The Stonefly Series, Book 1

by Scott J. Holliday

  Jake got out and led her around to the passenger side door of his truck. She got in without a word. He went back around and hopped into the cab. She looked forward through the windshield. He had expected a crying jag or a hysterical rant, but she was stoic.

  "I'm deaf," Jake said. "If you say anything, I'll need you to look at me so I can read your lips."

  She turned to him. "You're him, aren't you?"

  "Him?"

  "The deaf boy from Dover."

  "That's not important right now," Jake said. "Are you okay?"

  She shook her head. "I was looking for my son."

  "Then we have something in common."

  "The police have already come."

  "They didn't take you to a hospital?"

  "I refused. I couldn't leave Frankie out here alone."

  They drove in silence. Jake didn't look at her again and didn't want to. Her pain was too familiar. It made him think of Lori, battered and alone in his shop on the day he found her. He was put in mind of the night he copied her ex-boyfriend's number from her phone, took it to Sergeant Dan, and got the bastard's address. Mom didn't know about that one. A little secret between the boys. No bullshit tattoo client story that time. Jake told Dan he met a girl, told him she had a black eye. Dan gave him the address.

  'Keller,' the guy had called Jake once he was confronted. A reference to the blind and deaf Helen Keller. "Step off or get hurt, Keller."

  Now Jake thought about how good it felt to knock that bastard on his back and tell him to stay away, to see the fear and confusion in his eyes. Darnell Collins was about to experience the same fear, the same confusion.

  He felt a tap on his shoulder, turned to Mrs. Collins.

  "I'm worried that Darnell found Frankie."

  Jake's foot came off the gas pedal. The truck coasted to a stop.

  "He said the little girl asked for a friend. Someone to keep her company. You know, the little girl the cops said Darnell took?"

  If Darnell was bringing her a friend, Keisha Jackson was likely still alive.

  Mrs. Collins jaw quivered. "I didn't want to believe them. I didn't think Darnell had it in him."

  Jake pulled a U-turn and started back toward the main road.

  They drove to Darnell Collins's hunting blind.

  42

  "I have to go out there," Jake said.

  He and Mrs. Collins were sitting in Jake's truck, parked next to the unmarked sedan that Sergeant MacDonald and Detective Harris had been driving. Up ahead was Darnell's truck.

  Jake reached behind the passenger seat to find his duffel bag. He pulled out his Glock and laid it on his thigh.

  "You don't recognize me," Mrs. Collins said, "do you?"

  Jake searched her battered face and his memory banks at the same time. She had seemed familiar since the first time he'd seen her outside her home, pounding a wooden spoon into the ground, but he couldn't place her.

  "My last name's not Collins," she said. "It's Rose. I knew you looked familiar, too. I remember you from Dover. You were Early's friend."

  Jake's guts felt like they'd just been sucked into gears. He'd thought he'd recognized her look of pain. He'd associated it with Lori. But that was wrong. Now he recognized her chin, her jawline, and that hollow between her collar bone and neck. All that was missing was the Mets hat. He stopped breathing and cringed, ready to close his eyes and not read what she might say next.

  She smiled as best she could through a brutalized face. "Jenna."

  Jake considered that first time she'd arrived at Dover, impossibly pregnant. It didn't take a genius to calculate that was about ten years ago, and that Frankie was now about ten years old.

  He turned away from her and looked out the driver's side window. Between the trees he could see bits of his horizon peeking through. It was almost upon him now.

  The semantics are important.

  He handed Jenna his phone. "Call the police. Ask for Detective Showalter. See if he can contact Detective MacDonald or Harris. If not, send the cavalry."

  He got out of the truck and surveyed the scene, searching for movement while gripping his weapon with both hands. It occurred to him that four days ago he was fly-fishing and enjoying a relaxing afternoon, now he was tracking a murdering kidnapper through a forest. He breathed in heavily through his nose, hoping for the scent of a clue, maybe burnt cordite or blood. He only got the scents of pine and leaves.

  Jake checked the unmarked sedan first. Empty. He approached Collins's truck from behind, quickly skirting the tailgate to the driver's side window, weapon aimed.

  No one.

  He moved down the now-familiar trail toward the hunting blind. He stayed low and slow, weapon ready. When he neared the blind he stopped. Perched atop the sugar beet pile there was a foot, the leg stretching toward a prone body.

  The quickening awakened. Jake's pulse picked up. His hands clenched tighter on the Glock's grip. The trigger minimally resisted his finger pressure. He moved forward to the edge of the clearing, aiming his gun up toward the tree stand, feeling like he should shoot first, ask questions last.

  No one there.

  Detective Harris was lying face up near the sugar beets. There were two aluminum arrows in his head. One through the back of his hand like he was saying 'oh my' with a palm slapped against his bloody cheek, the other in his temple. Blood soaked the soil and leaves around him.

  Jake approached slowly, knelt down, and checked for a heartbeat. The detective's skin was cold. No, not cold, but how else to describe skin that feels something other than alive? He felt like a doll.

  The arrows did not have a downward angle, like they would had they been released from above. Jake's guess was that MacDonald and Harris had been watchful of the tree stand, just like he had, but Darnell Collins must have been waiting for them on the ground.

  In the movies they always close dead people's eyes, but Jake couldn't bring himself to do it. He thought if Detective Harris was still in there somewhere, he might be enjoying his final view of the sky.

  Jake found the animal trail that led toward the shack. He moved carefully along until he came to Sergeant MacDonald's body. He was lying face flat in the weeds with an arrow through his upper chest and out his back. His face was turned toward Jake, his eyes closed.

  Jake touched Sergeant MacDonald's hand, expecting that same cold skin as Harris, but he was warm. He opened his eyes.

  MacDonald brought a finger up and mouthed shhh.

  Jake focused on his lips.

  "He's still out there," MacDonald said.

  "Collins?"

  The sergeant nodded. "I got off a few shots. Pretty sure he's wounded, possibly dead. What's that you got there?" He nodded at Jake's handgun.

  "Glock."

  "Good. Don't be afraid to use it, son. I got no strength to move and I can't feel my legs. Be careful. Just follow their voices... oh God, you can't hear them, can you?"

  An indescribable fear swelled up inside Jake. Their voices? No, he couldn't hear them. "Hear who?"

  "The girl and a boy," MacDonald said. "They're close by, calling for help. They're saying, 'We're down here.'"

  Jake's mind's eye saw the plywood circles above the outhouse holes. An ice-water chill came to his body. Had Keisha Jackson been crying for help the first time he was there, only he never heard her? Had she heard his footsteps in that shack? Had she hoped he was her savior, only to hear him walk away?

  "Go now, Jacob," MacDonald said.

  Jake moved toward the shack, staying low. He imagined Frankie and Keisha Jackson down in those infested holes, dirty and looking up to darkness. Their imagined cries hit his chest like buckshot.

  He came to the shack and looked out across the pond. There was a hulking figure in a camouflage suit at the end of the dock. Jake moved closer, eyes on the man—undoubtedly Collins. Jake kept his gun at arm's length. He stepped on to the dock, ready to fire. His hands quaked. He gritted his teeth and made himself still. He moved closer, halfway down the dock
now. The back of the ghillie suit was soaked in mud and blood. An exit wound under his right shoulder blade. There was a line of twine around the man's head, seemingly holding a mask on his face.

  Jake inched closer, wary of sudden movement. The man's shoulders heaved slowly. Still breathing. Behind him on the dock was his hunting bow—a high-powered compound model with a quiver attached. Two arrows left.

  When Jake reached the bow he kicked it into the water.

  The sound made the man move.

  Slowly he turned to Jake, revealing an older man's facemask—the skin tanned and leathered, the eyes cut out. The lower half of the mask has been torn away, presumably by one of Sergeant Dan's bullets as it passed Collins's face and ripped a bloody ditch across his cheek. The false mouth hung loosely from one side while Collins's real lips were set in a grim line.

  Collins slowly brought up his machete.

  Jake placed his gun to Collins's temple. "Don't."

  Darnell Collins looked up at Jake from within the mask, his eyes set deep inside, black and blank. They didn't shrink against the sunlight that touched them. He said, "Can you hear them?"

  "No."

  Collins reared back the machete.

  Jake squeezed the trigger.

  43

  On the shack wall there was a claw hammer hanging from two nails, DC carved into the wooden handle. Jake used it to pry up one of the plywood circles. The stench was overpowering. He looked down to find two sets of eyes staring up at him. The kids were hugging each other and shivering among the black tree roots and old shit.

  Jake reached down and pulled them up, one at a time. They were scared, but okay. He had them stand before him while he explained that he would walk them out to Sergeant MacDonald in a moment but needed Frankie to help with something first.

  They nodded their agreement, still clinging to each other and shivering.

  It felt selfish to put Frankie through something like this so quickly after helping him from that hole, even more selfish to keep Keisha Jackson waiting, but Jake needed to know.

  And even if he didn't understand why, Frankie needed to see.

  He walked Frankie halfway down the dock and stopped.

  When he'd shot him, Collins had lurched forward from the impact and then fell back. The machete was gone, likely in the water. His body was sprawled on the dock now, hands out at his sides, feet dangling over the edge. A pool of blood had seeped away from his head and was dripping between the dock boards. What remained of the mask had been blown off. Most of his face had been removed by the bullet passing through, but he was still recognizable.

  Jake knelt to Frankie's height and looked into his eyes. "Do you see that man there?"

  Frankie looked at the body. "That's my stepdad, Darnell. He ain't sleeping, is he?"

  "No," Jake said. "He's dead."

  Frankie nodded. "He was a bad man."

  Jake felt no release. If anything, the quickening doubled down at Frankie's words. His horizon seemed to gather closer. Within a day it would force him out of Wixom.

  "Your father," Jake said. "Early Jenkins?"

  Frankie nodded.

  "He's a good man, eh?"

  "He is."

  The woods lit up. Jake turned to see several policemen moving through the trees toward them.

  * * *

  There were officers and ambulances at the dead end of Bayonet Road. Controlled chaos. Detective Harris was in a body bag. Sergeant MacDonald was on a gurney. The arrowed had clipped his spine. It was unlikely he'd walk again. Jenna Rose was hugging Frankie and wouldn't let her boy go. Keisha Jackson sat on the back of an ambulance while three different technicians tended to her. The Detroit Police cap was out of the evidence bag and back on her head.

  Jake had been interviewed by multiple officers. Each one asking the same questions. Where did he get the gun? How did he know to come out here? Why had he been following Darnell Collins? In the middle of one such session the officer abruptly stopped. He looked back over his shoulder in a way that told Jake someone had called to him.

  Across the scene, Jake saw Sergeant MacDonald was lying on his side in his gurney at the mouth of an ambulance. They had yet to remove the arrow from his chest, but they cut the protruding piece down to a manageable size. Two police officers were around him, plus two paramedics. One of the cops signaled for the officer questioning Jake to come join them.

  Jake watched Sergeant MacDonald as the officer left. He'd lost a lot of blood and was clearly in shock, but he managed a nod, presumably letting Jake know he was going to be okay on this thing.

  Jake went to his truck, reached inside, and opened his duffel bag. One Powerbar. He ate it. He needed the energy. For most of these people the event was nearly over; Ghost Mother was dead and the children were safe, but Jake was just getting started.

  An officer approached as Jake crumpled up the bar's wrapper and threw it in the cab.

  "Sergeant says you did a good job out there," the officer said. "We can't let you keep the gun, but we're going to look the other way on illegal possession of a firearm. Fair's fair on that count, yes?"

  Jake nodded.

  "Okay then. You're free to go. We'll need to take formal statements from everyone once the dust settles and we get the sarge patched up. Poor bastard. Wheelchair for him now." He handed Jake back his license along with a police business card. "Come to the first precinct sometime in the next few days. We'll get your statement processed."

  Jake nodded again and the officer left.

  The crowd was beginning to disperse. Sergeant MacDonald was loaded into the ambulance. Detective Harris's ambulance had already been taken away, driven off slowly and with no lights flashing. Keisha Jackson was cleaned up. She looked shaken, but Jake felt she'd be okay. In the shack he'd had the opportunity to ask what Collins did to her, but he told myself it was information he didn't need to know. Darnell Collins was dead, and there'd be no trial at which the girl would be required to testify, so maybe it was information no one needed to know.

  They were cleaning up Frankie Collins now. Check that, Frankie Jenkins. His mother hovered like a moth as the techs worked on her boy. She made bad decisions about men, true, but she seemed like a decent mother, even if she chased the boy out of the house with a wooden spoon.

  Jake smirked, recalling his mother chasing him with a wooden spoon a few times back in the day. He guessed if your mother doesn't chase you with a spoon now and again she probably doesn't care.

  The techs would be done with Frankie soon. Jake guessed they would put him and Keisha together in an ambulance and take them to the hospital. Jenna would surely ride with them.

  Then the police would swarm on the Collins house.

  Jake hopped into his truck. He was reaching toward the ignition when a sparrow flew in through the open window. It landed on the dashboard and turned an eye to him with a bird's jerky movements.

  Chavez's voice came to Jake's mind.

  "The detective paid with his life."

  Jake nodded.

  "Your sergeant will never walk again."

  "No."

  The bird lifted its beak as if to look down its nose at Jake. "Will you concede an ability?"

  "Yes."

  "Then proceed."

  "I wish Detective Sergeant Dan MacDonald of the Detroit Police would be able to walk again."

  The sparrow flew out the window. It flapped over to the ambulance where Sergeant Dan had been loaded. The doors were still open as the paramedics were sorting everything out. The sparrow flew in.

  A moment later, it flew back out.

  44

  Evening descended as Jake drove down Clichon Avenue to the Collins home. For a moment his headlights lit up the small, colorful house. It looked like an abandoned carnival attraction. He could again smell motor oil and decay. All the machines in the graveyard stood watch. The front door was left open.

  Jake got out, went to the door, pulled back the screen, and stepped inside. He imagined the springy-slap
sound it probably made as it closed behind him.

  He moved through the foyer, through the destroyed kitchen, and down the small hallway with the spongy floorboards flexing beneath his feet. The door at the end of the hall had a piece of paper taped to it. Had to be Frankie's room. Jake moved closer and saw that the paper showed a crude crayon drawing of a green monster dressed as a school safety.

  Frankie's Room! Stop!!!

  Jake disobeyed the monster and went inside.

  Frankie's room was about as messy as any ten-year-old kid's room should be. Action figures looked down from overcrowded shelves, Spider-man PJs dangled from bedposts, bright orange suction darts were stuck to the window.

  And then there was his little desk. It was immaculate. The chair was tucked into the desk and perfectly straight. All the drawers were closed. The wood wasn't riddled with scratch-and-sniff stickers or permanent marker. In some places the veneer had been taped back down to keep the desk from coming apart.

  At center stage on the desk was Frankie's fly tying kit. A small vice stuck straight up from a wooden base. It held a steel fishhook in its metal grip. The hook was halfway wound with dark thread. Jake recognized the beginning of a stonefly, just like those the boy had left on the hood of his truck. In a ceramic bowl, just off to the side, there was a dozen more flies, all halfway done and discarded. Not good enough.

  The boy's tools were all settled in what appeared to be familiar places. They looked surgical. Some were brass, some stainless steel. A hodge-podge collection of the best tools from various kits. Scissors, hackle pliers, a whip finisher, and some others Jake didn't recognize. It seemed the boy had invented them on his own.

  Jake opened the top desk drawer to find Frankie's materials. There were feathers and beads, hooks and thread. All of varying colors. Everything in its place.

  He opened the bottom desk drawer to find a stack of letters. The top letter was loose while the rest were tied together with twine. Jake picked up the loose letter. It was ripped open carelessly, leaving a ragged top. The return address was printed in blue ink.