Silence on Cold River

by Casey Dunn

  “Sorry about the lack of furniture. I picked up an air mattress for you, but honestly, it’s probably less comfortable than the sofa at the station. My ex-wife was more the decorator than me. The house needs a woman’s touch,” Martin said. He felt a pang of guilt in his chest, remembering how sure he’d been that Eddie was cold and calculating, manipulative of the entire justice system and every heart in two towns.

  Eddie snorted. “Between me and my wife, I was the decorator. But the yard was her territory. She’d tend a garden like most women fawn over a baby. Had the greenest thumb in Texas. I’m a homebody, though. I want to like the way my house looks, and she said if I liked it so much, it was my responsibility to keep it that way. Heck of a woman.” Eddie’s eyes shone with emotion, and he cleared his throat. “I know people thought me moving right after she died was bad, bad for Hazel especially. But I realized my wife is what made that house a home. Not the furniture, not the paint or the pictures. Her voice, her laughter, her dirt all over my clean floor. I couldn’t walk through the front door of that house anymore without her in it.”

  “Why was she up on a ladder?” Martin asked.

  “It was my fault. She’d asked me to hang flower boxes under the bedroom windows, had been after me for weeks about it. The windows were on the second story, but there was a little pitch roof under them that shielded the front porch. Best I can figure she’d made it up to the roof. I never told her how slick the shingles are when they’re wet, and it was springtime, dewy in the morning. Hazel got home from school, found her in the yard, ladder on its side.” His voice broke, and he stopped, shook his head. “That’s the other reason we left. Hazel was so scared to come home and find something bad again that she stopped leaving the house. We pulled out a map and tried to find somewhere as far and as different as we could. We just needed… we needed to start over.”

  “That makes plenty of sense to me,” Martin said, remembering how he’d fit what he could of his old life in two boxes and a duffel bag and left the rest behind. His thoughts returned to Ama. When he’d mentioned Michael’s name on the phone outside her motel room, he would’ve sworn she dropped the phone. Maybe she’d just hung up on him. He’d never know. But either way, she’d let him in. If in her mind Michael was a closed book, a dead body, would she have been as affected by the mention of his name?

  Martin knew she did have to uphold confidentiality even after death, but she’d shut down completely. He thought back to how she’d reacted when he asked about what she remembered from her attack. She’d given him the same stonewall. She was protecting someone. Whether it was herself or someone else, Martin wasn’t sure. Ama would no doubt be faster to hide the identity of someone she knew. Someone she had feared not for just a matter of hours but for years.

  Maybe Michael Walton wasn’t a victim at all.

  MARTIN Chapter 66 | 7:05 AM, December 7, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia

  IT WAS DAWN WHEN MARTIN pulled up to the school, hoping to fit in an interview before classes started. Eddie sat in the passenger seat. He was reading Hazel’s journal again. It had spent the previous night tucked under his arm.

  “It’s probably best if I go in alone,” Martin said. “I don’t want anyone seeing you in police presence and making the wrong assumption.”

  “Okay.” Eddie’s voice was distant, and he didn’t look up.

  There were two teachers currently employed by Tarson High School who had also been there when Michael Walton was a student, and only one, Mrs. Jacobs, had had Michael in her classroom. Martin went inside and found her room, tapping on the doorframe.

  “Mrs. Jacobs, Detective Locklear. Thanks for meeting me so early.”

  “Yes.” She sat up and swiped her blond bangs to the side, smiling. “Please, sit in any of the desks.”

  Mrs. Jacobs had an obvious warmth about her, a softness evident from twenty feet away, and Martin half expected to see a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a glass of warm milk on her desk.

  “You’re here about Michael,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am. Anything you can tell me about him. Nothing is irrelevant or too small a detail.”

  “Well, I had him for biology. He liked my class, I could tell. He was always reading his textbook, even when he was supposed to be listening to me. He did well on his tests. But his semester grades were average at best. He seldom turned in homework, didn’t participate in class except for during labs. I don’t know that I ever heard him say more than three or four words at a time, but to read his essays, you’d think you were reading the work of a college student. His vocabulary was well beyond his years—well beyond Tarson, to be frank. And he had a memory like a steel trap, incredible mind for details.”

  “What about his personality? Did he talk much? Did he have a friend? A hobby?”

  “He wrote music notes in the margins of his textbook, even though they aren’t supposed to mark inside the books at all.” Her expression changed, becoming heavier. “I tried not to get after him too much, though. You could tell a raised voice meant something to him.”

  “Can you explain that to me?”

  “I… I don’t want to speak ill of someone who isn’t here to defend herself.”

  “You mean his mother,” Martin prompted.

  Mrs. Jacobs nodded. “Nowadays I’m sure a student in his condition would be reported. But back then, it just wasn’t something we did, especially after everything his family had been through. I tried to bring him a little extra food, send him home with a new pencil. He’d wear these oversize long-sleeve shirts, even in August. He would tell me he was wearing them because they belonged to his father, but one time one of the sleeves was pushed up, and I saw burn marks in a line up his arm.”

  “You seem to have a memory for details, too.”

  “Michael was special. He was one who grabbed your attention, even if he never made a sound. And seeing that kind of thing… well it’s not something I’d easily forget.”

  “What did you think about the trial?”

  Mrs. Jacobs let out a sigh. “I remember that I was the only person who sat on his side of the courtroom. Maybe he killed those animals, and maybe he didn’t. But I know him enough to know it wasn’t out of meanness. We had begun dissecting animals in class—frogs, fetal pigs. His precision was… remarkable. He had the right feel for it. He handled each part of each animal so carefully. If he cut open neighborhood animals in the same manner, well, he shouldn’t have done it, but it’s nothing to lock a kid up and throw away the key for. And he certainly didn’t deserve what happened after the trial.”

  “What was that?” Martin asked.

  “Some roughneck senior boys pushed him into that river. I know they did. And then what they carved on that tree.” She shook her head. “If anyone should have their names dragged through the mud and face a trial, it should be bullies like that.”

  “Mrs. Jacobs, do you know of anyone who might have a picture of Michael? I visited his mother, but she didn’t have any.”

  Mrs. Jacobs tsked and slid open a desk drawer. “I keep a photo album of my favorite students. Michael didn’t care to have his picture taken, but I got a good one of him one day. It was the last day of school for the year, and he was the only student who didn’t seem happy about it. I tried to cheer him up, make him feel special, so I told him I took pictures of all my favorite students. You should also check the library for that year’s annual—1988 or ’89, I believe.”

  She handed Martin the photograph. A ray of sunlight had streamed through the window and spotlighted Michael at his desk. He looked five years younger than anyone else in the class, but his eyes were ancient and ringed with exhaustion. Shoulder-length, greasy hair fell across half his face. His hands were in two fists under his chin, and the corners of his mouth were pulled up in the faintest smile.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Jacobs,” Martin said. “Can I keep this photograph for a little while?”

  “Sure. May I ask what this is about?”

  “Off the record,”
Martin said, and Mrs. Jacobs nodded. “Off the record, we are looking into what really happened that day at the river. I’ll be in touch.”

  MARTIN Chapter 67 | 8:30 AM, December 7, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia

  MARTIN WAS NEARLY TO THE station when he glanced over at Eddie. His forehead was pressed against the window. His gaze was fixed on the trees blurring by, but Martin had the feeling he wasn’t seeing them at all. Eddie hadn’t said a word for the entire drive.

  “You okay, Eddie?” he asked quietly.

  “It’s been months since I’ve seen the school,” Eddie said. “Got to where I couldn’t even drive by it. I’d look too hard for her, or feel like the worst person on earth if I drove by without at least a glance.” Eddie let out a shuddering breath. “All this time, I knew she was out there to be found, and now she is out there—we know she is—and it feels like she’s farther away than ever before.”

  Martin didn’t know how to answer. He couldn’t promise that they’d find her, and it seemed trite to say they’d try. Six days into this investigation, and Martin was struggling. Eddie had been fighting this battle mostly alone for months. Reading a face and asking questions was Martin’s job, and he had no idea what to say.

  “Martin, can I go home? Just for a bit?” Eddie asked, breaking the silence. “I just need to be where I feel her.”

  “For as long as you want,” Martin said.

  Eddie steered Martin north, then down several little roads. His property was on a cul-de-sac, and the front was mostly shielded with trees. The driveway curved left, and then a little white house appeared, one story, trimmed in gray, with a porch extending across the front. There were two rocking chairs framing a bay window, and Martin wondered if Eddie could bring himself to sit in one with the other empty, rocking with the slightest breeze.

  Martin trailed Eddie up the steps and through the front door. Everywhere Martin looked, he saw places where two people should sit: two chairs in the living room, an old wood table with two mismatched chairs in an open space beside the kitchen. Martin was accustomed to the quiet in his own home; no one had ever lived there with him. He wondered at the shadows Hazel’s memory cast in every room, and he thought about what Michael’s mother had said about filling the silence.

  They walked down a narrow hall, and Eddie paused by a door to the right, his fingers frozen on the knob, and even before he finally nudged it open, Martin knew this must be Hazel’s room. Daylight streamed through two big windows, shining on a wooden desk. The bedframe was made from whole boughs of slender trees, and her bedspread, still tossed to the side like Hazel had climbed out that morning, was a patchwork quilt.

  Eddie pointed to it.

  “Hazel made her bedspread from her mother’s dresses the summer after we moved here,” he said, flicking a finger near the corner of his eye.

  A lump rose in Martin’s throat as he remembered who he’d thought Eddie was—what he thought he’d done.

  “Look around, if you want to,” Eddie offered. “You want to know about Hazel, this is where she spent most of her time.”

  Eddie pulled open a desk drawer and withdrew a black recorder. “She wrote her own songs, covered others. Those last few months, she was always singing. She was working on a song, got real private and silly about it. That’s what makes me know it was good.” He smiled then. “I haven’t been able to play this. Hey, you think… you think they’d play it at the fundraiser? That way, no matter what happens, she’ll be heard one more time. She’ll sing to a crowd.”

  We’re going to get her back, Martin wanted to say, but standing in her room, the possibility she’d one day walk around in it again seemed far away and improbable. Martin had seen too many people nearly rescued alive to believe the odds were in Hazel’s favor. When he finally spoke, he said: “There won’t be a dry eye in the house.”

  Martin opened the second drawer in the desk. There was a stack of notebooks, a handful of CDs, and a couple of pencils. He put the notebooks on the desktop, then flipped open the first one. There were more doodles than words, then a few short poems and several sketches of a girl with her eyes turned down, shoulders slumped. Self-portraits, if Martin had to guess, and he checked to make sure Eddie wasn’t looking over his shoulder. Eddie was standing by Hazel’s bed, his fingers on her pillow. Martin turned away, feeling like an intruder, and continued flipping through the notebook. Finding nothing, he leafed through the rest of the stack.

  The corner edge of a picture stuck out of the bottom notebook. He slid it from between the pages. It was a candid shot of Hazel, her head thrown back, mouth open in a carefree grin. In front of her, a man pumped his arms as if in some kind of victory.

  “Who’s this?” Martin asked, flashing the photo at Eddie.

  “That’s Jonathon Walks,” he said, confirming Martin’s suspicion.

  Martin looked closer. One corner of his shirt had pulled loose from the waist of his pants, and the sleeves of his shirt had fallen down his arms, where a row of circular scars was visible.

  Michael Jeffery Walton.

  Martin panicked in silence. If he brought this to the captain, Michael’s face could be splashed across every major network and social media site within the hour. Ama would be safe—for now. But Hazel… they wouldn’t find Hazel. Ama’s silence and secrets instantly made sense. He watched out of the corners of his eyes as Eddie picked up Hazel’s pillow and brought it to his face, his shoulders quivering.

  Ama, you better be right, and you better be good.

  He slipped the picture into his pocket. If her fundraiser didn’t bring Michael out of hiding, he would have no choice but to bring the department into the investigation first thing Sunday morning.

  MICHAEL Chapter 68 | 6:00 AM, December 8, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia

  THE GAS STATION TWO EXITS south of Tarson is quiet for rush hour on a Friday morning. I grab two sausage biscuits from under the heat lamps and a newspaper from the wire stand, plunk down a five-dollar bill on the counter for my customary $4.79 bill, and leave with a wave. I have not wanted to come back here since Ama was taken from me, but not appearing would arouse suspicion, so here I am.

  A cold mist hangs in the air. I sit in the front seat of the Jeep and open the paper, scanning for any mention of Ama or my real name splashed across the headlines. I flip to the next page. My name is nowhere to be seen, but Ama’s is there with a picture of her face, gray eyes steady and defiant. I read the caption: A-list defense attorney to hold silent auction and sing for Tarson High School at courthouse.

  The paper rattles in my hands, and the page begins to tear at the center fold. Ama is going to sing. I do not have one usable note recorded from Ama. Not one. And she knows it. I read the article. A pianist will give a concert; then the piano will be open for anyone interested, and Ama will sing “Stairway to Heaven.” Adrenaline blooms in a fiery flower at my center.

  This is for me, absolutely and undeniably. She will sing the song from our second meeting at the place of our first—the place where she told me to never let our paths cross again, the birthplace of this endeavor, of my song, of my Fate. Now she is building every road back to her. I imagine she’s hoping to contribute her notes in her own way. That would be very Ama, after all. But it won’t do. Not for Fate, not for our song.

  A lesser man might think she’s setting a trap, that plainclothes police officers will be mingling with the partygoers, waiting for me to appear, but I know better. She didn’t tell anyone about what happened between us in the woods, or about my song and what I’ve done to create it. The entire county police force would be looking for me by now were that the case. This is more than that—much more.

  Ama is either calling Fate to the dance floor or declaring war. Either way, I will be there to watch them collide.

  HAZEL Chapter 69 | 6:00 PM, December 8, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia

  MICHAEL IS MOVING FASTER THAN usual, more careless, snatching instead of plucking. He grabs his little knife and begins to whittle a long ivory stick. It’s knobby at
both ends and more slender at the center. It’s a bone—from the length of it, either a femur or a humerus. No one has been here in the last year besides Bill and me.

  Nausea rolls through my stomach, and a sour taste lands on my tongue.

  “You’re going to have a roommate soon,” Michael says without looking at me. “I should’ve thought of this a long time ago. You can keep quiet during our drills together, but what about watching someone else’s pain—or causing it? I imagine that might evoke a little more commitment from you.”

  I stare at the back of his head. My gaze travels the length of metal pipe I’m bound to by a chain. It’s a support rail for the metal shelves lining the wall opposite the cabinets. I imagine pulling over the whole unit, crushing him beneath like the end of a superhero comic book—Batman or Spider-Man. The bad guys always come back out, though, stronger, meaner than before.

  “A duet,” he continues, then begins humming. He stands, retrieves his walking stick, and leaves without another word. The door clicks shut behind him.

  Michael is right. I cannot stay silent when someone else is suffering. I heard Bill die in the dark. It was slow, quiet, and yet I knew what it was. I felt the water around my calves warm as his body voided postmortem urine he’d been holding all day. I heard water win the fight for space in his mouth and throat.

  But I also heard every word when Bill explained how to access the tunnel to the factory, where his locker was inside the building, how to retrieve his gun from the false floor, how to fire it.