by Henry Perez
Except the diver wasn’t there anymore, only a faint outline. A significant amount of force and determination had gone into scratching him away, so much that it exposed the bare untreated metal beneath. A small stick figure had been drawn in black permanent marker, its head sticking out of the water, its body dangling beneath the cartoonish waves.
There was something about it that was oddly fascinating. Despite the damage to the sign, the figure blended in so well. No wonder the police investigators missed it.
But Chapa realized something else, too. The killer had chosen this place. Staked it out, knew the sign was there. Knew what he was going to do to it.
Plop.
The sound came from behind Chapa’s right shoulder. He pivoted and spun around too quickly and nearly lost his balance. His eyes were fixed on the ripples that appeared a few feet into the river as they multiplied and reached for shore only to be swept away by the current.
The branches of a dying tree hung down, close to the river, and Chapa knew that something, a small branch, a clutch of leaves, could’ve been responsible for the noise. But Chapa also sensed that he was working a bit too hard to conjure up comfortable explanations.
He scanned the large bridge. Empty. And the tree line revealed nothing. Chapa knew he was an easy target for anyone hiding in there with a gun.
Then he heard a different sound.
This one traveled on a trail of wind, the way fine dust can so that you don’t see it until it slaps your face. It sounded like a whisper.
Chapa had heard the sound of wind whistling through bare autumn branches his whole life, and this was probably just that. He knew he’d spooked himself—an easy thing to forgive under the circumstances—but he needed to get out of this place and back to his car.
He thought about crossing the bridge to the other side, just to be safe, just to avoid going back through that narrow path. But he wasn’t sure where that would take him. He could end up miles from where he needed to go.
The wind started hissing through the trees again, and this time the sound was much crisper. But then he heard something so inexplicable, that instead of doing what he should—running, fast, now—he stood locked in place, somehow certain that he would hear it again.
And then he heard it once more. Clearer. Closer.
Aaa—lex…
Chapter 52
A few weeks after Alex Chapa’s tenth birthday his mother informed him that she’d saved up enough money to take them both on a two-week trip to see their relatives in Miami.
Except for field trips to Springfield, it would be the first time Alex left the Chicago area since moving there shortly after arriving in the U.S. For the next four weeks his mother showed him photos of second cousins and third uncles once removed. There were some postcards, too, that had been sent from Florida over the years.
Sunny photos of happy people, sandy beaches, and orange groves. Paradise in all its glossy glory.
So by the time the weeks shortened to days, Alex had become convinced he was going to visit someplace magical. Like his mother, Alex was looking forward to taking a trip, and to playing in the ocean, and spending some time with a few of his relatives. But he also had a reason for wanting to go that was all his own. A quiet cause that he kept close and refused to share.
Alex thought—hoped—that maybe his father would be waiting for them there. That the stories about his death were all wrong, or that somehow this city where Cubans had found refuge and a better future had brought Francisco Chapa back to life. Was that his father, there in that picture of a beach fronting an impossibly blue ocean?
He didn’t share those thoughts with his mother. In part because he didn’t want her to tell him that he was wrong, but also because he didn’t like that look of hurt in her eyes whenever he brought up his father.
Alex didn’t sleep the night before they left, stayed awake the whole way on the plane, too, despite his mother’s prediction that he would nod off the moment they were in the air. They touched down that afternoon at Miami International, his mother explaining how this was the airport they had flown into when they arrived from Havana.
As the days came and went and there was no surprise appearance, just the unfamiliar faces of people who seemed very happy to see him, Alex began to get angry and felt stupid for that and for expecting anything else. But he still refused to give up altogether.
On the morning of his sixth day in Miami, several hours before his family had planned to leave for the beach, Alex asked his mom if he could go to a drugstore a block away from his uncle’s house, along busy Calle Ocho, and buy a couple packs of baseball cards. His uncle assured Alex’s mother that he’d be safe on his own.
“That store is owned by Emilio Gomez, who used to have a store on Calle Paredes near our house in Havana. I’ll call ahead and ask him to keep an eye out for Alex.”
On his way to the store, Alex thought about how different this place was from home, though his mother kept telling him it was a lot like Cuba. He used the fifty cents his mother had given him to buy two packs of Topps Series 3, exactly what he wanted.
But he had an ulterior motive, too. Alex thought if he had the chance to look around the area a bit he might find…well, he wasn’t exactly sure who or what he might find.
He didn’t go back the way he came. Alex instead walked out of the store and headed in the opposite direction, then crossed the street, and walked another three blocks.
Shoving a pink flat rectangle of baseball card bubblegum into his mouth, he quickly flipped through the cards before slipping them into a back pocket. He still had his bearings, knew exactly where his uncle’s house was, more or less, when the man wearing the Dolphins T-shirt and a week’s worth of stubble said hi to him from behind a screen door.
“What’s your name?”
A cigarette stuck out from under the guy’s mustache and bobbed up and down as he spoke.
Alex did not answer.
“Do you live around here?”
Why did he want to know that? Alex shook his head, chewed the gum, which had already lost most of its flavor, and kept walking past the man’s house and his overgrown fenced-in yard. A BEWARE OF DOG sign hung crooked on the chain links, but Alex didn’t see a dog.
“I can help you find what you’re looking for. Help you get home if you’re lost.”
Alex kept walking, picked up the pace some when he heard the screen door open then shut, but he didn’t look back. When he reached the corner, instead of crossing the street and heading back, Alex turned right, deciding that he did not want the man to know where he was going.
This street was narrow and crowded with cars. It seemed to go on forever, and Alex started walking faster, even jogged a few strides. When he reached the end, Alex turned left, sensing that was the way back. But this new street curved around to the right, and soon Alex was lost in a seedy maze of palm trees, long alleyways, and pastel-colored concrete. None of it looked like any of those postcards.
Searching for anything that looked familiar, Alex turned down a short street, then another, then cut through an alley thinking that was the way back to where he’d started, but nothing looked like anywhere he’d been before.
Alex stopped at a deserted intersection, looked around and wondered how far he was from his uncle’s house. He tried to think back and count the blocks. Twelve, in more directions than he could remember.
That’s when he started getting scared. At first he’d managed to push his fears aside, thinking of himself as an explorer walking through uncharted territory. But now Alex knew he was in trouble.
He spit out the flavorless gum, watched it stick to the curb. Maybe he could use it as a marker, so he’d know if he walked past here again. This idea made Alex feel smart. He pulled out the second pack, opened it and popped the gum in his mouth without bothering to look at the cards.
At least the man in the Dolphins T-shirt hadn’t followed him. Alex felt good about that, certain that his decision to take a side street had som
ehow convinced the guy to leave him alone.
Looking up and down the next intersection, Alex noticed a cross street where the traffic seemed steady, several blocks away. He started in that direction, his steps getting faster as he got closer, no longer trying to convince himself that he was just out for a walk.
When he reached the busy intersection, Alex spotted something he was sure he’d seen before. Across the street on the next block was a small park surrounded by palm trees. He’d noticed it while looking out through a second-floor window in his uncle’s house.
As he walked toward it, Alex thought about stopping and playing for a few minutes, almost as a way of proving to himself that nothing bad had happened and that he was never really scared. He decided to do it—jump on the swings, or go down the slide a time or two—but then thought better of it when he saw the man in the Dolphins T-shirt sitting on a bench at the far end of the park.
Alex kept his head down, and fought the impulse to start running, but watched the man out of the corner of his eye. When he reached the next intersection, Alex sprinted across the street and kept running. Five minutes later he stood on the corner of Calle Ocho and Miranda, the street his uncle lived on.
For a moment, he worried about that piece of gum he’d left stuck to a curb somewhere back there. He wondered if the man in the Dolphins shirt might find it and use it to track him down somehow. But then Alex decided not to think about that anymore.
He didn’t get in trouble, which was a relief. His mother hadn’t even noticed how long he’d been gone. But as those concerns drifted away, Alex was left with the fear he’d felt while walking past that man’s house, and seeing him again at the park. But it was the disappointment of not finding who he was really looking for that lingered.
That was when Alex decided there was no such thing as magic. That the dead stay that way forever. And that there are certain things you should never go searching for, and some places that are best avoided.
He never told his mother, or anyone else for that matter, about that day. And while he could not be certain, even now, whether or not the man was some sicko who might’ve done terrible things to him, or just a guy offering to help a lost child, Chapa knew he’d made several dangerous mistakes.
The biggest of those, he concluded years later, was leaving the busy and well-traveled street in favor of the narrow and secluded ones. It’s there, in those shrouded places, that you run into people who aren’t all that nice.
That thirty-year-old event had stayed with Chapa the rest of his life. It flashed through his mind now as he weighed his few options. It came back to him the instant he considered rushing into the forest in the hope that he might be more difficult to find in there, and thus safer.
Chapa waited and listened for the voice again as he scanned the tree line for any movement. Nothing. He could just as easily have been completely alone, but Chapa didn’t believe that.
Deciding that he would feel better with a weapon in his hand, Chapa began looking for anything he could use to defend himself. But there was nothing in the immediate area.
“Who’s there?” Chapa called out, expecting no answer. He received none. “You don’t have to answer—I already know who you are.”
He studied the tree line, listened for any unusual sounds. The sun was closing in on the horizon, so there wasn’t much time left for Chapa to decide what he was going to do.
“Clarkson and I talked a lot. He had a whole bunch of theories, but I have something better,” Chapa said to whomever might be there. “I have information. I know who you are. I know about all these little stickmen you leave. That’s pathetic, you know. It’s something a child would do.”
Some movement down near the small curved bridge. Chapa drew back toward the riverbank and prepared to defend himself.
If the guy had a gun he would run straight into the forest. But based on the M.O. he’d seen so far, Chapa was certain he’d come after him with a knife.
The wind slapped the branches around a bit again, and Chapa heard the whistle and hiss, but none of it sounded human. He decided to make his way toward the large bridge, cross it, and get away from this side of the forest.
Stealing a glance downriver, he saw something he could use. A long, thick branch was resting in the mud along the bank, just fifteen feet away.
Without taking his eyes off the tree line, Chapa carefully walked down toward the water. His shoes sank about an inch as he tried to find footing in the soft, wet soil, just five feet from the branch.
As he squatted and reached for the makeshift weapon, Chapa again scanned the trees for any sign of movement. But all was still, even the wind seemed to be taking a break.
He pressed his hand against the cold damp wood and tightened his grip, but it did not feel right. Instead of the rigid piece of wood he’d expected, this branch turned out to be spongy and fragile.
Chapa looked down and saw that it was also longer than he’d thought, and much of it dropped off into the river, just a short distance away. He was frustrated, and beginning to get angry, as much with himself as anything.
Then Chapa saw the figure. Someone tall, and wide, just inside the trees, where no jogger would go. The shadow was moving fast, and with purpose.
He glanced upriver and eyed the defaced NO SWIMMING sign. How deep into the ground did the post go?
If he could coax it free, the jagged metal edges would be capable of doing some serious damage to anyone who came at him.
But could he reach it in time?
Chapa scrambled to free his feet from the mud, but his right foot slipped and the left one gave way. Falling backwards, unable to find footing or stop himself, he grasped at the air and came up empty.
He heard the splash as the river rushed around him. But the sound seemed to be coming from somewhere else. This had to be happening to someone else.
Chapa reached for the shore, but it wasn’t there. And now the current was pulling him in and away from safety.
He rolled over once, and then again. Getting farther away from shore with every move. Lifting his head out of the water and looking back toward where he’d been, Chapa saw the NO SWIMMING sign upriver. The distance growing by the second.
A darkness blotted out the sky for a moment, and when Chapa looked up he saw the bridge passing by above him. And then he was past it.
He rolled and looked back toward the bridge he’d been standing on just a few minutes ago. Through water-soaked eyes Chapa thought he saw a figure standing on it, watching him.
Then the current pulled him under, and Chapa knew he was in for a fight. How many drownings had there been in this river? Over the years he’d heard about a dozen or more.
River water filled his nose and mouth. Its smell was foul, its taste worse, like swallowing sewage.
His clothes were getting heavier with each stroke, but swimming with the current was easier than he’d expected, and Chapa began to gradually work his way back to shore. He’d almost cut the distance in half when the sound of rushing water started getting louder.
Struggling to lift his head far enough out of the water to look ahead, Chapa noticed the steady flow of the river seemed to change again. It appeared to end some twenty-five yards up ahead.
Then he got a better look. It didn’t end—it dropped. Chapa didn’t know how many dams there were in this part of the Fox River. But he remembered seeing one in St. Charles, and another in North Aurora, so it was safe to assume they were found at regular intervals along the way.
From the shore, or the safety of a bridge, those drops appeared small, just ten feet or so. But rushing toward one now, those ten feet seemed a great deal more significant.
He began swimming hard toward the near shore. His arms heavy, being dragged down by wet clothing. But the river was moving faster now as the dam closed in, and Chapa understood why the current had pulled him under and carried him off.
The shore was no more than a dozen feet away now, but the river was racing faster. Despite his deter
mination and effort, as he battled the current and fought to swim faster than he ever had before, Chapa knew he wasn’t getting anywhere.
Then he felt something under his right shoe, then beneath his left. There was footing of some kind, not entirely solid, but firm enough that Chapa was able to stand and start wading through the neck-deep water.
But the current was pressing harder against his side now. And then the footing was gone.
Chapa was rushing headlong toward the drop, wondering if there would be rocks at the bottom of the dam. He got his answer an instant later.
Chapter 53
For a moment, Chapa wondered if someone, anyone, was watching all of this from the safety of the shore. On a busier day at the park there might’ve been a boater nearby, or a quick-thinking forest ranger with a rope.
But there was no one who could help him now.
As Chapa tipped over the edge of the dam he felt himself flip sideways on the way down, pushed by the short waterfall into the white water below. No rocks were waiting for him at the other end of the drop, but the river was much deeper, and Chapa felt himself being pulled down into the mud-green darkness.
Five feet under, ten, maybe more.
Righting himself, he started swimming for the surface, letting the current carry him forward—it didn’t matter how far. Chapa felt like he was dragging a trailer with just his shoulders and thighs. His muscles burning against the cold water.
Then, in a single desperate lunge, he came up for air and saw the riverbank just twenty feet in the distance. The water was not as turbulent now, as it began the process all over again on its way to the next dam. Chapa had no desire to find out how far away that would be.
He began to gradually swim toward the shore. Managing two feet in that direction for every five he was carried downriver. Finally, the tips of his shoes pressed into the soft muck along the river’s edge.
