Still sleeping, a princess in her bed.

  Then he followed the boy, hurried to catch up.

  Beyond the bedroom the rest of the house was gone, nothing but a single narrow tunnel with a ceiling so high and black it could not be seen. As DeMarco quickstepped after the boy, the indigo darkness slowly descended, enveloping him so completely he could no longer see his own hands or feet. Beneath his bare feet the earth felt damp, just hard-packed dirt. The boy, however, some ten yards ahead, remained fully visible, neither brightly lit nor muted in feature, though all around him was darkness. Still, he smiled. A wave of the hand. Come on. Hurry up.

  DeMarco quickened his pace. The dampness of the earth worried him. What if he slipped and fell? What if he lost sight of the boy?

  Then, off to his right, approaching from the rear, a pattering. He glanced over his shoulder. And now the tunnel wall to his right was no longer solid but a thick metal grate rising into darkness. On the other side of the grate, a large animal trotted along behind him. Its features were unclear, nothing visible but a shadow, but DeMarco thought chupacabra and quickened his pace.

  The animal growled and bared its teeth, loped along easily behind him. The faster DeMarco moved, the faster the animal, its eyes visible now, icy blue. From time to time the animal lunged at DeMarco and snapped but was stopped by the grate. Each time DeMarco looked at it then looked ahead to relocate the boy, the boy had receded farther into the distance.

  DeMarco ran, the diminishing figure of the boy his only guidepost. Darkness ahead and behind but for the boy, full darkness to his left, and to the right the grate, the beast, a milky gray as of false dawn.

  DeMarco sprinted hard, holding fast to the figure of the boy. The beast began to fall behind.

  DeMarco pushed even harder, ran faster than he knew he could, ran as if he were a boy again alone out along the railroad tracks, running for the pleasure of movement, the illusion of escape.

  And finally, a light. DeMarco grinned at the cliché, the light at the end of the tunnel. Within that light the boy stood waiting, but with a smile diminished. What’s wrong? DeMarco thought. What’s happening?

  The end of the tunnel drew near, the boy outside the mouth of it now, enveloped in the milky dawn but no less visible than before. He turned his back as DeMarco approached, raised an arm, and pointed into the muted light.

  Out of breath, lungs on fire, DeMarco paused at the mouth of the tunnel. Out there in the glaucous dawn an individual seated in profile to him, naked, knees raised, arms wrapped around her knees, sad and cold, so terribly cold. DeMarco could feel her hunger in the air, her fear and emptiness, the chill of despair running through. He began to cry, hollowed out by her grief, too weakened to move.

  Look! came the boy’s voice loud in his head. DeMarco glanced to the rear, the beast surging forward now, eyes fiery, jaws open. In a few more seconds it would be upon them.

  Hurry! said the boy.

  DeMarco confused, uncertain, which way, hurry where? Save the girl? Save the boy? Retreat back into darkness and save himself, back to Jayme still waiting in her bed? But was she waiting? DeMarco was unsure, so far away now, it was years ago, he could not think straight. Was she only a dream?

  The beast was nearly there, two seconds from clearing the grate. DeMarco could smell its breath, the stink of rotten meat. He reached for the boy but found himself alone. Squinted ahead, heard a baby crying in the fog, lunged f
orward with the animal’s teeth ready to bite down, and he fell, sliding into a slippery darkness…

  He awoke gasping for air, hands raised, palms spread, bracing for impact…

  Soft moonlight through the curtains. Jayme breathing rhythmically at his side.

  He lifted himself into a sitting position. Worked hard to slow his breath. Looked about the room, still expecting to see the boy somewhere. The blue numbers on the clock on the bedside table read 3:36.

  Minutes later, still uncertain. Was this reality or the dream? Bit by bit he eased himself from bed. Boxers and a T-shirt. Okay, all normal. He retrieved his weapon from atop the dresser, slipped it from the holster. He crept to the threshold, looked beyond. The upstairs hallway, Grandma’s house. Familiar scents. Familiar carpet on the floor.

  Downstairs then, creeping along in muted light. He went to the front door, opened it quietly, uncertain what might lay beyond.

  A normal night. The yard in moonlight, the scent of summersweet. The air not cool but refreshing nonetheless. The heavens in their place.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  Jayme awoke to find the other side of the bed empty, the sheet cool beneath her hand. She climbed out of bed, pulled on an oversize T-shirt, and walked quietly downstairs, listening for some sign of his presence. The house was silent all around her, no lights to brighten the natural dimness. She found him asleep at the kitchen table, head on his arms, laptop open a few inches from his head but the screen dark, yellow legal pad beside it. His Glock in the center of the table. The only window faced north, so the light at not yet six was soft and indirect. She leaned over his shoulder to read what he had written.

  Clarence Earl Coates 132 West Pine Elizabethtown KY

  Antoinette/Toni 4617 Clifford Heights Carbondale IL

  Shawnee Hills Family Dentistry 438 Maxwell Drive

  Quietly she jiggled the mouse and woke the screen. MapQuest, the route from Aberdeen to Carbondale, Illinois. Seventy-eight point three miles.

  She went to the counter and dumped the remainder of the previous day’s coffee down the sink, rinsed the carafe, and soon had fresh coffee dripping into it. There were only three eggs left in the refrigerator, but also a thick ham steak. As she reached for the eggs, a chair scraped the floor. She turned to see DeMarco rising. “Hey there,” she said.

  “Umm,” he answered, and shuffled out of the kitchen.

  By the time she had the eggs beaten, the sound from the shower upstairs could be heard, the gurgle of water draining from the stall and down through the pipe in the wall, so she cleaned and sliced a fat baking potato and set the slices to frying in her grandmother’s cast-iron skillet along with chopped onions and sweet peppers. When these were ready she scraped them onto a platter and slid the platter into the oven on low heat. By the time the ham was ready and in the oven with the potatoes, DeMarco’s footsteps could be heard going back and forth in the bedroom, old boards creaking, so she wiped the skillet clean, melted a spoonful of butter, then added the eggs.

  She was spooning cheesy scrambled eggs onto the platter with the ham and potatoes when DeMarco came downstairs slicked down and shaved and fully dressed but for his shoes.

  She handed him a large mug of coffee and kissed his cheek. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

  “I slept,” he said. “Just vertical, more or less.”

  “What brought you downstairs armed and dangerous?”

  “Bad dream,” he said.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “I’m fine.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. “Is this all for me?”

  “If you can eat it all.”

  “Maybe you should join me.”

  “How sweet of you,” she said.

  She gathered two forks and a steak knife from the drawer and set them on the table, then took the seat next to his. She slid the platter midway between them and asked, “Planning a trip to Illinois?”

  He leaned close to the platter and inhaled. “Mmm,” he said.

  “As in?”

  “Mmm smell good. Me like meat.”

  She picked up the knife and began cutting the ham into small chunks. Conversation could wait. Over the past couple of weeks she had learned that both of them usually woke quickly, were fully alert within a few minutes of opening their eyes each morning, but that he required a more gradual entry into human interaction than she. She had once heard him tell their station commander, when it was suggested that DeMarco interact more with the younger troopers, that “human interaction is highly overrated.” She remembered that comment now and smiled as they ate their breakfast.

  For a man, she thought, he was a quiet and careful, almost meticulous, eater. No heaping forkfuls, no loud chewing or lip smacking. His mannerisms were almost feminine, the way he sank his fork into a bite of ham, then speared a bit of browned potato to accompany it into his mouth.

  Maybe someday she would ask him where he had come by such manners. The mother, she guessed. She still knew little about his family, only that they had been poor and lived in a rented trailer, that his father was frequently absent and at other times abusive, his mother loving and attentive when not depressed or drinking. He had lost his father at fifteen, shot in the chest, assailant unknown. His mother committed suicide five years later, shortly after Christmas Day 1989, DeMarco in Panama, a soldier, a boy with a gun.

  When he talked about these incidents it was in broad strokes only, dispassionate, “one of the neighbors found her body,” and “things were crazy in San Miguelito then, so the news didn’t reach me till the twenty-seventh.”

  She watched him surreptitiously now and tried to envision him as a child. Quiet and unnaturally still, she supposed. Keenly observant, but with little external sign of that trait. Stillness and alertness as a survival skill.

  He finished eating before she did, drained the last of his coffee and leaned away from the table. Now, if he was ready to talk, he would talk.

  First he stood, took the carafe from the coffeemaker, and refilled both of their cups. When he was seated again, after a preliminary sip, he said, “I’m ninety-nine percent certain Eli Royce is not responsible for those seven girls.”

  “And yet?” she said.

  “I need to get rid of that final one percent. Before we can leave him behind with Henry and McGintey.”

  “You’re ready to dismiss McGintey too?”

  “You’re not?” he asked.

  “For the most part. I would like to spend a few minutes with the two girls, though. The ones in the truck with him.”

  “We can do that,” DeMarco said.

  “Who’s Toni in Carbondale?”

  “The girl Royce made pregnant the year before the bones were found. According to her Facebook page, she’s a dental hygienist now. Mother and father live east of here.”

  “Elizabethtown,” Jayme said. “It’s in your notes.”

  He nodded, sipped his coffee.

  “How did you track them down?”

  “Telephone call to Vicente. Very grumpy man at oh-four-hundred hours.”

  “Why didn’t they just give us that information in the first place?”

  “All he had was the father’s name. I got the rest from the DMV. Other information from Antoinette’s Facebook page. Daughter is nearly five now. Anya Sage Coates.”

  “Pretty name. But not Royce.”

  “Not Royce.”

  “And you think we should talk to her? Antoinette, I mean.”

  “I think you should.”

  “And here I thought I might sleep all day.”

  He stood, gathered up the dishes. “I’ll clean up breakfast, you clean up you. Deal?”

  She leaned her head back to look up at him. “And how am I dressing for the day?”

  “I’m thinking we head straight to Carbondale to chat with Antoinette.”

  “Aft
er which we either jettison Royce from the list or tighten the screws on him?”

  DeMarco paused a step from the sink, plates and cups precipitously balanced, and said, “If it’s all the same to you, I’m for tightening the screws no matter what. Just for the fun of it.”

  “So I dress for empathy in the morning,” she said, pushed back her chair, and stood. “Then a little sadism in the afternoon. The leopard-skin capris are out, I guess.” She stood with her bare feet apart, one hip cocked, still wearing nothing but an oversize T-shirt.

  DeMarco sucked in a breath at the sight of her. “That’s a fairly sadistic outfit right there,” he said.

  “You have fifteen minutes to load the dishwasher,” she told him, then spun away, slowly hiking up the hem of the T-shirt as she walked.

  “I can do it in three,” he said.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  They arrived in Carbondale with the last rush of morning traffic, Jayme at the wheel. They had an unspoken agreement that she handled heavy traffic better, became less rattled, less likely to engage in the strange St. Vitus dance that seized DeMarco at such times, foot to accelerator, foot to brake, accelerator, brake, heel of fist to horn. He preferred speeding along rural asphalt one- and two-laners, taking the straightest line through hard curves. Speed and open roads relaxed him. His only relaxant in city traffic was to have Jayme at the wheel.

  He glanced at the yellow legal pad on his lap, then spoke into his cell phone. “Shawnee Hills Family Dentistry.” Within seconds, the navigator function, in the voice of a prim New England schoolmarm, suggested a left turn approaching. “You catch that?” he asked Jayme.

  She nodded and flipped on the turn signal, then glanced at the digital clock—8:47. “Do dentists open at eight or nine?” she asked. “All my appointments are in the afternoon.”

  “I have a feeling our Toni gets an early start.”

  He had used the ninety-minute drive to gather a few facts indicative of Antoinette Coates’s standard of living. Her four-story apartment building of sand-blasted red brick had once been a high school. The photo showed a circular drive at the front of the building, flagpole newly painted silver, a banner proclaiming ALL NEW UNITS! frozen in midflutter. Rent for a two-bedroom unit topped out at eight hundred per month.