The Unclaimed Victim

by D. M. Pulley

  No. She didn’t.

  I’m always going to be your father.

  She pressed his photo to her chest and forced herself to breathe.

  A few moments later, Ben was back at her side with a vial and cotton swab. She let him scrape the insides of her cheeks, then watched him cap the sample and hand it off to the other officer. He turned back to her, wiping his hands on his trousers. “You hungry? You can’t have eaten much.”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, you can keep an old man company, can’t ya?”

  Ben led her out of the Auglaize County Sheriff’s Office and into the small parking lot. She didn’t notice she was still clutching the license against her shirt until they were halfway across the pavement. Her eyes darted back toward the interrogation room and the line of plastic bags. No. I’m not going back there. She slipped the thin piece of plastic into her pocket as Ben opened the passenger door to his sheriff’s department cruiser. If they ask, I’ll give it back. They’re the ones that gave it to me. I didn’t steal it. It still felt wrong, though.

  Kris had loved riding with Officer Ben when she was a girl. He used to let her turn on the sirens. Sitting there, she felt nine years old again. She hugged her knees to her chest and wished herself small. They left her rusted-out Jeep in the lot and headed down the street.

  Downtown Wapakoneta felt vacant compared to the streets of Cleveland as they headed east toward the Dixie Highway. The stores lining both sides of the street looked like a cardboard movie set—a contrived replica of small-town America. All the buildings had shrunk in the seven months she’d been away.

  Out the window, the roller rink and high school rushed by. The band was practicing on the football field. Their disjointed, brassy music drifted in and then out of her window.

  “How are things going at school?” Ben asked. She could hear him doing his best to keep his voice light.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered and pressed her forehead to her knees. A severed arm floated through a dark stream of thought. A tattoo blurred in the water.

  “Last I heard, you were thinking about transferring out to some art school?”

  Kris tried to blink the flashes of torn flesh and bone from her mind, wishing she could unsee the photos. “Um. Yeah. I guess I was. Dad doesn’t think it’s such a good idea,” she heard herself say.

  They call them starving artists for a reason, Kris. He’d laughed, and for a moment she could hear the sound of it. She squeezed the armrest and forced in a breath.

  “I’m sure he just wants what’s best for you.” Ben patted her knee again. “You got a good head on your shoulders. He always said that, you know.”

  Ben winced at the past tense. She winced too. He never said that. Not to me. They sat in silence for two traffic lights. The Lil’ Chef diner was up on the next block, but the thought of food made her sick. The acrid smell of piss and rotting leaves seemed to cling to her shirt. It was still inside out.

  “Ben?”

  He gave her a weak smile. “What can I do for you, kiddo?”

  “I want to go home.”

  CHAPTER 2

  The mailbox at the edge of the driveway was overflowing with envelopes. Ben stopped the car and pulled them all out and picked up a cardboard box sitting on the curb. Without a word, he threw them all onto the backseat and pulled the rest of the way up the gravel drive.

  Kris hadn’t been home since Christmas. The snow that had covered the yard in a clean blanket had melted away, exposing the overgrown grass and weeds underneath. Brown and yellow paint was peeling off the siding and the window frames in tiny strips. The whole place needed a shave.

  Ben stopped the cruiser in front of the windowless garage door. The low-slung ranch sat like a shoebox in a cornfield on the edge of the tiny nowhere village of Cridersville, Ohio. Kris got out of the car and forced her feet to the front door. Yellow crime scene tape stretched across it. Ben ripped it down, muttering, “I told ’em not to seal it, dammit! Sorry, Kritter. We had to come through this morning and check some things.”

  The front door stared blankly at her as she fumbled with her keys, fingers shaking.

  “I got it.” Ben pulled out his own key from a fat ring of them and turned the knob.

  Inside, the house stood perfectly still as though the life had been snuffed out of it. It felt wrong, like a poorly made diorama of her childhood home, like the right parts and pieces had been carefully arranged in the correct locations for her benefit. All the curtains were drawn. Her father always closed up the house before leaving on a trip. No sense giving the burglars a sneak preview, he’d say.

  She stepped past the entryway and was greeted by the unmistakable smell of her father left to his own devices. Stale cigars, day-old coffee, open beer cans, baked beans, barbecue, and gun oil.

  Ben opened the front curtains to let some light into the tomb. Three sets of antlers hung above a flannel couch that was as old as Kris. The 1970s wood paneling was sparsely decorated with swap-meet paintings of ducks and pheasants and hunting dogs.

  Dogs.

  Kris’s eyes shot to the empty bowls on the floor by the refrigerator then up to Ben. “Did they find Bogie and Gunner?”

  “Hmm? Oh, not yet, but they were pretty far from town. Don’t you worry about those mutts, Kritter. They’d go feral in about two hours.” He forced a chuckle. “We’re gonna have a hell of a time convincing them to come back.”

  Kris tried to smile but could only manage a grimace. Her father had spent years training them to retrieve ducks and run raccoons up trees. He loved those stupid dogs. She supposed she did too. Her eyes darted from the overflowing ashtray to the rifle pieced out on the coffee table to the picture of her he’d hung over his favorite chair. Her thirteen-year-old self grinned back with a mouth full of braces. She’d curled and fluffed her long brown hair out to full capacity and was wearing makeup she’d smuggled into the house in her backpack. Under the pink blush, her face was still as round as a little girl’s.

  He’d looked at her coming down the driveway like she’d grown three heads. Wow. You look . . . very nice. That night he’d taken her out to dinner, casting wary glances at her the entire evening like he didn’t know her at all. Everything that came after that night seemed to widen the gap between them. Her first bra, her first period, her first kiss, she hid it all from him, hoping to erase the distance, but it was never the same again.

  “I don’t feel well,” she whispered. “I think I need to sleep.”

  “I understand. How ’bout we have dinner tonight? I’ll pick you up around five? Deal?”

  The room was spinning. That ugly, flannel, duck-covered room. It was all she could do not to pick up the ashtray and throw it through the window. He wasn’t there to stop her.

  “You alright, kid? Here. Let’s get you to bed.” Ben put an arm around her shoulders and led her down the narrow hallway past the one bathroom to her old bedroom in the back. Her father had given her the biggest room not long after his terrible realization that she was a girl. Lord knows I don’t need all this closet space. She didn’t either. He hardly ever took her shopping, but she’d taken the room as a consolation prize. Her teen magazines and feminine products stayed carefully hidden under her bed.

  Nothing had changed.

  Soccer trophies and ribbons still lined the top of her dresser. Photos she’d taken of friends still hung from her bulletin board. Her teddy bear still sat on his shelf.

  Ben laid her down onto the worn blue quilt. He took off her shoes. He patted her head and said, “We’re going to get through this, girl. We will. Now get some rest. I’ll see you at five.”

  She didn’t even hear him close the door.

  Kris woke four hours later to the sound of the phone ringing in the kitchen. She bolted upright in bed. It took her another ring to remember where she was . . . and why.

  Ring.

  She ran to the kitchen and snatched up the phone. Dad? Where are you? She cleared her throat and managed a broken �
��Hello?”

  “Krissy? Is that you? It’s Becky.”

  “Becky?” Her heart rate fell at the sound of the girl’s voice. It wasn’t him. Becky Calhoun had been her best friend in junior high school. She hadn’t talked to the girl in over two years.

  “Oh my God. Are you alright?”

  “What?” Kris rubbed her eyes.

  “Is it true? I mean about your dad?”

  “I—I don’t know.” Words caught in the gray muck that had replaced her insides. “I really . . . Don’t—”

  Becky cut her off. “You poor thing! My uncle just called and said they found his truck up north. He said he saw you down at the sheriff’s office. It’s not true, is it? Is he really dead?”

  Is he really dead? Her voice choked down to an inaudible whisper. “I can’t . . .”

  “Are you there? Krissy? Krissy?” The shrill voice pulled away from the phone. “. . . I don’t know. I think she hung up. Do you think we should go over there and check on her?”

  Kris hung up the phone. Becky didn’t care if she was okay. They weren’t even friends anymore. She took the phone off the hook and stumbled back to bed. The last small-town tragedy to hit Cridersville had been when Earl Coven and Calvin Dean ran a car off the Blackhoof Street Bridge when they were in high school. It had sent the entire town into an uproar for weeks. Village council members made vows to crack down on underage drinking. Her classmates held a candlelight vigil on the football field. Girls took senior pictures next to the shrine of teddy bears they’d tied to the bridge. Every stay-at-home mom in the county baked a casserole. Earl’s baby sister was hounded like a celebrity by newfound friends that wanted to “help” her cope with the tragedy. Rooms would go quiet whenever the Coven or Dean families walked in. Earl’s parents moved away the following semester. Kris didn’t blame them. Her own mother had died in a car wreck when she was six years old, and people still treated her like a circus freak. Step right up and see the motherless girl.

  And now the whole town thought her father was dead.

  She glanced at the digital clock on her nightstand. It was only 2:00 p.m. She could be back in Cleveland before dinner. She got up, put her shoes back on, and threw her backpack over her shoulder.

  Down the hallway, the door to her father’s room stood open. The sight of it stopped her feet. He always kept it closed. The cops must have opened it during their search, she figured and crept closer, stealing a peek inside. The room was tiny, with only a twin bed, a narrow dresser, and a framed picture of her mother on the nightstand. The photo sent a tremor through her, a jolt of pain. It was the only picture of Rachael Wiley in the whole house. The rest were stashed in a photo album in the bottom of Kris’s bookcase in Cleveland. Her dad didn’t like to dwell on the past. That’s what he always said.

  Kris stepped into his room for the first time in years. The closet door stood open. His clothes hung neatly on the short iron bar—three good suits and two pairs of coveralls for work. His work boots were polished military style and set on the floor at the end of his badly jostled bed. What were they looking for?

  An antique gold wristwatch sat on the nightstand next to the picture of her mother. He never used an alarm clock. I tell myself when to wake up and that’s what I do. Old Spice and shoe polish and pipe tobacco hung in the air like a ghost. The smell of him reminded her of every bear hug, every piggyback ride, every little-girl moment they’d shared back when he still liked her. Back before everything changed. The urge to pick up his pillow and bury her face in it and cry nearly overwhelmed her, but she took a step back instead. He didn’t like it when she touched his things.

  The first time she’d seen him truly angry, she had been nine years old and he’d caught her taking the loose quarters off the top of his dresser. The memory of that day left its mark, so did his belt, and she hadn’t set foot in his room since. He’d be furious to know she’d taken his driver’s license. She pulled it out of her pocket and debated leaving it there in his room, but then she’d have to explain it.

  The silver dish of loose change still sat on top of his dresser, but in the wrong spot. His collection of old keys and lost buttons and golf tees spilled haphazardly over the edge of the plate. The third drawer of the bureau hung open a half inch. Biting her lip, she glanced over her shoulder out into the empty hall and then pulled the drawer open the rest of the way. Carefully folded undershirts had been shoved to one side by the police officers in their search. Four hardcover books were piled up next to them. They didn’t belong. Her father didn’t read anything but Field & Stream.

  Frowning, she picked them up one by one. Whoever Fights Monsters by Robert Ressler. In the Wake of the Butcher by James Jessen Badal. Torso by Steven Nickel. Butcher’s Dozen and Other Murders by John Bartlow Martin. A library code marked the spine of each of them.

  She flipped to the back cover of one and saw that it belonged to the Cleveland Public Library. She read the words again to be sure, then slammed the book shut. He hadn’t visited her at college once—not to move her into her apartment, not to visit, nothing. She’d tried not to let it bother her. She’d told herself how much he hated the city.

  Holding the books in her hand, she stared at the empty place in his undershirt drawer and debated what do. He’d kill her if he caught her snooping, but the books weren’t even his. The library would want them back at some point, she reasoned. The cover of Butcher’s Dozen featured ghostlike zombies wandering in the dark. Torso brandished a headless corpse.

  Dread gnawed at her stomach as the plastic bags of clothes lined themselves up again in her mind. We’re still looking for the rest of him.

  The books spilled out of her trembling hands, and she sank to the floor. The glossy covers splayed onto the wood boards with their grotesque images of zombies, death, and murder. It wasn’t a bear, she thought to herself as her eyes locked on the words And Other Murders.

  She could feel black waters closing over her head as she sank past the surface of her grief. No. She clawed her way back up. There has to be some other explanation. She scanned the book covers again for some sort of answer. Blood-red letters shouted at her from one of the covers, My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI. She gaped at it. It was a message. FBI.

  The notion that her father was hiding something from her had crept into her head in high school as she started questioning the world around her while the distance between them grew. He had become like a stranger to her, disappearing on long hunting trips for days at a time. He did have a military background. FBI? She bit her lip. Her father had always been the smartest man in the room. Maybe he’d seen whatever happened to him coming. Maybe he left the books for her to find. Maybe he trusted me after all.

  Half-ashamed at her hope and half-exhilarated by it, Kris stuffed the volumes into her backpack and closed the drawer. Occam’s razor told her that the police were right, but she couldn’t believe it. He’s not dead.

  A tiny voice inside warned her that she was just postponing the inevitable, but she didn’t care. What mattered was keeping her heart beating and her lungs breathing and her brain from shutting down. If he was still out there, he needed her. Like Ben said, if he had any doubts, he’d be out there looking for him. She was the only one with doubts.

  She forced herself down the short hallway to the kitchen. Clean dishes sat in the drying rack. A plate, a mug, and a fork. All she could find in the fridge was expired orange juice, a block of cheese, half a pack of sliced ham, three beers, and some mustard.

  Her father hated to eat alone. Since she’d gone off to college, he spent most nights down at Shirlene’s Diner, talking with the other regulars and the truckers that were always blowing through town on their way south. All sorts of things passed through the no-man’s-land between Lima and Dayton—trains, tanker trucks, livestock, farm equipment. Nothing much stayed.

  She gave the ham a whiff, then stuffed a few slices in her mouth. It tasted awful. She spat the half-chewed meat into the garbage and grabbed a can of be
er from the door of the fridge. He’d have smacked it right out of her hand if he’d been standing there. She scanned the living room where he sat night after night, watching whatever game, and cracked open the can.

  “I’m drinking your beer,” she announced, daring him to come back and give her hell. The feeling that the room had been staged to look like home crept back into her head. None of this is really happening.

  As she was closing the fridge, a knock shook the front door.

  “Kris?” a familiar voice boomed. “Kris, you in there?”

  Ben had left the curtains open. A familiar hulking shadow cupped its hands to the picture window. She ducked behind the kitchen counter and pressed her back to the cabinets. She took another long drink.

  It was Troy.

  The banging grew louder. She shrank back and considered her options. Everyone in town apparently knew about her trip to the sheriff’s office and wanted to console her. The thought made her skin crawl. All her life, whenever anyone heard about her mother dying, they’d give her that look, that sad, pathetic, oh poor little you look as if it would somehow help. And now this.

  The sound of her bedroom window sliding open brought her to her feet. Troy had broken the lock on it senior year when he’d started visiting her late at night, after her dad had gone to sleep. She grabbed her backpack off the counter and slipped out the side door and into the garage. The latch clicked softly closed. A moment later, his footsteps went creaking through the house.

  “Kris?”

  She skirted around her dad’s “roadster.” His pet project for the past year had been restoring a dusty 1971 Ford Mustang convertible. The engine was scattered over the rest of the garage. She picked her way as silently as she could to the back door. The footsteps approached from inside.

  She ducked behind the fender as the door to the garage opened. It was ridiculous, she realized, crouching there, not breathing. But she didn’t want to see him. The last time she’d seen Troy, they’d fought all over again about her moving to Cleveland, and he’d gotten angry enough to slap her. The act had shocked them both to the point of tears, but it had certainly removed all doubt from her mind. They were through.