Dr. Blankenship took a deep breath before answering.
“They died, that's what happened to them; they died.”
Chapter 33
“I'm not going to have to… you know, talk to anyone, am I?” Dunbar asked as Yasiv drove back to Happy Valley Trailer Park.
Yasiv glanced over at the blue sheet of paper in the man's hands. He could tell that Dunbar was nervous, but he also knew that he was driven to find Wayne Cravat.
“I dunno, I've never been to one of these things, but if the movies are accurate, you won’t have to say anything if you don't want to.”
Dunbar made a face.
“What do you expect me to get from this meeting, anyway?”
Again, Yasiv shrugged.
“I have no idea—probably nothing. Maybe we’ll get lucky, though, and someone will mention something about Wayne, about the fact that he hasn’t shown up in a while.”
It was a stretch, but it was also worth a shot. Worst case scenario was that Dunbar got some insight into his own problems.
This time, Yasiv didn’t stop outside Wayne’s trailer and headed to the main office instead. He did, however, glance over at the man’s home as he passed. The lights were off, and there was no indication that anyone had been there since Brent Hopper. By all accounts, Wayne had just packed up and left.
The problem with that was that the man worked a minimum wage job at a meatpacking factory. And given his past, it wasn't like Wayne had boatloads of money stashed away and could just take off to an exotic island. The man was pretty much homebound, which meant that either he’d become a nomad or someone was taking justice into their own hands.
This last thought made him glance over at Dunbar again.
This is going to blow up in my face, Yasiv thought. You shouldn’t get Dunbar involved in this.
But he really didn't have anybody else he could trust, anyone good at their job, anyway.
Yasiv pulled up in front of the trailer marked with a peeling sign that read ‘FRONT OFFICE’ and got out of the car.
He knocked once on the plastic door before a gravelly voice hollered for him to enter.
The haze of cigarette smoke inside the office was so thick, that Yasiv had to wave his hand in front of his face in order to see anything. Through the haze, he spotted a woman sitting behind a desk with a face like an antique leather recliner and hair like loose stitching. She had glasses on the end of her nose, and a string of cracked beads that ran from the arms around the back of her neck.
“No vacancy,” she grumbled.
Yasiv pulled his badge from his belt and held it out to her.
“I said no vacancy,” the woman repeated without looking up.
“We’re not looking for a trailer, ma'am,” he said as politely as possible. The woman sneered but couldn’t quite pull off the expression given the paucity of teeth in her mouth.
“What you want?”
“I just have a couple of questions about one of your tenants. It seems that he missed his parole visit earlier in the week.”
“I don't know nothin’ about that,” the woman replied instantly.
Yasiv tried to stem his frustration. The lack of trust for the police in Wayne’s small social circle was becoming a common refrain.
“We’re looking for Wayne Cravat.”
The woman shook her head.
“Look, we just want to know if you’ve seen him, that's it,” Dunbar spoke up.
Normally, Yasiv would've preferred to do the talking, but this time, he took a moment to look around while the manager or whatever she was turned her attention to Dunbar.
The place was an absolute sty, with beer cans scattered across the desk and floor. There was a small kitchen in the back, but the dishes were piled so high, that Yasiv couldn’t even see the countertop.
His eyes wandered until they fell on a bulletin board, not unlike the one back at that church. Most of it was covered in crap, but there were two items of note: a blue sheet identical to the one that he’d taken from the church, while the second was a photograph. The photo appeared to have been taken during a Fourth of July ceremony, given by the fireworks in the distance, and the giant American flag in the background. There were maybe a dozen people in the photo, including the peach in front of them now.
Yasiv squinted.
“Huh.”
Wayne Cravat was also in the photo, as was Winston Trent. The latter had his arm around Wayne's shoulder, but the gesture didn't appear friendly. If anything, it looked restrictive.
Yasiv subtly nudged Dunbar and pointed at the photo.
“You guys have a big Fourth of July party here?” he asked.
“The biggest party we got.”
“What about security cameras? Do you have any security cameras set up around the trailer park?”
The woman’s surly expression became intractable.
“This look like the Ritz to you?”
“No, can’t say that it does. All right, thank you so much for your help.” Yasiv turned to leave when something occurred to him. “One more thing… you said you had no vacancy?”
“That's right, we ain’t got no trailers available.”
Yasiv thought about this for a moment. Winston Trent had committed suicide more than three months ago.
“What about Trent’s trailer? Is that free?”
Again, the woman shook her head.
“No, Winston Trent and Wayne Cravat’s trailers are paid up to the end of the year.”
Yasiv shot Dunbar a look.
“By who?” he asked.
“Y’all gonna need a warrant for that,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Yeah, sure, thanks again.”
Yasiv left the trailer and lit up a smoke.
“You think that’s strange? A couple of ex-cons paid up for their rental until the end of the year?” he asked as he made his way to the car.
“I don’t get the impression that these brainiacs are master investors. What are you thinking?”
Yasiv shrugged.
“What am I thinking? I’m thinking that someone paid their rent for them, that’s what I’m thinking.”
Yasiv pictured the photograph of the two men at the Fourth of July festival, Winston Trent squeezing Wayne tightly as if he didn’t want to let the man go.
“Why the fuck would someone do that?”
“To keep them quiet, that's why. To make sure that Winston Trent and Wayne Cravat keep their mouths shut.”
PART III – The Worst Vacation Ever
Chapter 34
“I still have the scars on my back from where my father whipped me. And that was nearly thirty-five years ago. Some of them have faded, but the memories of those days will never go away.”
Dunbar folded his hands neatly on his lap as he stared at the man who was speaking. There were ten of them in total, all arranged in a semicircle and seated on plastic chairs that one might expect to find in an elementary school. The man leading the group, thankfully not the priest that he and Yasiv had met earlier, claimed to have been abused in multiple orphanages throughout his adolescence, and now devoted his life to two things: The Lord and helping others.
In Dunbar's opinion, all he really did was sit there and listen. But that's really all they did. The leader, who had introduced himself as Franklin—not Frank—went around the room and asked if anybody wanted to ‘share.’ The man speaking now, a man who looked like he'd seen better days, was the first.
Dunbar wasn't sure what he was supposed to get out of this, but he waited until the man finished and then clapped along with everybody else. The next person to speak told them about how he’d made a horrible mistake and had ended up injuring a young boy and his mother. The man didn’t explicitly say so, but Dunbar knew that it had been a drunk driving incident.
When he was done, they all clapped again.
“And now, I see that you’re new to the group, would you care to introduce yourself?” Franklin asked.
It t
ook Dunbar several seconds to realize that the man was speaking to him. He brought a hand to his chest.
“No, no, I, uhh, I think that I'm just going to listen this time,” he replied awkwardly.
Franklin nodded.
“That's perfectly all right. Perhaps you could just give us your name? If you don't feel comfortable giving your actual name, you can make one up. This is a judgment-free zone.”
“Dun—” at the last second, Dunbar decided against using his real name. “Toby. My name is Toby.”
The man smiled warmly.
“Thank you, Toby. Hopefully, when the time comes, you’ll feel like sharing, too.” Franklin turned to the man next to Dunbar. “Tommy? Is there anything you’d like to share?”
This went on for the better part of forty minutes, and to Dunbar’s surprise, what had begun as a mandatory exercise, actually became something of merit. The people in the room had an array of issues, ranging from serious to benign, but they all had one thing in common: they were all hurting.
And so was Dunbar.
He’d expected that finally opening up to someone about what had happened more than two decades ago would be liberating, but it wasn’t. It was like opening an old wound. And yet, he felt compelled to do it again.
After the first round of confessions, the group broke for a coffee break. Dunbar decided to take this opportunity and try to actually do some work, to make some progress in finding Wayne Cravat.
“Hi,” Dunbar said as he sidled up next to Franklin. The man was alone; almost everyone else had wandered outside for a smoke.
“Hi, Toby.”
“Hey, I, uhh, I just had a question, for you.”
The man turned to look at him, stirring the cream in his coffee almost hypnotically.
“I suspected that you might.”
The comment caught Dunbar by surprise.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re a police officer, right?”
Another surprise.
“It's that obvious?”
Franklin’s smile never faltered.
“Yeah, it is. But I think you also belong here.” He took the stir stick out of his coffee and sucked the end. “But hey, what do I know?”
Dunbar shrugged this off. He took the mugshot photo of Wayne Cravat out of his pocket and showed it to Franklin.
“Do you know this man?”
“Of course, that's Wayne.”
“He used his real name?” Dunbar asked, genuinely surprised.
Franklin shrugged.
“If his real name is Wayne, then sure. Not everyone is hiding from something, Toby.”
No, not everyone; but most definitely Wayne Cravat is.
“And when’s the last time you saw him?”
“Oh, about a week ago. I expected him here on Monday—he’s always here on Mondays—but he didn’t show. I’m guessing that's why you're here.”
Dunbar nodded.
“Yeah, I’m looking for him. Any idea where he might be?”
Franklin looked off to one side.
“Wayne’s story is a sad one. He’s been through a lot in his life, made some mistakes, to be sure. But he’s been painted with a brush that I don’t think he deserves. You know, people come here to talk about their mistakes, but often it's the people out there, people like you, who need to talk. To forgive.”
Dunbar tried his best not to lash out.
Forgive? The man needs to be forgiven for what he did to Will Kingston? Does Mr. Dennis deserve forgiveness for ruining Toby’s life?
I think not.
“You know where he is?” Dunbar asked harshly. “Where he likes to hang out?”
“Well, not where, but with whom; Wayne used to hang out with that Winston guy before…” Franklin shook his head. “He used to hang out with Winston and the other man.”
Dunbar had seen the photograph of Wayne and Winston at the Fourth of July celebration, but this mention of another man was new.
“You know this other guy’s name?”
Franklin snapped his fingers several times as he racked his brain.
“Ah, I think his name was Brad or Brandon or something like that. But, I mean, people use aliases here all the time. The only reason I know that Winston is the other guy’s real name is because I saw him on the news. I encourage people to use whatever name they want. Sometimes it helps them open up, pretending to be someone else, speaking in the third person, that sort of thing.”
Dunbar quickly pulled his phone from his pocket and scrolled to his photos, eventually pulling one up of the man they’d nabbed outside Wayne Cravat's trailer.
“Is this him? Is this the other guy that Wayne hung out with?”
Franklin cocked his head.
“Yeah, that's him.”
Dunbar cursed under his breath and slipped the phone back into his pocket.
“Thanks,” he said. “I appreciate your help.”
With that, Dunbar turned to leave, before the man's voice drew him back.
“Toby?”
“Yeah?”
“If you ever want to talk about anything, you can come back, okay?”
Dunbar frowned.
Not likely, bud.
“Okay, sure. I’ll do that.”
Chapter 35
“Okay, okay, I'll do the damn test. But you’re not staying, Suzan. There’s no way I’m letting you watch me bend over and cough… some things just can’t be unseen.”
Suzan blinked.
“This better not be another trick.”
Beckett crossed himself.
“Scout’s honor. Go on back to the Airbnb and I’ll join you when I’m done here. It’s a waste of time anyway.”
It took a little more encouragement, but eventually, Suzan reached down and kissed him on the cheek. Then she warned him again that this better not be some sort of lie and left.
“All right, Mr. Campbell—excuse me Dr. Campbell—we’re going to start with a chest X-ray, followed by an MRI of your brain. Depending on the results, we may also administer a stress test.”
Beckett nodded enthusiastically.
“Sure thing. Can I just go relief myself first? I gotta take the Browns to the Super Bowl if you know what I mean.”
“Of course—that’s fine. It’ll take a bit to prepare everything, anyway.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
The moment the doctor left, Beckett pulled the IV out of his hand a second time, and then quickly got dressed. He opened the door to his room a crack, then peered out. Dr. Blankenship was speaking to a nurse at the nurse’s station and pointing in the direction of his room. Beckett leaned back inside, counted to ten, then quickly darted out, closing the door silently behind him. He walked briskly in the opposite direction of the nurse’s station, heading straight for a door marked Employees Only. The thing about hospitals was that there were plenty of plainclothes doctors wandering the halls. So long as you moved with authority and looked like you knew where you were going, no one really noticed you.
Which is exactly what Beckett did.
He passed through the swinging doors marked Employees Only and found himself in another hallway. It took him less than three seconds to locate the storage locker.
“Perfect,” he whispered, a smile on his face.
Inside, he found a brand-new lab coat, still in the packaging. He tore the plastic off and then slipped it on over his T-shirt. There were a handful of stethoscopes on the wire shelf as well, but he decided to leave these where they lay. This wasn’t an episode of Grey's Anatomy, after all; nobody walked around with those things dangling around their necks. Unless they were a giant douchebag, that is. Beckett was about to leave when he noticed a box on the floor with Dr. Blankenship’s name scrawled across the side. Curious, he dropped to a knee and pulled the cardboard tab back.
“Even perfecter.”
Inside, there were a dozen unopened buccal swab kits. He shoved a handful into the pocket of his lab coat and then left the equipment locker.
<
br /> Beckett could’ve just walked out of the hospital then, but it would be a shame putting his most excellent disguise to waste. Something that Dr. Blankenship had said was still bothering him; there was just no way that this small town could have two people with Werner Syndrome and two with CJD. Especially people who weren’t related. It just wasn’t possible.
As he made his way back to the civilian corridor, he passed an attractive-looking nurse with her head down.
“Excuse me? Excuse me?” Beckett said softly.
The woman looked up, but when she didn't recognize him, her pretty face twisted into a frown.
“Can I help you?”
Beckett scratched his head.
“I’m sorry… I, uh, I don’t mean to bother you, but I’m a resident from New York doing a rotation here, but I can’t get into the computer system. I’ve been doing double shifts and, for the life of me, I can’t recall my password. Is there any way—is there any way that you might be able to help me out?”
“You're on rotation here with Dr. Blankenship?” the nurse asked.
Beckett cringed.
“Yeah, but he’s gonna be pissed if I go to him. He’s just so busy with the Reverend, you know? All these genetic cases… I just need to nab a patient history. Can you help me out?” When it looked like the nurse was about to break, Beckett pressed his palms together. “Please?”
The nurse chuckled.
Oh, Beckett, you sly dog you; nobody can resist your charm. Nobody.
“Okay, sure, but let’s be quick; I just saw Dr. Blankenship wandering the halls.”
The nurse led him in the opposite direction, eventually stopping in front of a computer terminal out in the open.
Ah, you gotta love rural hospitals.
“You can use my login,” she said as she started to type. Beckett peered over her shoulder and made note of both her credentials and her password—just in case. “You only need patient information, right?”
Beckett had hoped to score some Vicodin in case his headache returned, but he’d settle for patient data.
“Yeah, three patients; it’s for a research project we’re working on. You’ve probably heard of them.” He listed off the names from the folder that the Reverend had shown him at dinner.
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