Red Circus: A Dark Collection

by John L. Campbell

  Maggie came around the desk and threw her arms around the big man, kissing him on the forehead, her eyes wet for the second time in Cecil’s experience. “Thank you, Ham,” she said, her voice choking just the smallest bit.

  By the second week in November, Cecil Hamilton had won re-election by an embarrassing margin (his opponent had been a police lieutenant out of Jackson whom no one knew, and who simply wanted to spend the rest of his law enforcement career in the quiet of the sticks.) The Jasper High Spartans were undefeated, and David had a new girlfriend, a cute little cheerleader named Ashley. Maggie Tobias was gone to Atlanta. Although she had landed the job on her own, Cecil’s personal contacts, a glowing letter of recommendation and a casual call to Atlanta’s chief from Georgia’s Attorney General (who had been nudged at a national golf outing by the Mississippi Attorney General, who happened to be a twenty year friend of Cecil Hamilton) had simply helped speed up the process. Maggie regretted leaving her boss with a stack of open investigations, but he had assured her their little department would get along just fine, only they’d be a little sad for a while. Jeff Hooper was promoted to sergeant, Zeke Davis was scheduled to begin investigator school. Don Havermeyer caught a bullet during a narcotics raid, non-life threatening, but he would be out for six months while he rehabbed.

  No one thought much about Harriett LaCroix.

  It was a Sunday, two weeks before Christmas, and the days were hovering around fifty degrees, the skies a perpetual gray and threatening rain. David and the Jasper Spartans were still undefeated, and heading into the finals. No one doubted they would make it all the way to State. Cecil Hamilton took a break from working on the quad in the driveway and headed into the house, leaving David to wrestle with a lug wrench on one of the big tires.

  Patricia took the greasy rag from her husband and handed him a coffee as he eased into a kitchen chair, making a noise as he did it.

  “Old people make noises when they sit down, Cec.”

  “No, old people make noise when they sit down and stand up, so I don’t qualify. Sit down noises only are relaxation noises.”

  “Back still troubling you?”

  Ham sipped his coffee. “Not so much.”

  “I saw Doans in your medicine cabinet.” She winked at him as she rinsed her own cup in the sink. “Cop’s wife.”

  He grinned. “Well, now and again. Could be I overdid it a bit out there with David.”

  “Uh-huh. Got to show your son you’re as tough as you ever were.” Her eyes were bright and mischievous. “But a smart older man would let a younger man do the heavy lifting.”

  Ham grunted into his coffee cup.

  “But since you probably won’t, at least make an appointment to have your back looked at, okay honey?” He agreed that he would – have his back looked at, anyway - and Patricia looked out the window over her kitchen sink. David was manhandling a tire to the side of the drive. Beyond him, walking slowly up the road towards the house, was Wisdom LaCroix.

  “Cecil,” she said, just as outside their son noticed the visitor and called, “Daddy?”

  Ham stepped beside his wife and looked out the window, then disappeared into the other room. He returned a moment later, tucking something into the back of his waistband and pulling his shirt down over it. Then he was out the kitchen door, walking to join his son.

  Wisdom moved slowly, the sharp weather taking a heavy toll on his old bones, and especially his gnarled hands. He walked with his head down, as if putting all his concentration into placing one foot in front of the other. Hamilton noticed that he had something slung on his back, something with pink shoulder straps. It took him some time to reach the driveway proper, and Cecil stood next to David, the two of them watching him come. As the old man arrived, Cecil squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “Find something to do for a while, okay?”

  “You alright, Daddy?” David had noticed the bulge at the back of his father’s shirt. Cop’s son.

  Ham nodded. “Just careful, is all. I’ll be fine. Just gonna hear what the man has to say. He’s come a fair distance.”

  David nodded and walked slowly around the side of the house, looking back at the approaching visitor and pulling out his phone to text his girlfriend. Cecil walked towards Wisdom, meeting him mid way down the drive. “Did someone give you a ride?”

  Wisdom took a moment to answer. He was winded. “Nossir…walked…ain’t far.”

  “It’s five miles here to your house, and this cold must be playin’ the devil with your hands.” He steered the old man towards a picnic table over near his boat, something he and David had built as a scouting project when David was fourteen. The old man nodded his gratitude and eased himself down onto a bench, breathed deeply for several moments, then slipped out of the backpack he was wearing. On it was the cartoon image of a little Chinese girl and her animal friends, something a six-year-old would have loved. Wisdom set it gently on the ground between his feet, as if it contained something fragile.

  “You could have called the office, Wisdom. They know how to find me, I could have met you and saved you this awful walk.”

  Wisdom LaCroix shook his head. “Bad enough to bother you on the Lord’s day, Sheriff. Ain’t gonna make a man leave his family as well.” He smiled with his few yellowed teeth, not a pleasant sight. “Sides, the exercise good fo’ me.”

  Then the smile dropped away, as well as any pretense at good humor. He peered around, a furtive look on his wrinkled brown face, as if someone might be listening. When he spoke his voice was soft.

  “She come again last night, Sheriff. Only this time I’s so scairt I peed muh bed.”

  “Harriett?”

  “Yessir. But not my sweet grandbaby. The darkness, it come up on her powerful, like. She floatin’ at the foot muh bed like a balloon, an her face was…it like her eyes, they be blazin’ with fire, only black.” Even as he spoke, the old man began to tremble.

  “Wisdom, I…”

  “Sheriff, she still tryin’ to speak, but can’t make no words, only a terrible moanin’ like to make me hide under muh pillow. When I gets the courage to look, she gone, but somethin’ like a beast ragin’ in her room next to mine. The walls was shakin’ an I heared her bed bangin’ up an down like a child wif a pot on the kitchen floor.”

  Hamilton felt a cold crawl down his arms.

  Wisdom went on, his voice now just above a whisper. “Was near dawn when the carryin’ on stopped, an I went to Harriet’s room. The door was busted, like it been kicked open…from the inside. Her place, what I fixed up so nice for her, it be ruined, an smelled like somethin’ crawl under the outhouse an died.”

  He reached down and carefully unzipped the child’s backpack, removing a large piece of yellow construction paper which he had neatly rolled up inside a rubber band. He rolled it open onto the picnic table.

  “Her crayons was all over the floor…child loved colorin’…an this was on the floor as well.”

  Hamilton looked at the drawing, for that’s what it was, a kindergartener’s crude illustration using lots of black and green and red and brown. The people in it were stick figures, and at the center was a little girl colored brown, the smallest figure in the group. She wore a crude version of the Cat in the Hat’s red and white top hat, and a red and white dress. That figure was crying or bleeding or both, red raindrops spilling from her in all directions. The figures all stood in the woods, the bigger ones holding brown bottles from which more red drops fell. They were all smiling with wide, toothy grins. A green truck was on one side of the paper.

  What really caught the sheriff’s eye was the fact that one of the figures had a scribble of red hair and glasses, and another wore a shirt on his stick figure chest with the word MILL scrawled on it.

  Hamilton looked up from the drawing and into Wisdom’s eyes. “You been busy, old fella. And you spin a mighty good ghost story. But I know for a fact that Harriett couldn’t spell.”

  “She can now,” Wisdom said, meeting the sheriff’s gaze.

/>   “Doin’ a little colorin’ are we, Wisdom?”

  The old man laughed, a short, raspy bark, and held up his clawed hands. “Sheriff, I can’t hardly wipe muh own ass wif these damned things. I surely can’t hold no crayon. Telled you it was muh grandbaby what done this.”

  Hamilton looked at the man’s hands. Wisdom might be spinning a tale, but those claws hadn’t been drawing pictures.

  One of those spidery fingers uncurled and pointed at the drawing. “Those be white boys, Sheriff. An I know you knows who they is.” His eyes were narrowed now, with a sly look. “Ain’t gonna try to say you don’t, is you?”

  Hamilton pushed the picture back towards Wisdom and stood up from the table. “Not sure why you came here, old fella…”

  “I come to see my grandbaby gets justice.”

  “…but I ain’t gonna have you accusing local boys and using a story and some stick figures as evidence. I see who you mean for one, maybe too of them to be. Don’t know what they done to make you do such a thing, don’t really care. But I’m not sitting for any more of this foolishness.”

  The old man rose and slowly shrugged into the backpack. A gust of wind picked the yellow piece of paper up off the table and twisted it through the air several times before it came to rest, flattened against the nearby boat trailer’s tire.

  “She getting’ mean, Sheriff,” Wisdom said. “An I’m feared of what might be.” He turned his back and started down the long driveway, hunched against the breeze and cradling his hands once again. Hamilton knew he should do the decent thing, despite his anger, and drive the old man back into town.

  But he didn’t. He let him walk.

  The dismissal bell rang at 2:40, and within minutes Jasper High students began streaming out of the big, two-story building, splitting into thirds; walkers, bus riders and those headed to cars in the student lot. Cecil Hamilton’s cruiser sat across the street under the spreading limbs of an enormous elm tree, the sheriff behind the wheel sipping a coffee. His radar gun was on, and he was presumably clocking drivers in the 20 mph school zone, but the volume was turned all the way down and he paid little attention to the red, digital readout.

  It was early January, the kids just back from Christmas break, and the entire school preparing for the state championship. The Spartans had finished the regular season undefeated, first in their division, had crushed the opposition in the playoffs, and were a week away from the biggest game of all. David had managed to not only play extremely well and break several records, but he had also avoided injury, something Cecil (and especially Patricia) worried about. There was increasing talk about teenage concussions and contact sports, and it was looking like the long term effects were potentially pretty severe. So far, thank the Lord, David hadn’t taken any severe hits, and besides, the coach and the paramedics at every game kept good tabs on their boys, pulling them at the first sign of trouble.

  Best of all, both an admissions recruiter and the offensive coach for the University of Mississippi had visited the house over the holiday break. It had been a very good meeting, and David was excited about the possibilities. Hamilton had to admit he wouldn’t mind his son being a receiver for the Rebels, and after that, who could say? He’d rather see his son in the NFL (or even complete a college education) over pinning a county star to his chest, though there was no doubt he’d make a fine deputy.

  The students were bundled up against what passed for a cold day in Mississippi, and the frequency of letterman’s jackets was causing Cecil some frustration. Finally he saw what he was looking for. Whom, to be precise. They exited the far right doors and strolled into the high school lot, two boys, both seniors, the bigger, dark-haired one wearing just such a letterman’s jacket. Jeb Hutchins, son of Jeremiah Hutchins, owner of Cold River Mill and Lumber. He was a defensive tackle on David’s team.

  The boy with him, big but not as big as Jeb and not a football player, was Donny Maxwell, son of Earl Maxwell, Terrell County’s First Selectman. Donny had a wild scruff of red hair that flew about in the January breeze. And he wore glasses.

  The boys headed towards Donny’s bright orange Dodge Challenger and piled in. Hamilton saw them each light a cigarette, and then they pulled out, gunning the muscle car’s engine as it idled past a group of girls. Half the girls waved, half flipped them off, but all were laughing. Donny and Jeb came from well-off families, and both boys were popular.

  The Challenger rumbled away, and Hamilton shook his head, turning up the volume on his radar gun. “What the hell are you doing, Cec?”

  That night, just past 1:00 am, Hamilton woke from a fitful sleep, not knowing why. Had he heard someone running? He sat on the edge of the bed, groggy, rubbing at his eyes. Then it came again, the quick padding of feet, running down the stairs. He was suddenly alert, and quickly pulled a short barrel revolver from the nightstand drawer, checked to see that Patricia was still the usual, blanketed lump on her side of the bed, then slipped out into the hall.

  David was supposed to be out with Ashley. Was he home? Ham eased down to his son’s room and looked in. By the light of the window he could see the bed was empty and still made. He crossed to the guest room and looked out that window, overlooking the driveway. No, David wasn’t home yet. Then he went to the top of the stairs, expecting to look down into the darkness of the living room, but instead saw a spill of light falling in from the kitchen.

  Patricia had gone to bed before him. He had turned out all the lights, except for the outside light at the front door. He descended quietly, saw the overhead kitchen light on, then made a tour of the house. Nobody home, and all the doors were locked. Lots of folks in Terrell County didn’t bother locking their doors, but cops were different, and besides, David had a key.

  Cecil shut off the kitchen light and returned to his bed, crawling back in beside his wife. Dreaming, was all, or wind, maybe the house settling. But after he fell asleep he dreamed again of Harriett LaCroix standing in his room.

  Two days later, Sheriff Hamilton was at his desk reading an accident report Gary had submitted, frowning at the man’s complete inability to spell. His eyes kept leaving the hand-written page, however, drawn to the window in his office that looked out at the cluster of desks that served as the bullpen for his sergeants. Jeff Hooper had taken over Maggie’s desk, but he was still reluctant to reorganize and make it his own. A JC Penney portrait studio photo of a ten-year-old Harriett LaCroix was tacked to a bulletin board beside the desk, the little girl’s simple face smiling with slightly distracted eyes. Next to it was a photo of the same little girl two years later. This one showed her face down next to a red rock.

  Hamilton saw the pictures every day.

  He should have taken them down, but he didn’t.

  Harriett LaCroix looked back at him. Every day.

  He took a red Rebels windbreaker off the back of his door and walked to the dispatch station, where Kathleen Webster sat wearing her radio earpiece and reading a Twilight novel.

  “Kathy, borrow your car for a bit?”

  She looked over the top of her glasses. “Problem with your cruiser, Sheriff?”

  “Got somethin’ to do, undercover.”

  She tossed him the keys to her Toyota. “Don’t you get no bullet holes in my car, Cecil Hamilton, or I’ll skin you alive.”

  “I promise. I’ll even fill the tank for you.”

  “And be back by the time my shift ends. Got plans tonight.”

  Cecil winked at her. “You got a date with Lammie Barnes, or you just gonna meet the girls for margaritas and cackle like a henhouse.”

  She shooed him away with her book and a tisking sound.

  Ten minutes later he was cruising slowly through the Jasper High parking lot. It was only one in the afternoon, and the lot was empty of students. He moved up and down the rows until he found the orange Challenger, then stopped behind it. A moment later he was making a quick walk around the car, looking at the ground. Nothing on the passenger side. But there on the asphalt near the driver
’s door he found what he was looking for. He pulled a pair of long tweezers and a plastic baggie from his jacket pocket, picked up the crushed-out cigarette butt, sealed it in the bag, and then he was back in the Toyota, motoring away.

  He remembered to gas up Kathleen’s car, and was back well before the end of her shift.

  The following Saturday was the state championship, and Hamilton rode on the team bus to Lafayette, sitting up front with some of the other fathers and the assistants, while the coach stood rocking in the aisle, giving a no-nonsense speech about commitment and playing with heart. Forty seniors looked back at him with the intensity he was looking for.

  Mid way through the second quarter – the Spartans were leading 14-6 and the opposition had the ball – Hamilton slipped unnoticed from the sidelines and down into the locker area assigned to the visitors. He was alone in the room, and quickly moved to a spot he had seen earlier, when the team was dressing for the game. The lockers were open spaces, not the types with doors, and Jeb Hutchins’s clothes hung on metal hooks, his toiletries tossed onto an upper shelf. Hamilton’s tweezers came out again, and he removed a small cluster of dark hair from Jeb’s comb, sealing it in a baggie. From another location he located and collected a couple of pubic hairs, which went into a separate bag. Then he returned to the game.

  Lafayette ended up defeating the Spartans 24-21 and taking the state title. The boys were crushed, and the ride back to Jasper was long and quiet. Hamilton sat with David and reassured him that Ole Miss – their scouts had been at the game in force – didn’t base their opinions on a single game, and still wanted a hotshot receiver from Jasper.

  On Monday, Sheriff Hamilton filled out the necessary forms, then placed the three baggies of “evidence” in a sealed envelope. He sent them to an independent forensics lab which had never heard of Harriett LaCroix.