‘It’s a sign. Your coming here, it’s a sign. Soon the others will come too, and then it will all be over. It’s already started.’
‘What others, Lonny?’
He just shook his head. His eyes were glassy, and his smile was that of a man who has glimpsed the guillotine from the window of his cell and feels the first touch of the madness that will cloud his fear and make the end easier to bear. He retreated into the living room, his hands held away from his sides, the palms upturned. His shirt was clean and neatly pressed, his tie a pale pink. I could see that he was not armed, but I put him against the wall and frisked him anyway, just to be sure. He did not object. He said only ‘Have you seen her?’
‘Who? Anna Kore?’
I stepped away from him and he turned slowly around.
‘She likes you,’ he went on, as though I had not spoken. ‘I knew it from the first time you came here. Then she came to me one last time and I thought that I understood. Did she go to you? Is that why she left me?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lonny.’
‘I think you do. Not Anna. It was never about Anna. I’m talking about Selina Day. Will you tell her that I’m sorry?’
‘I think you need to sit down, ’ I said, and he understood that he would receive no confirmation of his beliefs or his fears from me.
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell her myself, when she comes.’
He thought that he had always intended to kill William Lagenheimer. He’d given himself other reasons for finding him, but secretly he knew how any meeting between them would conclude. It had all been William’s fault: the years in jail, the pain inflicted upon him by others, the haunting by Selina Day that would, in time, become something else, something more complex and ineffable, although that would only be revealed to others later upon the discovery of his diary. All of it was William’s fault because he was weak and couldn’t keep his mouth shut. They had been friends, William and Lonny, and friends were supposed to look out for each other. Friends didn’t tell. They kept their secrets. He’d warned William about that, just before they closed in on Selina Day and began putting their hands on her body.
‘You mustn’t tell, William. Whatever happens, you mustn’t tell.’ Sometimes he would annoy William by calling him Billy, but not this time. It was too serious for that. They were about to do something Very Bad.
‘I won’t tell,’ said William, and Lonny had wanted to believe him. He had wanted to believe him so badly that he swallowed his doubts and ignored the way William’s eyes couldn’t quite meet his. His mouth was dry and the blood was pounding in his head. He could almost feel the girl beneath him, the warmth of her, the smell of her. He needed William there to help him, to make it happen.
They’d both wanted to do it. Of course, that wasn’t the way William told it once they’d made him cry by telling him that they’d lock him away from his mommy for years and years, lock him away and put him in with the big men, and you didn’t want to know what the big men would do to you. Remember what you wanted to do to Selina Day, Billy? Well, they’ll do that to you, except it’ll hurt more. They’ll do it over and over until the pain gets so bad that you’ll want to die. You’ll call for your mommy, but she won’t be there to help you. Right now, we’re the only ones who can help you, Billy, so you’d better start telling us the truth, because not far from here your friend Lonny is being offered the same deal, and the first one who comes clean wins the teddy bear. He gets looked after, and there’ll be doctors who will try to help him be a better person, and the big men won’t get to lay their hands on him. The other one, the one who doesn’t talk in time, he’ll get thrown to the wolves. That’s the deal. That’s the way these things work. So you’d better start talking before your friend does.
Except Lonny wouldn’t talk. Lonny would never tell. He kept his arms folded and he didn’t cry, not even when one of the policemen hit him so hard across the back of the head that his vision went funny and he bit the inside of his cheek and had to spit the blood from his mouth. Every time they asked him why he’d killed the girl he just shook his head, and the only words he spoke were to tell them that he hadn’t done anything at all, that he didn’t know what they were talking about. And even as he spoke he knew they were asking William the same questions in another room, and he prayed and prayed that William would be strong just this once, that he’d remain true to his promise and keep their secret. He refused to countenance any other possibility, as though by sheer force of will he could hold William together just as he was holding himself together.
But William had broken, and that was why they blamed Lonny for everything that happened. Poor little William Lagenheimer was led astray by the bad boy. William was really sorry for his part in what had happened to Selina Day; he’d tried to make Lonny stop, but Lonny was too strong for him.
But William didn’t tell the police that he’d touched the girl too, and that when she started bucking and kicking it had been he who pinned her legs so she couldn’t throw Lonny off. Oh, he’d been crying when he did it, but Lonny didn’t have to tell him to hold her down. He just knew. Still, it had been Lonny who suffocated her, and it was Lonny who was portrayed as the leader, the instigator, the ‘alpha’ as one of the psychiatrists termed him, and so it was that the big man got to play with Lonny, just as they’d promised, although he didn’t get to play with him for long. The girl had seen to that.
It hadn’t been difficult to find out where William was staying after his release. After all, his mother didn’t try too hard to hide her tracks. She always had been a dumb bitch, doting on her little boy. All she cared about was looking after him again: cooking for him, washing his clothes, ensuring that he had a clean bed and a safe place to stay once they let him out. She trusted people to send on her mail to a post-office box in Berlin, as though ten miles between the box and her home would make any difference, and she’d never considered how she might be in danger of undoing all the good work that had been put into giving the boys new identities. Even the Negroes no longer spoke of the killing of Selina Day, or of what they were going to do to the two boys who murdered her. She was gone to a better place, and forgotten by most.
Except that part of Selina Day had stayed – the angry part, the vengeful part – and she wouldn’t let Lonny forget her. It was she who had whispered to Lonny that there was unfinished business with his old friend, and maybe he ought to look him up once he was a free man again. So Lonny had made some calls, including one to his brother, Jerry, and Jerry told him what he knew about Mrs. Lagenheimer, because Jerry had been forced to make trips to Drake Creek to settle their mother’s affairs, and people had talked, the way people will talk. Lonny didn’t tell Jerry what he was planning to do, and he didn’t know if Jerry suspected anything. If he did, Jerry was too smart to ask. They never spoke again, but that was Lonny’s decision. It was easier that way.
Both he and William had been released within a couple of months of each other – William first, Lonny later – and Lonny had been worried that William and his mother might already have moved on by the time he got to New Hampshire, but William was in the throes of a deep depression, and the medication prescribed to combat it meant that he was even less resistant to his mother’s suffocating love than he might otherwise have been. Lonny had found William walking in the woods near the shitty little trailer home that his mother had bought – bought! She was so dumb that she hadn’t even rented, as if a guy being released from jail in a strange state would want to stay living within a few miles of his final prison. But William was too battered and acquiescent to strike out for himself when he was released, and had they been left to their own devices they might have remained there on a dirt road beside a stinking pond until one or both of them passed away.
So there was William, his hands in his pockets, his whole body bent slightly after years of trying to deflect the attention of predatory men by making himself smaller and less obvious. Lonny approached him from behind when William s
topped to stare at his reflection in that scummy pond, so that Lonny’s own reflection gradually appeared next to William’s. Their time behind bars had accentuated rather than diluted the similarities that had always existed between them. They were both carrying jail weight from bad food, and their faces were prematurely aged and weathered. Lonny stood straighter than William, though, and his hair was lighter and longer. In addition, William now wore spectacles, the cheap metal frames making him appear at once sadder and more vulnerable.
For a moment William just stared at the two reflections, as though uncertain whether he was seeing a manifestation of a real being or a wraith conjured up by his own damaged mind. Then the figure said his name, and William heard it spoken and knew that what he was seeing was real. He turned around slowly, and instantly they were fourteen again, with William taking the subordinate role, except this time there was an added sense of resignation to his posture and speech. Like Lonny, he had always known that they would meet again. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t objected to his mother’s preparations, and hadn’t tried to move far from the prison. He was waiting, waiting for Lonny to come.
‘How you doing, Lonny?’ he asked.
‘I’m okay, William. You?’
‘Okay, I guess. When did you get out?’
‘A couple of weeks back. It’s good to be free again, right?’
‘Uh-huh.’
William blinked, and pushed his spectacles farther up his nose, although it didn’t seem to Lonny that they’d dropped since they’d begun talking. Maybe it was a nervous tic. His tongue licked at the little scar on the left side of his upper lip. Lonny noted its presence. William hadn’t been marked in that way when Lonny knew him as a boy.
‘How’d you find me?’ asked William.
‘Your momma. Her mail. It wasn’t hard.’
‘It’s nice here,’ said William. ‘Peaceful. You want to go inside, have a soda or something?’
‘You got anything stronger?’
‘No. I’m on medication. I’m not supposed to drink alcohol. It doesn’t matter so much. I tried it when I got out but I didn’t like the taste.’
‘Could be you just tried the wrong kind.’
‘It was whisky,’ William said. ‘I don’t remember the name. I went to a bar. I thought that was what you were supposed to do, you know, when you got out. That’s what everyone else talked about doing.’
He sounds so young, Lonny thought. It’s like he froze mentally at fourteen, so that his body grew older while his consciousness stayed the same.
‘That’s what I did,’ said Lonny. ‘I thought it tasted good. Got me some pussy too.’
William blushed. ‘Gosh, Lonny,’ he said. ‘Gosh.’
You child, thought Lonny. You weak little boy.
‘What are they calling you now, William?’
‘Randall. Randall Haight. I don’t know why they chose that name. They just did. And you?’
‘Daniel Ross. I don’t know why they chose that either.’
‘It’s an okay name.’
‘Yes, it is. Let’s go inside, “Randall.” It’s cold.’
Side by side, they walked back to the house.
‘My momma’s out,’ said William. ‘She plays bingo at the American Legion every Friday. Before that, she has dinner at a restaurant and reads her magazines. I went with her a couple of times, but I think she preferred being alone.’ The house came into view. ‘I heard that your momma and poppa died,’ said William. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah. Well, you know.’
Lonny trailed off. He didn’t want to talk about that. They were gone, and that was the end of it.
The inside of the house smelled of damp clothes and bad cooking. William took two cans of soda from the refrigerator, but Lonny had already found a bottle of vodka in one of the kitchen closets.
‘Thought you said you didn’t have anything stronger?’
‘That’s momma’s!’ said William. He sounded scandalized.
‘She won’t mind,’ said Lonny.
‘She will. It’s hers. She’ll know someone has been supping from it.’
‘She won’t, William. Trust me. I’ll make it right with her.’
‘No, you can’t be here when she gets back. She won’t like it.’
‘Why is that?’
William clammed up. This wasn’t a subject that he wanted to explore.
‘Because I’m the bad one, right? Because I made her little boy do a bad thing?’
William remained silent, but Lonny knew that it was true.
‘I know that’s what she thinks,’ continued Lonny. ‘I know, because that’s what everyone thinks.’
He found two glasses, poured a generous measure of vodka into each, then added Coke from one of the cans. He handed a glass to William.
‘Take it.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘Take it, William, and drink it. Trust me. It’ll make things easier in the long run.’
William took the glass. He sipped at the drink, but didn’t like the taste. He started to cry.
‘Drink it, William.’
‘I’m sorry, Lonny,’ said William. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Lonny forced the glass back to his mouth and made him drink. When the glass was empty, he refilled it.
‘More.’
‘I don’t want any more.’
‘Just do it. For me.’
He clinked his own glass against William’s in a toast, then drank long. Already, William looked a little woozy. He held the glass in two hands and drank. This time he didn’t struggle so much with the liquor, but he was still crying. There was snot dripping from his nose, and a string of spittle linked his mouth to the glass.
‘You weren’t supposed to tell,’ said Lonny. ‘You were never supposed to tell.’
William just stared at the floor, his body jerking with the force of his sobs.
Lonny put his glass in the sink. He didn’t want to make a mess. A mess would make it more likely that he’d be caught. He took the rope from the pocket of his coat. He’d told himself that he was only going to use it to scare William, or tie him up if he had to, but it was a lie, just one of many lies he would be forced to tell, and to live.
‘I’m sorry, Lonny,’ William repeated, but his voice was different now. The sobbing suddenly ceased. ‘But you should be sorry too for what we did to Selina Day.’
He swallowed the last of the vodka and Coke, then turned and knelt on the floor, his back to Lonny. Lonny couldn’t move. He had expected arguments, or excuses, but not this: not this abject surrender.
‘Don’t hurt my momma,’ said William. ‘She’s a nice lady.’
It was those words that broke the spell on Lonny and set in motion all that was to follow. He flipped the rope over William’s neck, put his knee against his back, and slowly strangled him. And when William’s mother came home he did the same to her.
On that night William Lagenheimer ceased to exist, but Randall Haight did not.
At the kitchen table, the man who had once been Lonny Midas, then briefly Daniel Ross, and finally Randall Haight, pushed his spectacles farther up the bridge of his nose. He still didn’t need them, and the lenses were just clear glass, but they were a part of who he was, even down to that little tic. He’d seen William do it, and he’d absorbed it. After all, he hadn’t had a whole lot to work with, so he’d taken whatever of Randall Haight that he could. The scar he’d created with a razor, and it had hurt like a bitch. The rest he’d made up himself.
‘They blamed Lonny for everything,’ he said. ‘William was innocent, Lonny was guilty. Becoming William seemed the perfect solution.’
‘Where’s Anna Kore, Lonny?’
‘I told you already: I don’t know. Selina didn’t know either. If she was dead, Selina would have told me. She might even have brought her along to show me. The dead know the dead. But, dead or alive, I didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance.’
I heard a voice say, ‘I don’t
believe you,’ but it wasn’t my own. I tried to move, but I was too slow. I caught a glimpse of three men as I rose, and then there was a shocking pain in my head as the first blow connected. Others followed, but after the first three or four I ceased to feel anything at all.
35
Kurt Allan pulled up a short distance from the entrance to the department building, and killed his engine. The department’s Explorer was parked up, which meant that Ken Foster, Allan’s senior officer, was inside. Knowing Foster, he probably already had a cup of coffee in his hand, and was scavenging for sweet foods. Allan was right. When he entered, Foster’s large ass was facing the door as he poked around in the closet beneath the coffee machine.
‘Quiet night?’ said Allan.
‘Hungry night,’ said Foster’s voice from inside the closet. ‘And the staties have cleaned us out. I think they even ate the bugs.’
‘Why didn’t you pack a sandwich?’
‘I did pack a sandwich. Then I left the sandwich on the kitchen table.’
Allan liked Foster. Hell, Allan had hired him, so he supposed that he must have known what he was doing. Foster wasn’t about to solve a great mystery anytime soon, but his heart was in the right place and he managed to combine an inability to take shit from anyone with a gentle hand, which was no mean trick. The big man emerged from his foraging and took a seat behind the empty reception area.
‘You’re out late,’ he said.
‘I find it hard to relax lately.’
‘Yeah, me too.’ Foster toyed with his coffee cup, and watched Allan take some papers from his in-box. ‘Detective Walsh left those,’ he said.
It was the report on the analysis of the envelopes sent to Randall Haight. From what Allan could tell, it contained nothing of note: no hairs, saliva, or DNA. There was something about organic matter, but it was complicated and he was too distracted to take it all in. If it had been important, someone would have called him.
‘Anything?’ asked Foster.
‘Nothing.’
‘Chief, you think she’s still alive?’
The Burning Soul Page 34
