The Siren and the Specter

by Jonathan Janz

  “Nice of you to come on such short notice, Sheriff. I don’t—”

  “Dispense with the pleasantries, Mr. Caine.”

  “David, please.”

  “Um-hm. We’ll see. What’s your relationship to Mrs. Mayr and Mr. Gardiner?”

  “What’s that got to do with the children?”

  “Funny thing,” she said. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve enjoyed puzzles. And I despise it when someone tries to do them for me.”

  “Chris was my best friend at William & Mary. Katherine is his wife.”

  Sheriff Harkless nodded. “What’s with the different name thing?”

  “Is the idea of a woman keeping her own name shocking to you?”

  He thought he heard Alicia snicker from the counter.

  “Well, listen to you,” Harkless said and smiled. “Why’re you here?”

  “To make you aware of an abusive situation.”

  She shook her head, still smiling. “This county, Mr. Caine. What are you doing here in Lancaster County?”

  “Oh, that.” He told her the story of how he came to be staying at the Alexander House.

  When he finished, she raised her eyebrows. “Well?” she asked.

  “Well, what?”

  “Have you seen anything?”

  He glanced at Alicia, who’d come around the counter, ostensibly to restock the Big League Chew bubble gum, but more likely to better hear their conversation.

  “Nothing,” he said. When Sheriff Harkless only stared at him, he added, “Not a single solitary thing.”

  “What about a woman’s house on Old Bay Road?”

  It hit him like a slug to the gut. “She called the cops on me?”

  “She called me, Mr. Caine. Were you not in her driveway, uninvited?”

  “She pushed my kayak into the water, she almost stranded—”

  “In the park after curfew,” Sheriff Harkless said, nodding. “Your list of offenses is pretty extensive for only having been here a few days.”

  “Sheriff Harkless—”

  “Georgia, please.”

  “Okay…well, I feel like you’ve got me wrong.”

  The pleasant smile hardly wavered. “How have I got you wrong, Mr. Caine?”

  “First off, I wasn’t doing any harm.”

  “In the woman’s driveway or at Oxrun Park?”

  “The woman’s – I mean, neither. I wanted to ask her about my kayak.”

  “You were confronting her.”

  “I wasn’t confronting her, I was—”

  “Demanding answers?” Alicia called.

  “No,” he said, glancing over at her. He looked at Harkless. “I was curious.”

  “She is a beautiful woman.”

  He scowled. “That’s not why I went over there.”

  “No?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So if she were, say, toothless and plagued with acne you’d still have trespassed.”

  He made a face. “I didn’t…. Is it trespassing if you’re in someone’s driveway?”

  Using a forefinger, Sheriff Harkless drew a line parallel to the table edge, said, “The road is here,” and connected it to the table edge with an invisible perpendicular line. “The house is here.” She indicated the area between the two lines. “Everything between is private property. Including the driveway.”

  He sat back in the barely padded chair. “Fine. Technically, I trespassed, but I wouldn’t in a million years….”

  “Make a woman feel unsafe?”

  “Hell no.”

  Harkless leaned over. “Mind if I tell you what I think, Mr. Caine?”

  “That this table’s private property and I’m trespassing again?”

  “I think you’re used to getting by on your looks and reputation.”

  He spread his hands. “Where’s this coming from?”

  “Experience. And I Googled you.”

  “Why would—”

  “Big-shot literature professor, darling of the scholarly journal scene….”

  “You can’t base your opinion—”

  “…never married…whoppin’ book deals…several movie options….”

  “Those are bad things?”

  “They’re fantastic things,” she said. “For you.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “Come on, you’re a clever guy.”

  “I can’t believe how ungenerous you’re being.”

  She sat up straighter. “Is it generous to grin that shit-eatin’ grin of yours and charm a lady out of her pants and move on as soon as you’ve had your fill?”

  His voice went thin. “You don’t know me.”

  “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  When he didn’t answer, she said, “I know your type. Ain’t that many of you, thank goodness, but when one comes around, the hackles on the back of my neck stand up.”

  He felt as though someone had strung him up by the wrists and beaten him like a rug. “Can I lodge my complaint now?”

  She nodded curtly, produced a small flip notebook. “Children’s names?”

  “Ivy and Mike Shelby Jr.”

  She scribbled that down, added, “Parents are Michael Shelby and Honey Shelby.”

  “That’s her real name?”

  “Been Honey as long as I can remember,” Alicia said.

  David glanced at her. She was on her knees before a display of Altoids. The sandy rattle of the mints in the tins reminded him of rat claws scratching the floor. Alicia’s shirt had ridden up, revealing a toned lower back.

  When he turned, he discovered the sheriff staring at him dourly.

  David sank deeper into his chair.

  Harkless said, “What’s the nature of the abuse?”

  He hadn’t rehearsed what to say. He’d pictured giving his statement in a sterile gray room at the police station, not the back corner of The Crawdad with a beautiful young woman listening in.

  He glanced at Alicia. “Should she be…you know….”

  Harkless’s look was level. “Restocking the Altoids?”

  “No, not— This is personal stuff. I feel weird saying it in front of someone so….”

  “Gorgeous?”

  “Young.”

  Alicia grunted, kept arranging the displays.

  Harkless said, “She’s perfectly capable of enduring whatever you share with me. She’s gonna witness your statement.”

  Aw, God, he thought. He blew out a weary breath. “Okay. Let’s start with the porn.”

  “Always good to start with porn,” Harkless agreed.

  “The first time I was there, there was hardcore pornography on the big screen. Honey was drunk and cussing up a storm and little Ivy was sitting in the corner, about four feet from the sex show, working in her coloring books. She looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.”

  “You spend much time with kids, Mr. Caine?”

  “If I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t let them stay in the room while I watched porn.” He winced, agitated a hand. “Not that I watch porn.”

  He glanced at Alicia, who appeared to be holding back laughter.

  “Denies watching porn,” Harkless said, scribbling in her notebook.

  David ignored that. “I forgot one detail.”

  “Yes?”

  “Michael – Michael Sr. – looked like he’d been beaten up.”

  “And how would you describe his attitude about this?”

  “About being beaten up?”

  Harkless waited.

  David shrugged a shoulder. “He seemed okay.”

  “Would you say,” Harkless asked, “that Mr. Shelby was a willing participant in whatever activities he and Mrs. Shelby were engaging in?”

  “I guess.”

 
Harkless’s pen continued to scratch.

  “Last night there was a storm.”

  “Real whopper,” Harkless agreed. “Power was out for half the county.”

  “Had to take my bath in the dark,” Alicia said.

  Heat burned David’s face as images of Alicia soaping herself in the dark flickered through his head. He stared resolutely back at Sheriff Harkless, whose gaze never wavered.

  When it became apparent David wasn’t going to speak, she smiled, said, “Go on, Mr. Caine. You were talking about the storm….”

  “Somehow the kids got into my house. I did my best to take care of them. Gave them food…a drink besides Kool-Aid.”

  “That was good of you,” Harkless said.

  David scoured her face for traces of irony. Finding none, he said, “I ran to their parents’ house to make sure they were home. I didn’t want to drag the kids through that storm only to have to turn around.”

  “Were they home?”

  David made a scoffing sound. “In body. Michael was prostrate on the couch, weeping. He’d been—” David cleared his throat, “—sodomized.”

  Sheriff Harkless’s eyebrows went up. “There was another man in the house?”

  “No, it was…Honey. She was on the kitchen floor, sort of…caressing herself.”

  “Masturbating?”

  David glanced at Alicia. The young woman was straightening a display of chip bags and obviously hanging on every word.

  He lowered his voice. “She was fondling her breasts.”

  “I’m not understanding the sodomy thing.”

  Ah, man. “Honey had on – was wearing – a, um—” he gestured,“—strap-on thingie.”

  “Dildo,” Harkless supplied.

  “Yeah.”

  “Could you describe the dildo?”

  “Come on.”

  “Black, white, spiked like a medieval mace, what?”

  “Pink,” David said. “Pink and gigantic.”

  Harkless nodded staidly. “And you think she used this object to penetrate her husband?”

  “Well, what else?”

  Harkless stopped writing. “What else what?”

  “What else could’ve made him bleed like that?”

  “Mr. Shelby was bleeding? Where?”

  David couldn’t help writhing a little. “His anus.”

  Across the room, Alicia made a pained face.

  “Look,” David said and leaned toward the sheriff. “The kids stayed with me all night. Did their parents even call you, wondering where they were?”

  “Maybe they didn’t know they were missing.”

  “Exactly.” He pounded the table with a fist. When Sheriff Harkless stared at him, he mumbled, “Sorry.”

  “So, a kid sneaks out—”

  “Two kids,” he corrected, “both under the age of ten.”

  “Two kids sneak out, their parents don’t know, and they end up sleeping at a neighbor’s—” She paused. “You put them in the guest rooms?”

  An image of the long bedroom strobed in his head. “They stayed in my bed. On either side of me.”

  “Why’d you do that, Mr. Caine?”

  David studied Harkless’s face, but if there was any accusation there it was well hidden. “The storm was really severe.”

  “Felt like an apocalypse,” Alicia agreed.

  “The kids were scared,” David continued. “So was I, I guess.”

  “You were trying to keep them safe,” Harkless said.

  David nodded.

  Harkless appraised him a moment longer, then pocketed her notebook and pen. “Mr. Caine, I can’t pretend to like you, but you do seem to care about the children.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “That’s why I’m gonna tell you the situation.”

  “This about their grandpa?”

  Harkless grunted. “And the foster family who tried to get custody of Mike and Ivy a year and a half ago.”

  David noticed that Alicia had given up the pretense of restocking the shelves and was now watching them, arms folded, shapely hip leaning against a Coke refrigerator.

  He said, “There are tons of parents looking to adopt.”

  “Babies, Mr. Caine. They want babies.” Harkless sighed, sat back. “There was hope for the Shelby kids a few years ago, but now I’m afraid their situation is harder to sort out.”

  “But the abuse—”

  “What abuse?” Harkless interrupted. “Did you witness Honey hitting one of them?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Maybe they are malnourished, but not enough for it to be provable. Lots of kids are scrawny, Mr. Caine. At least Ivy and Mike Jr. are eating something.”

  “What about the drinking? The porn?”

  Harkless nodded. “They could get in trouble for that, but I doubt it’d be enough for CPS to remove them from their home.”

  “It’s not a home.”

  Harkless nodded. “Agreed, Mr. Caine. By your standards and mine, it isn’t. But you gotta remember the severity of what you’re demanding. Taking two kids away from their parents, their other family members—”

  “Grandpa Pedophile?”

  “Hold on,” Harkless said, eyes flashing. “Don’t you think I’d like to get that grandfather of theirs into a cell and whup his sorry ass? Hell, for that matter, don’t you think I’d like to do the same for Michael and Honey?”

  “Mr. Caine,” Alicia said, coming over, “Georgia’s done more to try to help those kids than you’ll ever know. She’d like to adopt them herself, give them a proper home. Truth is, it’s a dreadful situation created by dreadful people.”

  David glanced at Harkless and was stunned to see tears threatening in her eyes. She blinked them away and said, “I’ll have a coffee to go, Alicia, if you’d be so kind.”

  “Sure, Georgia.”

  Harkless pushed herself up from the table – it took an effort – and moved after Alicia, who took a detour toward the coffee station and poured the sheriff a cup. Harkless reached into her pocket. “How much is the tax?”

  “Put your money away.”

  Harkless scowled. “Dammit, I asked you how much.”

  Quietly, Alicia rang her up. “A dollar and five cents.”

  Harkless fished a dollar from a rumpled brown billfold, found a nickel in her hip pocket. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  Without another word, Harkless went out.

  “She’ll be heading to the Shelbys’ now,” Alicia said, watching after her. “And tomorrow, the mayor will be in her office bawling her out.”

  At David’s questioning look, Alicia explained, “Honey’s father. He’s the Mayor of Lancaster.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  David bought more groceries than he needed before saying goodbye to Alicia and returning to the Alexander House. He cooked a pepperoni Tombstone pizza and ate the whole thing. No sign of Ivy or Mike Jr., no trace of Ralph or Chris or Katherine.

  He sat down to write on the screened-in porch, hammered out two thousand words, and judged them decent. At dusk he cracked open a beer and checked out the dock, but when he realized he could see hints of the Shelby house from the end of the dock, he returned to the backyard and gazed out sullenly over the water.

  Night fell, and David had never felt so alone. Maybe it was having the kids here last night and then not having them. Maybe this was how parents felt when their kids grew up and left them.

  “Come on,” he said, annoyed with the maudlin run of his thoughts. Being companionless, he’d decided long ago, was preferable to the entanglements of child-rearing and the vagaries of marriage. Just look at the Shelbys. Or his own family, for Christ’s sakes. What an ungodly train wreck that had turned out to be.

  David’s shoulder muscles began to tingle.

 
; He turned and gazed up at the windows. Like the front, the rear had seven dormers. They stared down at him like the eyes of some hostile alien presence, long dormant but slowly awakening.

  The ghost-hunting equipment would be fully charged by now.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he muttered, and began his uneasy slog to the house.

  * * *

  The grid scope could be adjusted to produce different laser patterns. David judged the fine, uniform spray of green dots to be the most logical setting, but since he’d never actually witnessed anything paranormal with the grid scope and figured he never would, he favored the ‘Night Sky’ configuration, which simulated a tapestry of stars.

  David tested the grid scope on the dining room wall, found it in working order, then cycled through the other gadgets he’d brought in. Everything functioned perfectly. Not that it mattered.

  Feeling utterly foolish, the way he invariably felt when puttering around with this equipment, David stashed it in his athletic bag, laid the tripod over his shoulder, and toted it all upstairs. On the way, he flipped on the hall light. It was ten p.m., the glow over the Rappahannock having disappeared as though sucked into a vortex. The familiar chill of the second floor seeped through him, but he stepped through the landing and did his best to ignore the temperature change.

  At the threshold of the long bedroom, he paused. The buttery yellow illumination from the hallway seemed to die six inches after entering the long bedroom.

  But this was the logical room to make his tests. The only room, really. He could set up the thermal camera somewhere else, but he owed it to himself and his book to be academically honest.

  Yes, he realized as he steadied his breathing. This moment would be a crucial one in his book. He could call the chapter ‘The Ballad of the Long Bedroom’ or ‘Better Housekeeping with Judson Alexander.’ He smiled but found it difficult to maintain.

  “Here we go,” he said.

  He stepped into the long bedroom and flipped on the light. A single lamp on the nearest nightstand flared to life but left most of the space in shadow. He waded into the room but stopped near the southern window. He rested the athletic bag and tripod on the floor, spread the legs of the tripod, bent, and retrieved the thermal camera. Directly opposite him, at the far end of the bedroom, loomed the northern window, on whose sill he’d discovered his keys this morning.