Sandman

by Tammy Bird

  ****

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Why had Katia printed the pictures? Why had Paige befriended Katia? Why was Katia being targeted again by a lesbian? Look at them. He scanned the room with his eyes. Katia and Paige sat next to one another on the couch. Katia’s face was buried in her hands, and her elbows rested on her knees. Paige touched her back. Paige’s ridiculous mutt sat at attention with his back against the couch between the girls. One of the officers sat in the chair across from the girls. The other stood at his side.

  “Take your time.” The officer who remained standing spoke directly to Katia.

  Richard watched his daughter. She’s strong. I’ll help her become stronger. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t. You’re not like her. Like his aunt. He hated that Katia reminded him of the woman who hurt him so many years ago. Not in coloring—his aunt was pale, had blonde hair and blue eyes—but in build and attitude. You’re not like her.

  Richard reminded himself of the order of needs—get the emergency workers focused on Marco, join the search. He concentrated on his movements. He ran his fingers through his hair. “How many more questions do you have?” He looked from one officer to the other. “My daughter is distraught. My son is missing.” His voice shook. He moved closer to the couch. Show concern. Show fear. Show distress.

  Richard hoped he wouldn’t have to kill Marco. He didn’t want to, just like he didn’t want to kill Katia. Just like he didn’t want to kill Roger all those years ago. But he would. To save himself, he would.

  While Katia went up to get a piece of Marco’s clothing, Richard paced the room. He wasn’t worried about a dog picking up his son’s scent in the house. It was everywhere, and the room was hidden. He paced because it was the only way he had to release the anger that was building inside. Brent knew the rules. He had broken the most important rule of all: Follow my instructions specifically. Disobedience wouldn’t be tolerated. He would take care of Brent when this was over. Brent would die. The only regret Richard had was that he would no longer have someone to take the women away.

  Katia came back into the living room. She had Marco’s favorite science T-shirt in her hand. Before she handed it over to the officer, she held it to her face. “Will we get this back?” Her voice was muffled by the material.

  “Yes. Of course.” The younger of the two officers touched her shoulder. The two were working acquaintances, and it was obvious he struggled with remaining calm.

  The group moved toward the front door. As Richard passed the kitchen table, his whole body tensed. The pictures scattered there infuriated him. A son was supposed to honor his father. What kind of way was this to repay the person who allowed you into such a beautiful world? Richard killed during storms, plotted them on a board he kept in the workshop. When Marco was small, five or six, he had taken an interest in the board, studied it for hours, touched it lightly, head cocked in silence. Richard was afraid he would move a pin, add one where it didn’t belong, maybe even figure out a pattern in his autistic brain. He couldn’t afford that, so he got the boy his own board. The board and a subscription to a weather magazine. He taught Marco where to put the pins. It was their secret world. It made the betrayal he felt now more painful.

  Richard wondered if he should move the pins around on both boards. Fuck it. None of these idiots are smart enough to connect the kills to the dots on the board.

  He heard Katia tell the officers she would stay at the house. He didn’t move away from the table. He stared at the picture of the door handle. His insides shook. The smells of the day his son pushed open the workshop door flooded his memory. Later that night, he sat on the edge of his son’s bed and explained it all to him. He loved his family. He wanted to stop for them. And he did once. For several years, their love was enough. And then another woman hurt a child. And he needed to save him. And then another. Each time his love for his wife and family grew stronger. Richard was happy. He was happy in his heart and in his mind.

  “Marco. I did this for you. You have to understand. I did it all for you.” He repeated those words to Marco the day he came through the garage door and saw the woman bleeding in Brent’s arms. And Richard told Marco the same words when he left him today, cross-legged and rocking, his thumb and inside palm tap-tap-tapping against his knee, on the mattress that still smelled like the blood and urine of Elizabeth Dahl.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Until a few hours ago, Katia didn’t think things could get any worse. They had. A charred body was pulled from Brent’s burned home. Elizabeth’s lifeless body was dumped on the beach. Her mildly verbal teenaged brother went missing. And now Frankie was acting weird.

  Katia moved from room to room. She looked at her phone constantly. Where was everyone? She knew, of course. Volunteers and firefighters were still on scene at the Grainger home. Dr. Webb and Zahra were analyzing the scene at the beach, after which Elizabeth would be taken to the morgue in Greenville to be with the others. Her father was combing the island with a small search party for Marco. Knowing didn’t help. She felt as if she were crawling out of her own skin.

  She wanted to be a part of the search party, but her father had vetoed that idea. “He probably went to find you,” her father said. “His routine is off.”

  She agreed with the routine being off, but something didn’t feel right. She checked Marco’s ankle bracelet regularly. She tried to remember whether she’d noticed the tiny light on her brother’s ankle earlier in the day.

  Frankie’s whine cut into her thoughts. He hadn’t stopped for over an hour. Damn dog. No wonder Papi doesn’t want one.

  She looked Frankie’s direction. “Come here, boy,” she said. “What else do you want?” Katia had taken him outside to do his business, but that didn’t satisfy him. She had put down fresh water. That didn’t work, either. He had food. “Do you know I’m freaking the fuck out, little dude? I don’t want us to be stuck in this fucking house, either.” She reached down and scratched the pup’s head.

  Katia knew the dog was distraught. Marco and Frankie had bonded as soon as their eyes met, way back when Gina brought the pup home. She’d taken Marco over to play with him on multiple occasions. “Go lay down. Seriously, Frankie. What do you want?”

  Sighing, she tapped the front of her phone for the hundredth time. No new messages. She moved from the living room to the hallway, from the hallway to the dining area. She tapped on Paige’s name. The last text was twenty minutes prior. Bob just got here with the dogs.

  Fuck. Only twenty minutes? Time was dragging. She needed to hear from someone about something. Where are you, Monkey Face?

  She tapped the screen again. Tapped Zahra’s name. The last two messages were time stamped ten and eleven minutes prior: It is going to be a long night. And: I wish I was with you.

  Katia responded: I wish you were, too. She could no longer pretend that it wasn’t true.

  Katia made sure the volume was at its highest level and slid the phone into the pocket of her sweats. She stretched her arms high above her head until the stomach muscles begged to be released. The pull felt good. She needed something to shake herself away from the edge of the precipice where the tears and anger threatened to consume her. She pulled her outstretched body to one side, freeing a strip of skin from her T-shirt. The breeze from the open window tickled its way up to her armpit. She shuddered, released the stretch, and pushed her arms out in front of her and around in circles. She’d agreed to stay close to home in case Marco came back, but she wasn’t doing well with keeping her word. She was an emergency worker by trade, and every ounce of her being wanted to be on the beach, at the Grainger house, or finding her brother.

  She looked into the living room at Frankie. The dog was pawing at the door to the workshop, his little paws relentless against the carpet. “Come on, boy. Do you want a treat?” She made kissy sounds and patted her leg. No response. He continued to ignore her and scratch.

  She moved toward him. “He didn’t even menti
on you being here,” she said, talking to the dog as well as herself. Katia examined the spot where he’d been digging, his nose practically shoved under the door. “That’s how distraught he is.” She squatted next to Frankie, ran her hand back and forth on the carpet. “There’s nothing here, boy. Do you want to go out again?” Frankie stopped momentarily and looked up at her. “Come on. Let’s go out the front.”

  Katia stood and walked to the chair. She grabbed the leash and moved back to her little ward. “I can’t take you if you don’t cooperate.” She hooked the leash to its matching blue collar. Frankie continued to whine and scratch. “Fine. We’ll go through the workshop.” Katia reached for the handle and turned.

  As soon as the door was opened wide enough for Frankie to fit through, he ran his lead completely taut. But he didn’t run toward the door, instead, he bolted toward the workbench where her father sanded his beautiful pieces of wood.

  “This way, boy. Come on.” Katia pulled the leash and took a few steps toward the side door, but Frankie stood strong, tail down, nose against the wooden leg of the bench. There was a deep guttural sound coming from his throat. The goose bumps Katia felt earlier returned, but this time, they weren’t from the breeze on her bare side. They were from fear.

  Her gut tightened and butterflies fluttered faster and faster, as she realized Frankie was trying to tell her something. “What is it? There’s nothing here but Papi’s workbench, scattered tools, and wood chips and shavings.”

  It smelled like freshly carved childhood to Katia, a smell that brought back memories of laughing with her mother and father as they tracked a storm on the weather board and talked about someday being a family of storm chasers traveling the country measuring, reporting, and taking pictures.

  “Until you died,” she said into the wood-infused air. “Until you fucking died. And now I’m here. And something’s wrong, and Papi’s out looking for your son, and I’m here. And. Fuck, Mami. I’m here. And Marco’s gone. And I don’t know what to fucking do.”

  Frankie looked up at her. His eyes seemed to beg for understanding. Like Marco’s eyes. Katia walked over to him, letting the leash recoil into its base as she moved. “Okay, Frankie. What do you see that I don’t?” Kneeling next to the animal, she looked toward the area where Frankie was focused. Nothing was visible. “It’s a wall, boy. A concrete, workshop wall.”

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

  Nietzsche didn’t pick up anything. Good news on that. Any word on Marco?

  Katia was relieved, even though none of them thought there was another burial site where Elizabeth was dumped. Whoever was doing this was too smart for that. If there was another site, it wasn’t there. She tapped out her response:

  No word. Papi thinks he’s hiding. Overstimulated. Still looking.

  She thought about writing more, but Paige had her hands full at the beach. She didn’t know what she would say anyway. I’m sitting on the floor staring at a concrete wall because Frankie is freaked out by the smell of wood?

  She hit Send, slid the phone back in her pocket, and returned to Frankie and the wall. “Okay, mister. What are you trying to tell me?” Frankie licked her face and moved farther under the bench.

  Katia got on all fours and crawled into the confined space. It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the change in light. She used her hand to compensate, running it along the smooth concrete. Nothing. She tried again to see what the dog was seeing.

  Maybe it isn’t sight. Maybe it’s smell. She remembered Dr. Webb’s speech about how many olfactory receptors a dog has in his nose—over 220 million—and she wished for one moment that she had as many. Katia closed her eyes. Breathed deeply through her nose. Wood. I smell wood. And oil. The air held a tinge of the lubricant her father used for hinges. And the slight scent of her father’s aftershave. More childhood memories flooded in. She shook them away. Focus Katia. What else?

  Katia spent a full minute or more on all fours, breathing in, her eyes closed. Frankie’s guttural sounds were softer now as he waited next to her. Marco’s pictures. He had one of a doorknob. It was the doorknob, the one to this workshop. And the weather board. Both his and Papi’s boards. He took the same pictures over and over again. And there was part of the workbench. When she had reviewed the picture with Paige and Zahra, they thought it was just a piece of wood. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  Katia’s head spun with new thoughts. Marco was trying to say something with his pictures. What? Her eyes flew open. The pictures. They’re still on the table in the kitchen. Every part of her being reverberated with a new knowledge, a knowledge she understood had the power to change her life forever.

  She left Frankie where he was and headed back into the house. Katia felt her heart beat faster with each breath. Anger welled inside as she walked through the doorway. And then—Darkness.

  ****

  Richard watched through the lens on his phone as his daughter started to come to on the blood- and urine-stained mattress, her brother next to her, rocking, chanting. Most of his words were incoherent, but he made out a few: Slash. Fast. Katia. Bad.

  Richard wondered if they made sense inside the boy’s head.

  Nothing was going according to plan, and Richard hated when things didn’t go according to plan. It made him itch, literally itch, inside and out. Today, more than any other time since the day on the beach when he took control of his own life by taking the life of his aunt, he itched.

  He looked first at the screen where Katia tried to make sense of what was happening and then to his arms where he had dug long lines of skin from their place between hand and elbow. The pain from digging deep felt good. It helped him focus. He never dug where people could see. Today it didn’t matter.

  “I’m sorry, son,” Richard said, looking back to the screen. “I’ll fix it. I will.” He scratched the corner of his eye with his fingernail, where tears threatened to congregate. Not on my fucking watch. He scratched deeper. No time for weakness. Fix it, Richard. Don’t let them win.

  Marco was there because of Katia, because of Paige and Zahra and Elizabeth, because of Gina, because of the stupid little dog that somehow picked up Marco’s scent through layers of soundproofing and concrete, and ultimately because of his aunt, the woman who had started all of this when he was a child.

  Don’t think about Marco right now. Marco will be okay. Get rid of Katia. Eradicate the cancer. Fix it. Until today, Richard thought the answer was to get Marco into a home where his needs could be met, where he would be monitored at all times, and where he wouldn’t be able to tell Katia what he had seen.

  Modern technology. Dr. Callum Abney. Katia.

  His head was pounding. Nothing was right.

  Fix it, Richard. Don’t let them win.

  Katia and Dr. Abney wanted to try a word-making device. He had vetoed it. If God had wanted him to talk, God would have given him the ability to form coherent sentences.

  He and Katia had fought hard over that. I’m the father. This is my house.

  Richard looked at the screen and moved his gaze to Katia. He talked to her picture on the screen. “Why did you have to love him too hard? Why did you have to find the pictures?”

  Katia attempted to sit up. She shook her head from side to side as if trying to shake the drug from her system.

  “Why did you bring the disgusting mutt into our home? We had everything we needed. If you had made a better choice, you would be helping me look for Marco. We would have grown closer. Instead, you ruined it.”

  Richard hated dogs, hated all animals, actually. When he saw Katia come through the door after her run, that thing in her arms, he almost went off. Almost. It was obvious it didn’t belong to Paige. That was another lie. But he had to keep it together; the next minutes, hours, days, were crucial to his plan.

  His gaze moved away from Katia and back to Marco. Don’t be afraid, son. Richard thought about Marco in front of the television set when he came downstairs, sitting in wha
t he knew was the exact spot his sister had left him. The idea was to eat one of the cinnamon rolls he knew would be sitting on a plate on the stove. She never made cinnamon rolls without making enough for her papi.

  When he turned the corner from the hallway to the kitchen, his mind created a scene that was almost unbearable. He saw her there. His Rosario, teaching their daughter to sprinkle the cinnamon just so, the brown dust on their matching, white-and-pink aprons growing darker with each shake of Katia’s hand. He heard Rosario’s laughter. It was deep and real. When they cooked, Rosario’s eyes sparkled with love for her daughter. He heard Katia’s young voice. “Is that enough, Mami? Did I do it good?”

  “Well, chiquita. Did you do it well? Yes.” He watched his beautiful wife touch their daughter’s chin and lift her face toward her own. “You did it well.”

  Her hand on Katia’s chin. The look between them. It made him shiver, even now, after living without his wife, and without his aunt, for so many years.

  This is your fault, Auntie. Richard remembered the feel of his aunt’s fingers on his face, the feel of his hand on the knife as it slashed through her slick skin.

  Rosario and Katia vanished as he reached the stove. The rolls were exactly where he knew they would be. He picked up the plate in one hand and a cinnamon roll in the other. Half of the first roll was gone before he reached the table.

  “What the…” He looked at the pictures scattered across the flat surface. He glanced at Marco, oblivious to everything except the seventies cartoon characters on the screen, and then back at the table. “Why? Why couldn’t you have left well enough alone, Katia? What have you done?” His voice was low, not meant for anyone. He put the plate on the table, the cinnamon rolls and the past that held a wife and little girl now gone.