These Violent Roots

by Nicole Williams

  Righteousness. Vindication. Justification.

  All words attached to both the faceless killer and his kills.

  The case circling the Huntsman had consumed the attention of the nation, including my own. My life orbited the investigation, and I had the dark shadows under my eyes and loss of appetite to prove it.

  The Huntsman consumed me. I awoke to him. I fell asleep to him.

  When my phone rang, I automatically answered it without checking the number. The past week, any call I made or took was important, some witness calling me back or the office checking in.

  “Grace Wolff,” I answered, adjusting the sensitivity on the windshield wiper dial up a notch. The forecasters had been off when they’d predicted a sprinkle for the evening weather—this was pretty much a downpour that correlated with ark construction.

  “Connor Huff. Your kickass paralegal in case you’ve forgotten.”

  My tongue clucked. “Someone feeling needy for attention?”

  “Someone feeling cranky from playing babysitter to a grown woman all week.”

  My eyes went from the highway to the time shining on my dashboard. “It’s after eight, Connor. Why are you still at the office?”

  The sound of him pounding a keyboard came to an abrupt halt. “Because my supervisor, who I like to think of as more of a partner, ditched me with the deposition that needs finished for tomorrow morning’s meeting.”

  My face pulled into a wince. “I need to postpone tomorrow morning’s meeting until next week.”

  There was silence on the other end. “Postpone? You?” Connor scoffed. “Grace Wolff doesn’t postpone. It’s not sequenced into her genetic code.”

  “You know that first time for everything phrase? That’s now.” My exit came up faster than I expected, forcing me to cut across three lanes of traffic. A chorus of car horns bellowed behind me.

  “This wouldn’t be due to some serial killer you’re trying to catch, would it?” he asked, his voice still hinting at annoyance.

  “Of course not,” I replied.

  “Thought so.”

  “Listen, I have to go. I’m about to interview a lead.” I almost missed my turn thanks to the dark, wet roads. I hadn’t been to this part of Seattle in a while.

  “This lead has to do with one of the dozen cases you’re working for the prosecutor’s office, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Connor sighed. “Thought so.” The sound of typing picked up in the background. “Listen, I don’t mind covering for you. Just don’t lose sight of your priorities, okay?”

  “I’m not losing sight of anything.”

  After pulling into the church parking lot, I said goodbye, gathered up my goods, and plunged out into the rain. I didn’t bother with an umbrella, in too big of a hurry to learn what he’d found out.

  The Episcopal church built at the turn of the century was quiet when I stepped inside, my clothing dripping rain onto the stone floor. A custodian emptying garbage cans gave me a funny look.

  “The widower group meets Friday nights at seven,” he said, tipping his head down the stairway where the meeting rooms were. “You don’t want to know what kind of support group meets here tonight.” He glared down the stairway before continuing down the hall to the next office. “Need to tip the Huntsman off to this bunch of perverts. Like fish in a barrel.”

  I elected to not reply to his incensed grumbles, accepting there was no end in sight if I choose to speak up against everyone whose sentiments skewed similarly.

  Bounding down the stairs, I followed the sound of voices and smell of coffee. Checking the time, I saw I was a little early. The meeting didn’t finish until eight thirty. I should have waited at the end of the hall in one of the old pews settled against the wall, but the doors leading into the big meeting room were partway open, and my curiosity refused to be stifled.

  Noah’s voice echoed into the hall, though I couldn’t discern individual words. I moved closer until I could almost see inside, remaining in the shadows so no one could see me. Noah took doctor-patient confidentiality almost to a fault, even at these support group meetings. He never shared what was said here, with the exception of tonight.

  He’d agreed to talk to the group for me, asking for any insight or information they might have into the murdered men or the Huntsman himself. It had taken a good deal of asking, dipping into begging territory, but he’d promised me he would ask, as long as the group felt comfortable discussing the topic.

  “This Huntsman, he’s only going after guys who’ve been found innocent of a charge, right? That’s what they’re saying?” a high-pitched voice rattled, a stark contrast to the ever calm, low-timbered one Noah employed as Dr. Wolff.

  “That’s what I’ve heard as well,” Noah answered.

  “So guys like us, we’ll be all right?”

  “Guys like you?” The inflection in Noah’s voice filled the air. “Remember, Markus, it’s important to take ownership of the entirety of who we are, not just the parts that are convenient.”

  “Guys who, you know, are attracted to little kids.” The squeak of a metal chair moving followed.

  “Speak for yourself.” Another voice broke into the conversation. “Not all of us are into little kids.”

  “So jonesing after thirteen-year-old girls make you so much better than the rest of us?” another voice cut in.

  “Let’s all do our best not to pass judgment on each other,” Noah interrupted, his figure drifting into my field of vision when he rose from his chair in the circle. “Not a single man here is perfect—we all have our faults. Some of yours might be different than the individuals seated beside you, but we all come here together with darkness in our past.”

  A sharp huff cut the silence that followed. “You’re in a room full of pedophiles, Doc—the worst of the worst in the world’s eyes. What possible darkness could you have in your past that could compare to the black in ours?”

  “It’s not a competition,” Noah replied, wandering to the table where the coffee was. “I mention that not to draw a comparison, but to create comradery. It might feel like you’re alone in the darkness, but everyone else feels the same exact way. You can’t see that we’re all there, stumbling our way through, in one form or the other.”

  “When you’re like us, Doc, it’s darkness day in and day out. It never ends.”

  Noah poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, shaking some sugar into it as well. He never added sugar to his coffee, but he must need the duel rush of caffeine and sugar to fight the exhaustion like I had the past week. “And yet you’ve managed to fend off your desires for twenty-eight years, John. You’ve figured out how to make your way through the darkness without allowing it to overtake you.”

  “Yeah, well, I haven’t been as successful at keeping those desires . . . those urges to myself.” A different voice drifted in. “And even though I served hard time and the thought of going back to prison as a known pedophile makes me want to put a bullet between my eyes”—there was a pause, a choked sob—“I can’t stop myself from staring at the boys I pass out there on the sidewalks, riding their bikes with their friends, sitting on the bus with their moms . . . I can’t stop thinking about . . .”

  My feet shifted, taking me deeper into the shadows when Noah wandered back into the circle.

  “Thinking about isn’t acting upon,” Noah said slowly before repeating it once more. “I might think about wanting to rob a bank, but I don’t act upon that because one, I recognize that as being wrong, and two, because of the repercussions that would mean for me. Your brains are wired differently. Nature, nurture, or some combination of the two made you all divergent from the norm—marked you as a fringe outlier. But our thoughts don’t define us. Only our actions are capable of that.” Noah slid back into his seat, his eyes circling the dozen men scattered around him. “I am not the thoughts in my head, or the words from my mouth, or the yearnings in my heart. I am the sum total of my actions. It’s a simple equation we don’t n
eed to muddy up with figures that don’t really matter.” Noah’s attention diverted to his watch. “With that thought, it’s time to wrap up. Make sure to check in with your accountability partner every day. Some of you, as many times a day as it takes to keep you on the right path.”

  As the men rose from their chairs, I scurried down to the end of the hall and kicked my foot on the last step of the stairway to sell the story of just arriving. I waited for the first cluster of men to leave the room before starting down the dimly lit hallway.

  I waited outside the door while a couple of the men talked to Noah for a minute, their voices low enough I couldn’t make out the gist of the conversation. Only once they turned to leave did I step inside the room.

  Noah didn’t appear surprised to see me as he wandered back to the drink station. “Coffee? Never mind. I just remembered the answer to that question.” He reached for a fresh Styrofoam cup and filled it with thin coffee from the carafe. “Not sure about your answer to the cookie question however.” He tapped the tray on the table. “Homemade by the nuns for all of the support group meetings held here, so you can bet they’re sanctified with holy water. If that sways your decision either way.”

  I didn’t stop him when he poured sugar into my coffee. He must have figured I needed the extra energy like him.

  “I’ll pass on the cookies. I wouldn’t want to burst into flames when that holy water reached the demon I keep tucked inside.”

  Noah stirred my coffee, a smile registering. “You and me both,” he replied, while I took an inventory of the room.

  The space was bare save for the chairs and the table set out for the drinks and cookies, sterile given the white walls and ceiling, linoleum floors marked with tiny splashes of dark gray and black. The metal chairs appeared as though they were struggling to hold the weight of decades of support group meetings and the heaviness of the topics that circulated the room. I couldn’t imagine the confessions made, the pictures painted, within these four walls. I might have dealt with sexual predators in my line of work, but I came at the issue from an entirely different angle than Noah did.

  I prosecuted sexual criminals.

  Noah counseled them, seeking to simultaneously understand and support them.

  He was far tougher than I gave him credit for, I accepted as I crossed the room where a dozen pedophiles had been seated minutes ago. Noah stood at the helm, bearing witness to the stories and confessions, remaining impartial, and finally, he sent them back out into the world with nothing more than tools.

  “A tiny suggestion for you,” Noah said, handing me the coffee. “Next time you consider lingering outside one of these meetings, make sure you’re not drenched from a rainstorm.” He examined me, trying not to smile.

  “Are you saying you could actually hear me dripping out in the hallway?” I took a sip of the coffee. It tasted as thin as it looked, but it was hot and sweet from the sugar. “You have spidey senses I don’t know about?”

  He tapped his ear before moving to the circle of chairs. “I’m perceptive. You have to be in my position.”

  “I don’t think these are the types of guys you have to worry about sneaking up on you in the middle of the night.” After forcing down the rest of the coffee, I abandoned the cup on the table and went to help him fold the chairs.

  “Maybe not these ones,” Noah replied, “but we’re all prey to some type of predator. Even the strongest of us.”

  “Happy thought,” I scoffed, struggling to get my chair into a folded position. Noah tapped one of the legs with his foot, and the chair collapsed instantly. “That was a good speech. About all of us having darkness inside,” I added when he glanced at me. “Though I’d argue that the urge to have sex with children is more nefarious than your average soccer mom succumbing to her darkness by gambling away fifty dollars every Friday night.”

  “What purpose would that serve? To differentiate their demons from ours?” His shoulders moved beneath his thin sweater. “They already feel ostracized from society, and the further we drive them, the more likely they are to offend.”

  Instead of arguing, I wrestled with the next chair, managing to get this one to cooperate without his help.

  “So what did they say?” I asked the real reason for my visit. “Anything helpful about the type of guy we’re looking for?”

  “Nothing you don’t have already.” Noah stacked the chairs against the wall. “They agree it’s probably someone who blends in with them. Somebody who wouldn’t stand out while he’s taking the time to gather intel on these guys before killing them.” He took the chairs from me to stack.

  “Could he actually be one of them?” I asked, my mind scattering with a possibility I’d never considered.

  “A pedophile?” Noah considered that for a moment. “I suppose you can’t rule it out. He could be acting from a moral high ground if he’s chosen to forgo his urges, while grappling with feelings of envy that these men have experienced what he has not. If it is one of them, he’d have a two-fold motive.”

  “Envy?” I repeated, the word sour in my mouth. “I think most of us would argue that if he hasn’t experienced what most pedophiles have, it’s a very good thing.”

  “Of course it is to you and me and the rest of society, but to men like this”— Noah hung his arm over the stacked chairs, staring at the floor—“he’d be both sickened and jealous if our killer is a pedophile, albeit a celibate, non-offending one.”

  “If this is a non-offending pedophile, he won’t have a record, right? It’s not like a celibate pedophile is required to register with the police department.” When I leaned into the wall, my mind clouded with possibility. Could this person really be another pedophile? “If that’s the case, we’re back to the drawing board of pretty much considering every able-bodied male in his twenties or thirties a suspect. Anything else to possibly narrow the search?”

  Noah unplugged the coffee carafe, then milled through the room, switching off lights. “Most of them didn’t want to say much when I brought it up at the start of our meeting. I made sure they knew that this was information I would share with the authorities”—his hand gestured my direction—“to assist with their search for the killer. They’re all pretty terrified they could be next on the list.”

  “Then assure them as long as they don’t offend and get off in court for their crime, they shouldn’t have to worry about making the Huntsman’s short list.”

  Noah gave me a look. “There’s not much anyone can say that will make them feel better. A serial killer is targeting pedophiles. How would you feel if you fit into that category with this madman running around?”

  “I’d feel like staying on the good side of the law,” I replied as he stood beside me in the dark room, shadows playing with his face.

  He moved with me when I walked out of the room, sealing the doors behind us. Our footsteps echoed as we climbed the stairs.

  “If there’s anything else they come up with, you’ll let me know?”

  “That depends.”

  When my head turned, I found his eyes shining with amusement, matching his tone.

  “Depends on what?” I asked, stopping him by putting my hand on his chest when we made it to the main floor.

  “What do I get in exchange for this valuable information I’m drumming up for you?”

  My head angled at him. “So far the information you’ve gathered hasn’t reached the valuable scale. Valuable is actually narrowing the suspect pool.” When he opened his mouth to respond, I interjected, suspecting his argument. “And before you say it, you and I both know no one’s going to admit to being attracted to kids if we start randomly knocking on doors, searching for this closet pedophile mass murderer.”

  Noah fought with the smile trying to form. “That’s quite a title.”

  “Come on, Noah, what do you want?” I asked, checking the time on my phone. “I’m used to a little quid pro quo when I’m dealing with other agencies, but I didn’t see it coming from my own husband.�
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  He scanned the darkness, reaching for my hand as he did. “Come with me.”

  The custodian emerged from a room by the entryway, a ring of keys clutched in his hand. “Dr. Wolff, any idea how much longer you’ll be? I was about to lock up for the night.”

  “I’ll lock up tonight. Go ahead and take off, Jimmy,” Noah called with a wave.

  “Look at you, all respectable with your keys to the church,” I teased after the heavy doors closed behind the custodian.

  “I can’t help it that when people look at me, they see a respectable, trustworthy guy.” He shoved through the door leading into the sanctuary, bringing me with him.

  “Aren’t you respectable and trustworthy?” I asked, taking in the vast sanctuary. A glow from the streetlights outside streamed in through the colored glass windows, casting just enough light for us to navigate the aisle without running into a pew.

  Noah’s eyes flashed back at me. “Most of the time.”

  Our footsteps echoed through the room, slowing as we neared the front. “Am I to imply from that cockeyed smile that this is one of those times excluded from that ‘mostly’ condition?”

  Noah’s hand slid up my back, twisting into my wet hair. “Yes,” he confessed, drawing me to him more abruptly than gently.

  “What are you doing?” My eyes went to the doorway, half expecting to find a priest or a sister standing there, gaping at us while making the sign of the cross.

  He unknotted the scarf tied around my neck, letting it fall to the floor as he guided me back until my calves bumped into a pew.

  “Letting my darkness out,” he answered, picking me up with the kind of ease that suggested a fathomless breed of strength.

  It wasn’t until he laid me on the front pew, his body folding over mine that I understood.

  “Here?” I protested, even as my legs wound behind him while he fisted my skirt up my legs.

  Lifting up, he pulled off his sweater and tossed it toward the altar. Whatever protests were rising within me came to a succinct halt when his finger hooked beneath my underwear, ripping them aside as he fit himself to me. His hand found my neck again, fingers dragging down it, both holding back and letting go.