“I wonder why Charles Ray wouldn’t move in with her since his place is so small.”
“I thought the same thing, but I don’t have an answer.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes. Penfield tried not to fall asleep again. His exhaustion, as well as the late hour, was wearing on him. He looked over at Emma. It wasn’t hard to see the stress and anxiety on her face. She took a quick glance at him looking at her and then turned back to the road.
“I’m not sure how to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I got a call from Sheriff Slater tonight. He doesn’t want you helping me anymore.”
“And my being on a boat that exploded in the bay certainly didn’t help matters.”
“I assume one of the deputies working the case mentioned your name to him. Slater called your former captain. I don’t know what he said, but it was enough to make him read me the riot act.”
Penfield didn’t respond. There really wasn’t anything he could say that would make her change her mind.
“What really happened with you and Maria?” Emma asked.
“She was my partner, and I thought I knew her. Turns out I didn’t. I got sloppy. I didn’t follow her up on things. It’s how she got away with killing two people and damn near killing a third.”
“Why would you have to check up on her? She’s your partner. If you can’t trust her, who can you trust?”
It was the question Penfield had been asking himself for the last several years. Unfortunately, there was only one answer he could come up with: no one.
Chapter 17
The Tree
Eleven, November.
Penfield slept for over ten hours, but he managed to somehow still feel tired when he rolled out of bed. His head and body were even more sore and stiff than they were the night before. Penfield took a long shower and got dressed. His legs ached as he lifted them one at a time to climb into his jeans. The same was true for his arms and shoulders as he slid a black T-shirt over his battered torso.
He ate a light breakfast and called for a taxi to take him back to the marina. Fortunately, his car keys hadn’t fallen out of his pocket while he’d been in the water. The ride to Gloucester was uneventful. Penfield spent the time staring out the window. The clouds had finally cleared and given way to a bright blue sky.
The taxi pulled into the marina. Penfield paid the driver and walked over to his car. He unlocked it and climbed inside. He was surprised to see his cell phone sitting on the passenger seat. He hadn’t remembered leaving it there, but he was glad nonetheless. Penfield hit the home button on the bottom of the phone and saw four missed calls. Three were from Henry Atwater and one was from Emma. He checked his voicemail next and saw both of them had left voicemails. He played the one from Emma first. He thought he could hear the engines of a boat in the background while she left him a message asking if he was okay. She ended the message by telling him she would come see him at the hospital.
Penfield played Atwater’s two messages next. The first message said that he’d hit some debris on Interstate 64 and had blown the two passenger-side tires. He said he’d be late for the meeting at the marina, but he had no idea when he’d eventually be able to arrive. The second message was left a few hours later. Atwater said he’d tried calling earlier but hadn’t been able to reach Penfield. He then said he’d checked into a Gloucester hotel and hoped to see Penfield in the morning.
Penfield deleted all of the messages and checked the time on his cell phone. It was approaching noon. He phoned Atwater and apologized for taking so long to call him back. He asked Atwater if he was still in the area. He said he was, so Penfield arranged for a time to meet Atwater at Sally Tatum’s house. He knew from Emma that Sally had planned to stay with her son, so the house was probably empty. Hopefully, that would give Penfield and Atwater a chance to explore the grounds undisturbed.
He arrived at the Tatum house before Atwater did. He parked across the street and killed the engine. He hoped a suspicious neighbor wouldn’t call the sheriff’s department after seeing the two men walking around the backyard. He couldn’t blame them, especially after all of the action the neighborhood had seen the previous morning.
He only had to wait ten minutes for Atwater to arrive. He parked right behind Penfield and climbed out of the car. Penfield got out of his car as well and walked over to greet Atwater. Atwater was in his eighties by now. He was the same height as Penfield, but he was at least fifty to sixty pounds thinner. He was even more fragile-looking than the last time Penfield had seen him. Penfield didn’t know if that was simply the result of him being several years older or if Atwater had been sick. Perhaps it was both.
Atwater didn’t bother to extend a hand to him, and Penfield didn’t make the offer either. Despite his best effort, Penfield couldn’t help but feel uneasy around the old man. He knew he could easily overpower Atwater, but the man’s eyes had a way of poring through Penfield. They were lifeless and cold like a reptile’s. They made his skin crawl.
“Are you all right, Alex? I was worried when I couldn’t reach you last night.”
“I saw him, the man in your dreams, at least I assume that was him.”
Penfield told Atwater about the Tatum boat exploding and his near-death experience in the bay.
“Do you think that’s what you saw in the dream?” Penfield asked.
“You want to know if you’re safe now that you’ve survived his initial attack.”
“How do you know it’s just an initial attack?”
“There will be others. I feel it. But is that why you’ve brought me out here? Whose home is this?”
Atwater turned and looked at the Tatum house.
“There’s something I want you to see. It’s in the backyard.”
He led Atwater to the backyard and down the narrow path through the trees. They eventually came to the first graveyard, but they kept walking to the smaller one where Jimmy had been buried. Someone, presumably the forensics team, had finished digging up the coffin, and it now sat beside the hole in the ground. The lid had been completely removed and was left beside the coffin.
Penfield didn’t say anything. He remained still and watched as Atwater walked around the coffin. He looked inside it for a few seconds. Then he walked over to the small headstone and looked at the engraving.
“James Tatum. He was just a boy when he died,” Atwater said.
Atwater looked at the large pile of dirt beside the hole. He then looked at the coffin again. He turned back to Penfield.
“Is this a test, Alex?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m used to it. People always assume they can catch me committing some kind of con, but I thought you were different. I thought you believed in me now. Why else would you bring me out here?”
“What do you see?”
“There was never anyone in this coffin. Why would someone bury an empty box?”
“What makes you think no one was in there?”
Atwater didn’t answer Penfield. He just stared at him with those cold eyes for several long seconds.
“You’ve seen him, haven’t you?” Atwater asked.
“I saw him on the shore when I was on the boat, but I was too far away to get a good look.”
“Not the man who attacked you. The boy. You’ve seen him. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
Penfield glanced over to the section of the woods where the boy had first appeared to him. Atwater followed his gaze.
“Is that where he appeared to you? In the woods?”
“Yes.”
“He was never in this coffin, so where did they bury him?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t found his body. You’re right, though. The forensics team couldn’t find any evidence there was ever a body in that coffin.”
“Take me to where you saw him, please.”
Penfield led Atwater into the woods. They walked the same path Penfield had gone when he chased the boy the previous day. They finally came to
the marsh where the boy had disappeared.
“He simply vanished into the water?” Atwater asked.
‘I followed him in, but he was gone. He looked so real, but he couldn’t have been.”
Atwater turned away from Penfield as if he’d suddenly heard a noise in the direction opposite the marsh.
“What is it?” Penfield asked.
“Someone’s here, watching us.”
“Did you see them?”
“No, but they’re here.”
Atwater paused a moment. Penfield tried to follow his gaze, but all he could see was trees.
“There, do you hear it? Someone’s laughing. It sounds like a child.”
Atwater started walking back toward Jimmy’s gravesite. Penfield followed him. They stopped when they arrived at the empty coffin. Atwater looked around.
“He’s gone. He’s playing a game with us. He wants us to find him. It’s like hide and seek,” Atwater said.
They stood around the coffin for a few more minutes. Nothing happened, so they walked back down the dirt path. They went past the other small graveyard and came out of the woods. They walked toward the side yard that would take them back to their cars. Atwater suddenly stopped before they reached the back of the house.
“I see you,” he whispered.
Penfield turned in the direction of where Atwater was looking. He saw a tall tree about twenty yards from the back of the house.
“Do you see him, Alex?”
Penfield looked at the large limbs of the tree, but he saw no one.
“Where is he?”
Atwater didn’t answer him. He walked over to the tree and stopped when he reached the base of the tree trunk. He looked straight up and smiled.
“He likes to play in this tree. He’s showing me how high he can climb.”
Penfield walked over to the tree and stood beside Atwater.
“Describe him to me. What does he look like?”
“He’s thin. He was long, brown hair that’s covering his face. He’s looking down at us now. He’s laughing. Do you hear it?”
Penfield couldn’t, and he didn’t know why the boy would be revealed to him the other day, but now he was completely blind to it all.
Atwater’s face suddenly turned to horror.
“No! No!” he yelled.
Atwater stepped backward and looked down at the ground.
“What happened?” Penfield asked.
Atwater kneeled and extended his hand toward the ground. He withdrew it suddenly and grabbed the side of his own face as if he’d been struck.
“They’re back,” Atwater said.
“Who’s back?”
“The black insects! They’re eating my face!”
Penfield kneeled beside Atwater. He pulled Atwater’s hands away from his face so he could get a good look at him. He saw nothing but Atwater’s pale skin.
“There’s nothing there. You’re all right.”
Atwater fell to the ground and started to cry.
“Why is this happening to me? What did I do?” he yelled.
Penfield tried to comfort Atwater, but he didn’t know what he could say or do to reassure the old man that he was okay. Atwater laid on the ground for several minutes in agony. He eventually stopped crying as quickly as he’d started. He stayed on the ground and took deep breaths to calm his shaking body.
“What happened to the boy?” Penfield asked.
“He fell from the tree. He was sitting on a branch, laughing. Then he fell backward and crashed to the ground. He landed on his head and broke his neck. That’s when I saw his face. Half of it was missing. He put an image into my mind of insects eating away at his flesh. I think that’s what it felt like to him as this horrible disease transformed his face. It’s how his young mind rationalized what was happening to him.”
“Did he just leave you?”
“His terror overwhelmed me. People mocked him. Called him a monster. He felt so alone. He was so scared.”
“Did the boy jump from the tree? Did he try to kill himself?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think he wanted to die, even though he was so alone.”
“What do you think is going on? People are being murdered, and everyone is blaming this dead boy. Who’s doing this?”
“I don’t know, Alex, but he’s not done killing, whoever he is.”
Chapter 18
The Funeral
Thirteen to Fourteen, November.
Emma called Penfield a couple of days later to see how he was feeling. He didn’t tell her about his visit with Atwater to the Tatum house. He knew she’d be furious that he’d ignored her request for him to stay away from the investigation.
She mentioned to him that the Tatums were going to have a joint funeral for Bill and Bobby Tatum the following day. The funeral was to take place at the same cemetery where Ben Hall and his wife were buried. Penfield assumed she’d go, but she made it a point to tell him she wouldn’t be there.
He wasn’t sure if her call was an indirect way of asking him to attend and report anything out of the ordinary. If so, he would have preferred that she just come out and ask him to go. Penfield wasn’t sure how he felt about the joint funeral. The son had murdered the father. He didn’t think he could bury them together if they’d been members of his family.
Penfield spent the rest of the day thinking about his encounter with Atwater. The man had perfectly described how Jimmy Tatum had died. He hadn’t given Atwater any details of the boy’s death. He’d done an online search himself to see if he could find any information on Jimmy Tatum, but he hadn’t been able to locate anything on the various Gloucester news sites he looked through. There were several stories on the murder of Bill Tatum and the subsequent jailhouse suicide of Bobby Tatum, but none of the articles mentioned any other members of the Tatum family.
He thought about Atwater’s declaration that black insects were eating away at the flesh of his face. Penfield did another internet search to try to determine what disease Jimmy Tatum probably had. He came to the conclusion that the boy had most likely suffered from Romberg’s Disease, which was characterized as a rare disorder that was known for the shrinkage and degeneration of tissues beneath the skin. There wasn’t a cure for the disease, but reconstructive surgery could partially restore some balance to the face, especially in people where the disease was less severe. Penfield scanned through numerous photos of various people who suffered from the disease. The pictures matched the physical description Sally Tatum had given for the intruder in her house, as well as the way the boy had looked when Penfield saw him by Jimmy Tatum’s gravesite.
Penfield didn’t make the final decision to attend the Tatum funeral until the next day. He found himself getting ready for it without consciously deciding that he would go. He got dressed in his one suit. Thankfully, it still fit. He made the long drive to the Gloucester cemetery. The funeral was slated to start at eleven, and Penfield arrived just a few minutes before then. He saw a small crowd of people gathered around a green tent. He parked behind the row of cars that were off to the side of the main road through the cemetery.
He walked between the various gravestones. The ground was soggy from a brief but strong storm the night before. Penfield stood to the side of the group so he could get a good look at the crowd. He saw Sally Tatum, Charles Ray, and Carrie Tatum sitting on small white chairs in the front row. A young minister stood in front of them, but his attention seemed to be directed toward the crowd beyond the Tatums.
“’If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come. You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands.’ Job fourteen. Verses fourteen through fifteen,” the minister said.
Penfield studied the Tatums’ reaction as the minister spoke. Sally and Charles Ray both had stone-faced expressions. They both seem completely lost in thought, but Carrie’s face was filled with pain. She wasn’t crying, but the skin under her eyes wa
s swollen.
Penfield turned from the minister and looked at the gravestones around the immediate area. He didn’t see any for other members of the Tatum family. He knew that Jimmy’s grave was behind the Tatum house, and the other gravestones located on the property were from a few generations ago. He expected to see some Tatum from the last two generations to be here, but there were none.
The funeral ended, and Penfield spent the next thirty minutes walking around the cemetery and looking for Ben Hall’s gravesite. He found it near a tree on the opposite side of the cemetery. The Hall gravestone was one of the largest ones in the area. Penfield saw where the ground in front of the grave marker had been disturbed from Ben’s recent funeral. He hadn’t attended it, and he felt guilty for not being there for Emma. On the other hand, she hadn’t even mentioned it to him like she had the Tatums. Penfield didn’t know if she’d even gone herself, although he couldn’t imagine that she wouldn’t.
Penfield stood by the Halls’ gravesite for several minutes. He tried to guess what would have influenced the killer to go after Ben, but he couldn’t come up with any theories. He eventually left the cemetery and drove back toward Hampton. He passed his exit, though, and made his way across the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. It took him another forty-five minutes to reach the cemetery where his parents were buried. It had started to rain on his way there. What started out as a drizzle turned into a downpour by the time he parked his car. Their gravestone was only twenty feet from one of the cemetery roads. He sat in his car and stared at it through the car window.
He wasn’t sure why he’d come there. It had been a few years since he’d last made the trek to this cemetery. He knew their remains were six feet below the surface, but their souls were long gone, if humans even had souls in the first place. Penfield still wasn’t sure how he felt about life after death. He supposed there was some comfort to be had from imagining your departed loved ones in a better place. The Bible was filled with passages saying as much. He’d heard a few of them just a couple of hours ago. He’d seen so much death in his previous job, though, and most of it had come at the hands of evil men. He didn’t know how some superior being controlling our destinies and rewarding us in the afterlife could allow such horrible things to happen.
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