“Could you make me feel any worse?”
“Sorry. It’s just that it was Dakota’s favorite poem, and she got the caged-bird on her shoulder.” He types a few words into the search bar and holds the screen out to me. “The next two lines of the poem. That should do it. But—”
He takes a big breath.
“You already tried it, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I had to. After she disappeared, I . . . I guess I missed her. I wanted to see if there was anything important. A clue maybe.”
The car suddenly feels way too small. Like there’s not enough oxygen for the both of us. I crack the door and half-gasp. “Tell me.”
“Everything had been deleted. All of it. There was nothing left.”
****
After Boyd leaves, I let Gus out and sit beneath the porch light, watching him make the rounds to all his favorite spots. The oak tree. The big rock in the corner of the yard. Each of the Jeep’s four tires. The clearing where the squirrels congregate in the daytime. Finally, exhausted, he slumps next to me.
“What am I going to do, buddy? I’m so confused.”
Gus rolls onto to his side, lifting his paws. Because his answer clearly involves a belly rub. The solution to most of Gus’s life problems. I halfheartedly oblige, holding my phone in one hand and scratching with the other.
I delete the three new messages from Cole that I’m certain are a more insistent and annoying variation of the first. I saw the news. Mollie, what the hell is going on there? Call me. Please.
Then I enter the number from the business card I’d kept in my Jeep since the infamous marijuana makeout. When the voicemail prompts me, I take a breath and speak. Gus cocks his head at me, making me feel guiltier than I already do. But Boyd had said girls. The therapist in me knows words are important. The mother in me can’t let that go.
“Hi, Officer McGinnis. This is Mollie Roark. You gave me your card about two weeks ago and told me to call if I needed anything. And, well, I do need something. Just a little favor, between you and me. There’s this guy—Boyd Blackburn. I checked him out myself online. No official criminal record. But, should I be worried that he had been hanging with my daughter? Please don’t tell anyone I called . . .”
Gus and I sit side by side, watching the headlights pass in the distance. In some other life, Gus didn’t come home that day. A jogger or a hunter or a group of kids playing in the woods found his body, by then just bits of matted fur and bone. His blue collar, the only tangible thing left.
In some other life, Dakota didn’t know Boyd. Or my father. Or DocSherlock. She didn’t break her wrist when I let her roller-skate in the kitchen. She didn’t wander off for ten whole minutes at the fairgrounds when I’d stopped to check my phone. She didn’t send half-naked pictures of herself to an asshole jock. She didn’t die. Because, in that life, I did it better. Which is to say I did the very least a mother should do.
Chapter
Nineteen
(Friday, October 5, 2018)
I’m sitting in my ergo chair, logged on to Shadow Snoops, hunting for back-posts from MQKlinger and ignoring Cole’s fourth what-the-hell-is-going-there phone call when Wendall’s Cadillac rumbles up the quarry stone drive.
Not today, DocSherlock. Today, I will not be surprised. That’s because I’ve been up all night trying to answer one question. I’ve got the undereye luggage to prove it. The pounding headache, pungent breath, and yesterday’s clothes too. But none of that matters. Nothing matters but this.
Is my father Shadow Man?
Wait—no. That’s one question but not the question.
Did my father murder Dakota?
I hope the man rapping at my office door can lead me to the answer. Today. Because it’s Friday, and my sanity—my sobriety—won’t last the weekend without knowing.
“Come in,” I say. “It’s open.”
The door yawns wide. Then Wendall hobbles across the threshold, two hands gripping a metal walker. “I’m a bona fide cripple now. The doc says this thing will ease some of the strain on my lungs.”
“I’m glad you were able to make it at all.”
He grunts and totters to the sofa, waving me off when I slide the coffee table toward me to widen his path. Instead, he leaves the walker beside it and goes it alone, leaning like a felled tree before he drops to the cushions in a heap. Nothing but a sack of bones under a black Stetson. “On the plus side, I’d say I move a lot faster on six legs.”
I hear myself laugh. But inside, it’s all mechanized. Input and output. Soulless as a robot, inhuman as Sawyer’s IED, I’m programmed for one mission. One question to which all others will lead.
“How are you feeling?” Pleasantries first.
“Well, they loaded me up with some new meds that are supposed to stop me from hacking up a lung.”
“And the coughing up blood?” That bright red spot. I look at his hands, my hands, still expecting to see it there.
“Apparently normal for a dead man walking.”
Wendall’s gray face cracks into a dry smile. I return the gesture. Input and output.
“Speaking of the dead, you certainly gave me a lot to think about yesterday.”
He nods gravely, removing his hat and setting it atop his lap. “MQKlinger, huh? That dinky dau’s been livin’ in my head for years. I sure am grateful to share the burden for a while. I’m just sorry I had to trouble you after all you’ve been through. I hope like heck I haven’t put us in harm’s way.”
Dinky dau. That’s straight from Vietnam. Straight from my father’s mouth too. As in, I don’t need to see a goddamn shrink. I ain’t no dinky dau.
“What do you mean harm’s way?”
“Well, you already know I read the papers. And I reckon somebody snuck into my house yesterday too. After I told you about Shadow Man. Mighty big coinkydink, ain’t it?”
I arrange my face into a proper expression of surprise and sympathy. Widened eyes for one thousand one, one thousand two. Then, pursed lips. A head shake. “That’s awful. Did you call the police?”
“Nah. They’d probably laugh at me and brand me an old coot. Nothin’ was missin’. Not that I could see. But the sliding glass door was unlocked. And they decapitated my best garden gnome. The bastards.”
“They?”
I search Wendall’s face, even as he’s searching mine. But the monster I’d heard raging across the fence is well-hidden beneath the stagnant blue of his eyes.
“They,” he repeats with no explanation.
The sinking feeling in my stomach reminds me just how lost I am. A few days ago, I’d been convinced Boyd was Shadow Man. And yesterday, Wendall. I’d been certain. Certain enough I’d broken into his house looking for—what? A body? A confession? And now, it’s my own father I suspect. But I’m only doing what Dakota said. Following the clues. Even if they are all made up in my head. Who’s the craziest Krandel now?
“Well, at first I thought the neighbor’s cat had done it. That damn rascal is always sneakin’ into my yard, using my flower beds as his own litter box au naturel. Then I got to thinkin’ about the door being open, and somethin’ don’t add up. You didn’t tell anybody about Klinger being Shadow Man, did ya?”
“Of course not. But, Wendall, you told me you came here to help me. That you needed to help me. There must be something else you can tell me about MQKlinger.”
So far, I’d found only a handful of posts from the screen name.
Anybody think Shadow Man is made up by the government? Just like those so-called mass shootings. They want us to be afraid. Always afraid.
A few cards short of a full deck, that was certain. Still, I couldn’t imagine my father typing those messages. Or even using a computer. When I’d brought home a Walkman in the fifth grade, he’d smashed it with a hammer and stayed up all night waiting for Charlie to trace the radio si
gnal.
“Did you save any of the messages he sent you? The police can track those.”
I can’t tell if the eager bob of his head is playful or patronizing. “Already done, Doc. I’m one step ahead of ya. I had my IT guy look into it back then. He researched those . . . oh, what do you call those long-number thingies?”
“An IP address?”
“Bingo. Traced it to the public library up in Allendale. But it’s a dead end. The place closed down last year anyway. None of these kiddies read actual books anymore. Hell, don’t they want to dog-ear the pages? Riffle them, so they make that fluttery sound?”
I can still picture the library’s quaint redbrick face, the open mouth of the book drop. The chip at the top of the first stair where rumor had it that the mayor’s son had crashed his motorcycle. Nothing like the sleek Napa Public Library where Dakota spent her time.
“Not your girl though. Am I right? I remember readin’ in the paper she was real smart. Top of her class.”
I blink at him, momentarily stunned. But I won’t lose focus. I won’t compromise the mission. “Let’s stay on track. You said MQKlinger might’ve served with you in Vietnam. What unit were you in?”
With a grimace, Wendall straightens up, his back rigid as a board, and salutes. “Bravo Company, the Fourth Battalion of the Tenth Infantry, Ground Assault Division, reporting for duty, ma’am.”
It’s not the way he says it—the cadence of his voice, like boots on the ground, marching in unison—but what he says that makes me flinch. Unforgettable as my own name. Mumbled and whispered and shouted by my father to no one but the squirrels and the sky. And sometimes—on a very, very bad day—to me. Private First Class Victor Krandel of Bravo Company, the Fourth Battalion of the Tenth Infantry, Ground Assault Division.
I breathe slow and controlled, like I’d taught myself years ago, and the memory retreats again. Input and output. One mission. All questions lead here. To this.
“Did you know my father? Is that why you came here? To tell me he’s Shadow Man?”
Wendall looks down and rubs his head, smoothing the few strands of white that remain. I wish I could see inside it, past the mottled flesh, through the gray matter, down to the synapses. “Your father was a good soldier.”
“Are you protecting him?”
“Victor Krandel was a good soldier and a good boy. A boy. That’s what he was. Eighteen years old and barely shavin’ when he got called up. War wounds us all. But some wounds you can’t see. They’re in here.” He taps his forehead, somber. “Like a broken bone that ain’t set, they don’t heal right. Not ever.”
“So what are you saying? Just spit it out.”
“If you’re askin’ if I think your daddy is MQKlinger . . . if I think your daddy is Shadow Man . . . if I think he’d be capable of murderin’ his own grandchild—”
“Yes. Yes! That’s what I’m asking.”
“Then I’d have to say you’re askin’ the wrong man.”
“Have you talked to him? Are you still in touch?”
“The last time I saw Victor? Well, I’d say that was back in 1981. At the Vietnam Veterans Association picnic. I do believe we even had our picture taken.” He chuckles softly, and I shiver.
“Fine. I’ll ask him myself.” I stand up, suddenly feeling exposed and icky. As if he’s the one who can see straight through to my synapses, firing in all directions now. I can’t wait to be rid of him. “I think we’re done here.”
Wendall moves with no urgency. His long fingers secure the top of his hat, like one of those claw game machines. It moves toward his head as certain as death.
“Right after mass at Holy Pines, Sister Frances would go out to the chicken house. Every single Sunday like clockwork, she’d come back with a big ole covered basket. One day I followed her out there, asked her what she was doin’. She told me if I wanted to know so bad, I could watch. I remember it clear as day. Me standing there, practically catchin’ flies in my mouth as she broke those chickens’ necks easy as pie. One right after the other, like it was nothin’. When she was done, she made me carry the basket. Made me pluck them feathers off too. And you know what that bitch said? ‘Young man, next time, before you ask the question, be sure you’re ready for the answer.’”
The word bitch rings in my ears long after the rumble of Wendall’s Cadillac fades.
BEFORE
Chapter
Twenty
(Sunday, July 31, 2016)
Dakota smelled pancakes. And the syrupy sweetness—what it meant—turned her stomach. Because her mom only made pancakes on Sundays, the ones when her dad wasn’t on call. So she would have to face him. Both of them.
Once upon a time, she looked forward to Pancake Sundays. To her parents’ easy banter. To the fat weekend newspaper. To the stacks of blueberry pancakes she piled higher than her dad’s just to see his eyes pop. To Gus, under the table, licking his chops and waiting patiently to make his move. Which usually involved him making his poor-hungry-doggie face at her until she gave in.
Dakota snagged her laptop from the desk and slipped under the covers, going straight to Google. The article Hannah had texted her last night came up first. She’d already read it. Only once. Because once had been enough to burn the words on her brain like a regrettable tattoo.
Renowned Pediatric Oncologist At Napa Children’s Hospital Accused Of Sexual Harassment
Dr. Cole Roark, a pediatric oncologist at Napa Children’s Hospital, has been placed on paid administrative leave following accusations of sexual harassment by an unnamed female staff member. Mara Levy, attorney for the complainant, provided the Napa Valley Register with a summary of the allegations against Dr. Roark, which included fondling the staff member’s buttocks, referring to her as a whore, and staring down the front of her loose-fitting scrubs. The staff member also alleged Dr. Roark displayed predatory behavior, attempting to isolate her from her colleagues and initiate a sexual relationship, implying her job would be at risk if she did not cooperate with his advances. According to Caroline Crews, Public Relations Director, “The safety and well-being of the staff at Napa Children’s Hospital is our utmost priority. We take all allegations of harassment seriously and will take appropriate action following a full investigation.” Dr. Roark could not be reached for comment.
Welcome to the new Pancake Sunday.
Dakota slogged through her morning routine. Her teeth had never been this minty clean, her face never scrubbed so pink. Though a part of her wanted to get it over with, another part sickened with dread. She even braided her hair. Then she descended the stairs in her bare feet. One. Step. At. A. Time. Like walking to the guillotine.
Her mother spotted her first, turning back to the griddle as she wiped a dish towel beneath her eyes. Then, her father, plastic smile in place.
“Hey, sleepyhead.”
This could be worse than she thought.
“Hungry?” he asked.
She shrugged, her mother’s sniffling punctuating the silence.
“Sit down, kiddo.”
So she did, pouring herself a glass of orange juice and taking a swig. She suddenly wished it was Hannah’s pretend Gatorade.
“Your mom and I need to talk to you about something.”
But her mom looked out the kitchen window and beyond. Full-on space face. She might as well have been in another country.
“We don’t want to worry you, but some kids might ask you about it. And we—”
“I get it, Dad. Just tell me. Tell me what you want me to say when my friends ask me if you’re a perv.”
“Dakota!” That brought her mom back to Earth. Straight through the upper atmosphere and plummeting. “Apologize to your father.”
Instead, Dakota crossed her arms and pouted. She felt small again. She wished she were. That she could sink to the floor and wail, kicking her feet and smacking her f
ists against the linoleum.
“It’s okay, Mol. She’s upset. She’s entitled to her feelings. Isn’t that what you always say?”
Dakota hated that she’d somehow won her father a point in this secret game her parents played.
“Sometimes we forget you’re a big girl now, sweetie. A smart girl. You’re practically a grown-up. Fourteen, almost fifteen—two more weeks—going on thirty-five. So I’m going to talk to you like a grown-up. You know I’ve had my eyes on the chief onc spot. Well, I’m not the only one. And competition brings out the worst in people. They try to take you down any way they can. If they can’t beat you, they destroy you.”
Beneath the table, Gus rubbed himself against her leg. She found his fur and sunk her hand in it. Instantly better.
“Some people at the hospital don’t want me to have that job. And they’re willing to do just about anything to make sure of it. Including making up lies about me.”
“So it’s not true, then?”
Gus licked her fingers. She concentrated on that, on his smooth tongue, while her mother glared at her. “Of course it’s not true. Your dad would never do something like that.”
“It’s a reasonable question. Your mother is right. I would never. I respect women. Always have. Hell, I’m raising one.”
“It’s Hannah’s mom, isn’t it? She’s the unnamed female staff member in the article.”
Her father nodded; her mother whimpered. Between them, Dakota felt the tension tighten like a noose. The rope around her own neck. In her mind, the old, tired scene played out. The basement stairs, the moaning, the Whirlpool dryer, her father’s faded flannel.
“Hannah’s mad at me,” she said, disgusted at the sound of herself. That same small voice, the voice of a child. She cleared her throat.
“That’s something we wanted to talk to you about.” Her mother suddenly had opinions. “Your father and I think it would be best if you didn’t spend time with Hannah right now. It’s a delicate situation, and we don’t want either of you caught in the middle.”
Shadows Among Us Page 23
