by Ren Hamilton
Patrick shook his head. “No way. I need to go, but not for your obsessive curiosity, or to prove something to your bosses. I need to go for my own peace of mind. You say you need answers? You don’t even know Joey and Shep. If anyone needs answers, it’s me.”
“I need to give you something. Here.” Litner handed him a piece of paper with a word scribbled on it. “Don’t say it out loud. Just read it and remember it.”
Patrick looked at the paper. The words ‘Little Buttercup’ were written in pencil. “Cute. What does it mean?”
“It’s for when you ultimately join your friends at Forest Bluffs. I told you I have an agent on stake-out near Joey’s house. I’ll have him contact you if need be. That’s his code name.”
Patrick looked at the paper again. A secret agent with the code name Little Buttercup? “Okay. Whatever.”
“Will you remember the name?” Litner asked harshly.
“Of course. It’s kind of hard to forget.”
“Good. Now give me that back.” Litner snatched the paper from Patrick’s hands. He walked over to the sink and set the paper on fire, letting it burn to a crumpled black ball of ash, then washed it away with the running water.
“Wow. I feel so top secret.”
“This is no joke, Patrick.”
Patrick laughed. “Oh, I forgot. There’s no room for humor with you. You know, you need to relax, Litner. You’re going to snap one of these days. Hey, do you want a beer or something?”
“I don’t drink.”
“Of course not. What do you do to relax?”
“Games. Computer chess. I solve puzzles.”
“Puzzles? But that’s not a break! That’s too much like what you do for a living!”
“I enjoy it.”
“Well, all right then. It’s your life.”
“I’ve been to see Robin already. She also had no qualms about the trip being unauthorized.”
Patrick laughed. “Robin’s badass. Plus, all she cares about is getting Joey back before Shep drags him into any real trouble. She and I both still think he’s an unknowing pawn. Well, I have my doubts, but I’d like to believe that as much as Robin does.”
Agent Litner grunted. “Right. If you say so.”
“Litner, why do you get that attitude whenever I talk about Joey? Father Carbone does the same thing. There’s something you guys aren’t telling me.”
“It’s not important. We have no proof of anything. Let’s just get some and get you out of there.”
Patrick moved closer to Litner, eyeing him suspiciously. “I want to know why you don’t believe Joey is innocent. You don’t believe it, do you?”
“My personal opinion is not relevant.”
Patrick crossed his arms over his chest. “All right. I’m asking you as a friend then. I’d like your opinion.”
“We are not friends.”
“Fine then, I’m asking you as an interested acquaintance, okay? Litner come on! It’s a little late to be getting tight-lipped. Tell me. Tell me!”
Litner glared at Patrick. “You are annoyingly persistent.”
“Just talk to me. I can handle it.”
“You’re only going to start ranting and raving again about what a wonderfully decent person Joey Duvaine is.”
“So be it. Just talk. Don’t I deserve the information if I’m going to live with him?”
The stoic agent walked across the room and leaned against Patrick’s recliner. His gold pen came out and he twirled it like a baton as he spoke. “The investigation of Joey Duvaine didn’t start with this Forest Bluffs crop. He’d been investigated before, but the case was dropped due to lack of evidence.”
“You’re not going to tell me he killed his family.”
“Let’s just say that the matter of the untimely deaths in Joey’s family was looked into. Of course, there were already files on Joey available, and the evidence—”
“Wait a minute,” Patrick interrupted. “You already files on Joey? Why?”
“Psychological interests.” Litner looked quizzically at him. “From when he was a child. It wasn’t crime related of course, but he drew the interest of certain groups, understandably.”
“Why? What was interesting about Joey as a kid?”
“What do you think?”
“I have no idea.”
Litner shook his head. “You really don’t know who he is, do you?”
Patrick shrugged. “What do you mean?”
“I honestly thought you knew this. Patrick, Joey has the highest I.Q. ever recorded. And that was back when he was six years old.”
Patrick frowned momentarily, then grinned. “Uh-uh. That’s impossible. I mean, Joey’s smart, but he’s an idiot too, you know what I mean?” Litner stared back at him, his face blank. Patrick’s grin disappeared. “You’re serious?” Litner nodded. Patrick blew a puff of air out. “I’ve got to sit back down.” He lowered himself onto the couch then looked up at Litner. “The highest I.Q. ever recorded?”
“Yes.”
“Joey?”
“Joey.”
Patrick shook his head. “I can’t believe it. Does he know?”
“Yes, I believe he does. The medical community, scientists, even the government began testing on him when he was a child, but his mother put a stop to it. She wanted him to be raised like any other child. She was afraid all the attention would hurt him psychologically. So everyone was forbidden from having any contact with the family. I’m sure some were aggressive in their inquiries. This child was, after all, the most intelligent human on the planet. I’m sure Marie Duvaine had good reasons as a mother to shut Joey away from it all.”
Patrick chewed his thumbnail for a moment, then looked up. “What about Albert Einstein? What about his I.Q.?”
“Joey’s is higher.”
“What about—”
“Higher. We could do this all night, Patrick.”
“Why didn’t he ever tell me? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Nothing about Joey Duvaine makes sense, which is one of the reasons I’ve had my eye on him for so long. The guy could be heading up NASA. Instead he’s walking around that property in a purple priest’s robe, smoking pot and drinking margaritas.”
Patrick’s nose wrinkled. “A purple priest’s robe? You made that part up, right?”
“I’m afraid not. My…spy gives detailed reports.”
“Jesus.” Patrick gave his head a quick shake. “Okay, but did you ever think that genius or not, maybe Joey is just plain lazy? Did you ever think that maybe he lacks the drive to do anything productive?”
“Within the past two months, Joey Duvaine has bought an international food distribution company, started a sizeable church group, and become a nationally recognized media figure. His social media accounts now have millions of followers and there are hundreds of other various sites online dedicated to him and his so-called vision. I would say something like that takes a bit of drive, wouldn’t you?”
“I guess. I don’t know.”
“You still seem of the naïve opinion that this was all some sort of accident, a whim of Joey and Shep’s. I believe it’s blatantly clear now that all of this has been a carefully premeditated plan. A plan you knew nothing about, yet are still somehow a part of.”
Patrick rubbed his temples, trying to absorb that Joey was the world’s smartest human. It would not sink in. He could only picture Joey sitting in front of the television in his underwear, smoking a joint and scratching his balls. “Tell me this then. If Joey is this great genius, why didn’t he go to a better college? I mean, my college wasn’t bad but it wasn’t Harvard either. And why did he work for Parker Investments for that matter?”
Agent Litner’s brows rose. “Perhaps to keep an eye on you.”
Patrick felt goosebumps erupt on his arms. “A guy named Craig, one of the twins that designed the hoax, told me that Shep had been devising plans for the apparition nearly a year before. Do you think…” Patrick stopped talking. He needed
to take a breath before he voiced the unsettling thought. “Do you think Shepherd was planning to do this before Joey’s family died?”
Litner sat down in the chair and leaned over with his elbows on his thighs. “I don’t know for sure, Patrick. I can tell you this, though. They began tilling those fields out at Forest Bluffs the day after Charles Duvaine’s funeral. It was as though they were on a tight schedule.”
Patrick hung his head. “They. You keep saying ‘they’. I still can’t believe Joey could be involved.” He lifted his head and met Litner’s eyes. “Tell me about the investigation into his family’s deaths.”
Litner stared back at him. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I want to know. Tell me.”
Litner’s pen tapping went into full swing as he spoke. “Well, they were all ruled accidents. However, Joey’s mother Marie was not killed by the impact of the car crash. She died of blood loss after a shard of glass from her windshield penetrated the carotid artery in her neck.”
“So?”
“Jeffrey Duvaine was killed on a hunting trip. His friends claim that he got separated from them when he insisted he saw a deer that none of them could see. They went their own way, vowing to catch up with him. A supposedly rogue arrow from some other hunter killed Jeffrey. The other hunter was never found. The arrow was a direct hit to Jeffrey’s carotid artery in his neck. Again, he died of blood loss.”
“You can’t prove that someone meant to hit him. It could have been an unlucky accident. Or the culprit could have been drunk. What are you going to tell me next? That someone forced a heart attack on Charles Duvaine? Did Joey walk up to his father and say “boo” really loud so he would have heart failure?”
“No. The heart attack Charles Duvaine suffered was legitimate. He also suffered severe blood loss however.”
“Because he fell through the glass table,” Patrick insisted.
“Yes, fell.” Litner said warily. “A shard of glass from the coffee table miraculously ended up slicing his carotid artery when he…fell. His blood alcohol was so low it was almost unreadable. The alcohol in his stomach had not absorbed into his blood stream yet, indicating that he had consumed it only moments before he died. He also had bruising on the back of his throat, indicating that something, possibly a bottle neck, was violently forced down there.”
“Bullshit,” Patrick said. “I saw the condition of that house after he died. Charles Duvaine didn’t need any help putting a bottle in his mouth.”
“He’d called a cleaning service that morning and scheduled them to come out that afternoon. He had also stopped all deliveries from the liquor store nearly two weeks before.”
Patrick scratched his head. “Do you really think he was murdered?”
“I think that three family members dying from the same neck wound in the same year is suspicious. That is all I’m saying.”
Patrick felt like screaming at Litner, but that was just what Litner had said he’d do, so he restrained himself. “It can’t be murder. It’s a coincidence.”
“Well, I’ll give you this. It’s unlikely that someone would go to such lengths to make these deaths look like an accident. There are much easier ways.”
“Yes! That’s true.” Patrick said, relieved. “Finally, you’re making sense.”
“Unless they needed something from the death scene.”
Patrick was instantly irritated again. “Like what?”
“Blood.”
“Blood?”
Litner nodded. “In each death, a major artery was severed. Have you ever seen how much blood can come out of a human body?”
Patrick grimaced. “I’m happy to say, no, I have not.”
“Well it’s a lot. You’d be amazed.”
“What is your point about the blood exactly?”
“There wasn’t enough of it.”
“Excuse me?”
“There wasn’t enough blood left at the scene of each death. There should have been more. More blood in Marie Duvaine’s car, more on the ground around Jeffrey Duvaine’s fallen body, and there should have been more blood soaked into that rug where they found Charles Duvaine out at Forest Bluffs.”
Patrick unconsciously fingered the little scar above his wrist. “What do you think happened to the blood?”
“I think they took it with them.”
“They?”
“The killer. Whoever committed those murders took a sizeable amount of blood from each victim before leaving the scene.”
Patrick made a sour face. “Why? Why would they take blood?”
“Damned if I know. You asked my opinion, so there it is. I trust you find this information comforting in some way?”
“No sir, I do not.” Patrick was silent for a time. Why would someone want to steal blood? Why not go to a blood bank and steal it?
“I see that look in your eyes Patrick, and I regret telling you any of this. I don’t want you distracted on this mission. Please, bear in mind that these are only opinions and unproven theories. I ask you to please put it out of your mind.”
“But you believe it, don’t you Agent Litner? You believe Joey is connected to the deaths somehow.”
“I’m one man, Patrick. There is always the possibility that I am completely full of shit.”
Patrick smiled at the comment. He knew that the agent did not believe himself to be wrong. Somehow, Patrick didn’t think Agent Litner was wrong very often. However, he did not believe that Joey was capable of the atrocities Litner had mentioned. Joey’s family was killed by a series of accidents. Patrick resigned himself to this, but when he went to sleep that night, his mind kept hearing Shep’s voice as he’d stood with a dagger in his hand on Joey’s balcony that night.
‘Blood is family, and family is blood.’
The memory of the words transformed themselves into a dream, an image of Joey being nailed to a cross by hooded figures somewhere in a dense, dark forest. In the dream, Joey hung limp on the cross as gallons of blood spilled out of the wounds on his hands and feet. As Patrick approached, Joey lifted his head and smiled. Blood gushed through his teeth like a waterfall. “Blood is family, Obrien,” he gurgled.
Patrick awoke screaming in his bed. The headache was worse than it ever had been. After popping three pain pills, he padded into his darkened living room, picked up his phone, and replayed Shep’s most recent voicemail. Shep’s voice was like a screwdriver through his brain. ‘How have you been sleeping, Obrien? I certainly hope your dreams have been pleasant. Make the choice, Patrick. Stop the pain, or it will only get worse.’
Patrick threw the phone across the room, where it landed unharmed on his sofa. It wasn’t very satisfying—he wanted to smash something. He was angry. Frightened, but the anger was beginning to outweigh the fear. It was a fury born of having been somehow violated without consent.
Make the choice, Shep said. Patrick decided right then and there that he would make a choice. As his head hummed with pain, he became startlingly aware of one thing. The blood pact they made was not simply an act of deranged immaturity. Joey and Shep had done something to him that night on the balcony.
They had done something to him, and they were damn well going to un-do it.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Agent Litner sensed something was askew as soon as he opened Father Carbone’s screen door and stepped inside. Two empty brandy bottles sat on top of the rubber recycle bin, and the floor was littered with tiny aluminum candy wrappers. Muffled voices emanated from the basement. Litner froze and drew his gun, proceeding silently to the basement door. As he crept down the wooden steps, he heard Copie laugh, then a sound like dice spilling onto a table.
The air in the stairwell was rank with misty smoke. As Litner rounded the bottom step, he could not believe his eyes. Juris was still tied to the chair, but now he had a small fold-out table pulled up in front of him. Copie and the priest were huddled in chairs around the table with Juris. A bottle of brandy sat on the edge, and a stubby cigar dangled from the
corner of Juris’s mouth. They had a board game spread out, and Copie shook a pair of dice. Someone had tied Juris’s curls back from his face with a bandana.
“Excuse me? What the hell is going on in here?” Litner replaced his gun as he stepped into the room.
Carbone grabbed the cigar and stubbed it out in an ashtray. “Steven! What a…surprise.”
“The law is here to knock me around some more!” Juris threw his head back and laughed.
“You got him to talk,” Litner said.
“Come join us!” Carbone said. “We’re playing Trivia.”
“No thank you. What the hell’s been happening here?”
Copie tossed something to Litner, which he caught. It was a candy kiss. “Juris likes chocolate,” Copie said. “Juris really, really likes chocolate. Oh, and brandy.”
Juris bent his head down and placed his mouth on the spout of the brandy bottle. Holding it with his teeth, he tipped the bottle back, taking a long swill, then masterfully placed it back on the table without spilling a drop.
“You guys got him drunk? We’re supposed to be getting information from him, not making him incoherent!”
Copie stood up and weaved toward Agent Litner, pointing. “Now wait just a minute! Since you’ve been gone, we’ve discovered that Juris loves chocolate, hates churches, and knows everything there is to know about science and nature. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s exactly three more things than you learned from him.”
Litner looked at the priest. “Luigi?”
Father Carbone nodded. “Juris insists he can’t stay here. He wants to be moved to another location. Says he doesn’t care if we lock him in a wooden shed somewhere, as long as it’s not in the church.”
“Why can’t he stay here?” Litner asked.
“If he stays here, they will find him.” The priest turned his head so Juris couldn’t see, and twirled a finger next to his ear.
“Who are they?”
Carbone shrugged. “That much, he won’t tell us. He merely claims it’s not safe for him here.”
