by J. D. Barker
She slid back toward me, back to the spot she had been. “You wish me to stay?”
“Yes.”
The corner of her mouth turned up slightly. “Good.”
She slid off the bench and started toward Ms. Oliver, toward the closest SUV. The old woman pointed back at the bench. “Don’t forget your flowers, Ms. Nettleton.”
“I don’t want them.”
“A boy gives you flowers, and you mustn’t ever leave them behind. They are to be received and cherished. The giving of life is precious and should never be taken for granted,” Ms. Oliver replied. “Pick them up.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Pick them up, Stella.”
Stella stood there for the longest time, glaring at Ms. Oliver. Ms. Oliver’s gaze did not falter. A silent conversation passed between them. Ms. Oliver raised a hand and pointed back at the bench. “Pick them up.”
Stella turned then and returned to the bench, her large brown eyes on mine as she reached for the asters beside me. Her fingers took hold of the bouquet, wrapping around the stems, and she picked them up and brought them to her side. As she turned, as she started back toward the SUV, toward the watchful eyes of Ms. Oliver, the white petals of the asters shriveled and curled in her hand, the yellow centers turned brown, the stems grew black. By the time Stella was halfway to the SUV, the flowers wilted and drooped, then dried to crumbling dust. The remains disappeared on the wind as Ms. Oliver opened the back door and ushered her inside. Not once did Stella look back at me.
They were gone a minute later.
I sat there, perfectly still, unsure of what I had just seen.
I didn’t hear the man come up from behind me.
A strong arm wrapped around my neck.
“The pressure you feel at the small of your back is a rather sharp knife. I strongly suggest you don’t struggle.”
The arm around my neck loosened only long enough for the hand at the end of it to come to my mouth and nose, a cloth. I smelled something sweet.
In the moment before I lost consciousness, my eyes drifted to the far corner of the bench, to the place Stella sat only minutes earlier, to the fresh words carved in the metal.
Help me
4
The dream.
Daddy fastened me into my car seat.
Chocolate milk.
Outside Auntie Jo’s apartment.
Daddy opened my door.
Daddy removed something from the seat beside me, gave it to Auntie Jo.
Something.
Unknown something.
Driving again.
White SUV in our path.
White SUV blocking the road.
Awful squeal of tires.
I woke in an alley.
When my eyes first opened, I didn’t know where I was.
My head ached. A throbbing pain behind both eyes wrapped around to the sides like a vice squeezing at my temples. I squinted at the dull, orange light seeping in from above. The sun was gone, the light came from a high-pressure sodium streetlight mounted to the brick wall of the building at my back. The light shown down toward the back corner, illuminating a Dumpster, some wooden crates, and discarded boxes. The light hummed like a thousand bees trapped within the glow.
I tried to stand, fell back down, my legs wobbly.
Something in my hand.
I brought my closed fist into the light and forced my fingers to uncoil, my body working on a delay. A small piece of paper sat at the center of my palm, folded into a tiny square.
I shook my head in an attempt to fight off the sleepiness and immediately regretted it, the headache intensifying.
With my free hand, I unfolded the paper.
In neat script, five words:
Your little girlfriend did this.
I had been in the cemetery with Stella. She left around seven.
Glancing up into the sky, between the buildings, there was nothing but black. This time of year, the sun set around 8:30 p.m. I had been out for at least an hour and a half, maybe more.
I remembered the voice at my ear then, the man’s voice from behind me, The pressure you feel at the small of your back is a rather sharp knife. I strongly suggest you don’t struggle.
This time, I did stand up. I shot to my feet and turned in both directions, looking first up, then down the opposite direction. I was alone.
The rest came back to me, fuzzy images slowly coming into focus. The cloth at my mouth, the world quickly fading away, the words carved into the bench—
Help me
Had I imagined that?
I looked back down at the note in my hand.
Your little girlfriend did this.
That’s when I saw the foot.
I hadn’t noticed it at first because it was tucked around the other side of the Dumpster, only the tip of a black loafer visible, just the toe.
Run, Jack.
My mind screamed at me.
Get out of here.
Instead, I crept toward that shoe. I shuffled slowly closer, deeper into the alley, toward the Dumpster.
I suppose I expected to find a bum, some drunk sleeping it off in this quiet spot rocked to bed by the sound of the sodium streetlight buzzing above as he found blissful slumber.
The body looked burned.
The skin all dry and black.
The hair on the top of the man’s head was a wiry white, brittle. Clumps had fallen off around his head, these tufts of hair twisted in the light breeze stirring the ground, fluttering on the filthy blacktop.
His eyes were open, what was left of them. Where his eyes should have been there were only dry, yellowish-white orbs sunken into his skull. He stared up at me blankly, his mouth slightly agape.
He looked old.
He looked older than any man I had ever seen. A thousand-year-old mummy missing his bandages.
The body looked burned, but oddly his clothing did not. He wore blue denim jeans, a Styx tee-shirt, and a Pittsburgh Pirates fleece jacket. The clothes were filthy but not burned, not like him, as if he had been dressed after whatever horrible fate had found him. Soaked in gasoline, lit aflame, and dressed when the last bit of fire finally ran out of food.
Your little girlfriend did this.
He smelled horrible.
I tried not to think about that.
I knelt down beside him.
In my comics, when a superhero (or a Ninja Turtle) found a body, the first thing they did was try to figure out who it was.
He probably had a wallet.
I didn’t want to touch him, I knew I shouldn’t, but that didn’t stop my fingers from reaching around to the back of his jeans in search of that wallet. It didn’t stop me from turning him over just enough to pull the wallet out.
His driver’s license said his name was Andy Flack from Bethel Park. He was thirty-three years old. He looked nothing like the photo.
Andy Flack coughed.
That’s when I ran.
I bolted from the alley and out the mouth, nearly slipping on some wet cardboard boxes stacked near the opening. It wasn’t until I was on the sidewalk that I realized I was across the street from Krendal’s Diner, less than a block away from home.
I raced down that sidewalk, pushing past the people blocking my path, jumping over the cracks and holes. Inside our building, I made quick work of the stairs, fumbled with our lock, and pushed inside, slamming the door behind me. I dropped to the floor in a wheezing and huffing mess, trying to draw in enough air. When I realized I had dropped the wallet, the note too, the real panic set in.
5
“Dude, that’s fucked up. You need to call the police,” Dunk said, his voice muffled through the telephone receiver. His dad fell asleep watching TV, and he didn’t want to wake him.
Although our phone was in the kitchen, the cord was about a mile long, and I had dragged it to the window so I could see what was going on. “They’re already there. There are four cop cars blocking the street, and they sealed off t
he alley with orange cones and yellow tape. There must be a hundred cops down there. An ambulance, too.”
“Dude. I’ll be right there,” Dunk said before hanging up.
Five minutes later, he stood at the window with me. “We should go up on the roof.”
“I’m not allowed on the roof. Besides, they’ll see us.”
“They can see us here.”
“Not with all the lights off.”
“I saw you.”
“Oh no, really?”
Dunk smiled. “Don’t worry, all your neighbors are at their windows, too. This is way better than L.A. Law. I can’t believe you dropped that stuff. You might as well have written your name on the wall right under Arrest Me. You are so dead.”
“Not helping.”
“If I were you, I’d drop to the floor right now and start doing push-ups, lifting weights, too. You need to bulk up. A scrawny little kid like you won’t last the night in the big house.”
“Still not helping.”
“I should have swiped my dad’s binoculars. He’s got this sweet pair he brought back from the war. I forget what kind, starts with an S. You can see for miles with those things.”
I let out a breath. “He was alive. I don’t know how, but he was alive.”
“Well, unless the paramedics are back there starting up a poker game with him, I don’t think he is now. How long has it been since they got here? Ten minutes?”
“Twenty-three.”
“He’s a stiff, all right.”
When the phone rang, I nearly fell out the window.
Dunk’s eyes went wide. “That’s the cops. They probably want to give you a chance to come out peacefully before they storm the building.”
“I don’t think they’d call first.”
I didn’t want to leave the window, but I did anyway. I answered the call on the third ring. Auntie Jo.
“Are you seeing this?”
“Yeah. Dunk is here. We’re watching out the window.”
“Can you tell what’s going on?”
“No,” I lied.
“We’re packed right now. The police keep coming in for coffee. We got a bunch of reporters here, too. One of the detectives told Krendal none of us can leave until they speak to each of us. It might be a few more hours. Krendal said if we’re stuck here, might as well stay open and make some money. We haven’t had an empty table in an hour, and there’s a line at the door. One reporter just gave me a twenty to seat him at the window. Sounds like someone was murdered across the street in that alley next to True Value.”
“A murder, really?” I repeated softly.
Dunk turned, mouthed the words, “Who is it?”
“Auntie Jo,” I said.
“What?” Auntie Jo said.
“Not you, sorry. Dunk asked who was on the phone.”
Krendal shouted something behind her. Auntie Jo’s hand went over the receiver as she replied, then she was back. “Probably best you’re not alone right now, so tell Dunk he can stay as long as he wants. I don’t want you leaving the apartment. And don’t answer the door. If someone comes to the door, you call me here and I’ll come home. If you can’t reach me, you call 911. You hear me?”
“Yes, Auntie Jo.”
“Gotta go.”
She hung up, and I replaced the receiver.
Dunk was back at the window. “They’re coming out!”
I ran back over and dropped down next to him.
The two paramedics were standing at either end of a stretcher. On that stretcher was a large plastic bag. It looked like an oversize Hefty trash bag.
“Whoa,” Dunk said softly. “There’s a body in there.”
“Andy Flack is in there.”
They lifted the stretcher over the curb and wheeled it to the awaiting ambulance. At the back, they collapsed the stretcher’s frame and lifted it inside. Five minutes later, one of the cop cars backed out of the way and the ambulance skirted past. We watched it disappear down Brownsville with red and blue lights flashing on top. No siren, though.
The police were there for three more hours.
Auntie Jo didn’t get home until nearly two in the morning.
Dunk crashed in a sleeping bag on my floor.
I didn’t sleep a wink.
We checked the newspaper in the morning, and there was no mention of a body found in the alley. Nothing appeared until the following day.
BODY FOUND IN BRENTWOOD ALLEY – POLICE BAFFLED
PITTSBURGH, PA – August 10, 1987: A horribly disfigured body was found in the late hours of Saturday in the alley located at 1825 Brownsville Road between True Value Hardware and Carmine’s Beer and Wine. The body, a male, has been identified as thirty-three-year-old Andrew Olin Flack of Bethel Park, an employed coal miner with Nowicki Mining and Excavation. He was last seen leaving work at 5:30 p.m. Friday, after retrieving his paycheck from the Nowicki offices located in West Mifflin. “He seemed in good spirits, ready for the weekend,” Gwenn Easler, Nowicki office manager said. “He told me he had nothing major planned and hoped to spend the next few days catching his breath and relaxing. He pulled two doubles this week and was beat. I can’t believe he’s gone. He was such a nice guy.” As of today, where he went next is unknown. Although he banks at First Bank of Mifflin, he did not cash his paycheck, nor did he return to his home located at 83 Monroe Road in Bethel Park. “At first glance, he appears horribly burned,” a representative from the Medical Examiner’s Office said. “But this is something else. The charred condition of the skin and exposed tissue is not congruent with the flash burn created by sudden exposure to flames or heat, nor does it match a slower incendiary situation such as a house fire or vehicle fire. I was unable to find a trace of any type of accelerant, although we have not ruled out use of an accelerant at this time. He was clearly redressed. His clothing has no burn marks whatsoever.” One of the officers on scene was overheard discussing the possibility of spontaneous combustion with a secondary officer. Neither was willing to go on the record. Local law enforcement, led by veteran homicide detective Faustino Brier, spent much of the day yesterday at the mine where Flack worked. Although Brier would not discuss the case, citing it as an open investigation, it appears PPD feels this may be a work-related accident. If Flack was, in fact, injured (or killed) in a mining accident in West Mifflin, why was his clothing changed? Who changed it? Why was his body moved to an alley nearly four miles away? If Flack was somehow burned in that alley, why were no signs of an accelerant found? All questions most likely on Detective Brier’s mind today.
The alley itself does not see much foot traffic and is used primarily for waste disposal by the surrounding businesses. Because of the relative isolation, it is a frequent resting place for the local homeless. Flack was discovered by forty-three year-old Orville Clemens, who planned to wait out the night in the quiet spot, unable to find a bed at a local shelter. “I thought he was just sleeping at first, then I got closer and realized something was wrong,” he said. He then used the payphone across the street to call 911, and authorities arrived shortly after.
UPDATE – We have since learned that an investigation of the Flack residence revealed a hidden stash of child pornography—magazines, images, and photographs as well as undergarments believed to belong to children, both male and female. Whether or not this paraphernalia is related to Flack’s death is unclear. Detective Brier was unavailable for comment.
“He was a piddler-diddler?” Dunk said, reading the newspaper from the seat across from me. We were at my booth at Krendal’s. The breakfast rush was dying down. Auntie Jo was still at home, sleeping. She didn’t start until lunch. I was supposed to help later.
“They didn’t say anything about the note.”
“That’s good, right? Maybe nobody found it. The wind might have picked it up and blown it halfway to Philly.”
“They’ll pull fingerprints from his wallet, that’s for sure.” I blew out a breath. “Why didn’t I put it back in his pocket? I’m an idi
ot.”
“You didn’t put his wallet back in his pocket because he was turning full-on zombie right in front of you, and you had to save yourself,” Dunk said. “When the cops come for you, you just tell them you found the body, thought he was dead, pulled his wallet to figure out who he was so you could tell police when you called like the good Sumerian you are.”
“Good Samaritan. Sumeria is an ancient civilization in Mesopotamia.”
“Whatever, Einstein.”
“I didn’t call the police, either. I ran. And he was alive when I ran.”
“You don’t tell them that part, dummy, only what I said. If they try to get more out of you, just start crying, that’s what I’d do. You’re a kid. Nobody wants to deal with a crying kid, play it up. We can only play the kid angle for a few more years, might as well use it.” Dunk sucked the last bit of his strawberry shake up through the straw with a loud slurp.
I glanced at the alley, visible across the street—a dark maw between the two adjoining buildings. “They took the tape down.”
Dunk slid his empty milkshake glass forward. “Yesterday, around lunchtime.”
“I can’t believe you sat out there all day.”
“There were about a dozen of us. I blended, needed to do recon. You couldn’t do it, being an accessory to the crime and all. Gotta stay on the down low, live in the underground. Oh, I almost forget, we gotta get you a fake ID for when you run. What’s your cash situation like? Did you get another envelope?”
“Yeah, another five hundred. It was sitting on my bed, like all the others.”
“Geez, how much is that now?”
“Sixty-five hundred. Thirteen envelopes all together.”
“Sixty-five hundred dollars?”
“Shhh!” I whispered, glancing at the people eating around us. Nobody heard him, though.