by Anne Frasier
“Don’t open it! Go around, around!”
What the hell?
Without grabbing a hat or coat, she pushed past him and strode out of the house. The wind was still blowing, and he hadn’t shoveled the freshly formed drifts. Some were maybe fifteen inches deep. He followed close on her heels as she trudged through the snow and skirted the house to the addition. Concrete block walls that could be hosed down, no windows, built to contain noise and odor. But the door, the damn metal door, was standing wide open.
She ran for it, hampered by her boots and the drifts. She fell to her knees, got back up, kept running. Lyle hurried after her, calling her name as if he wanted to stop her from seeing what was inside. When she reached the building, she hit the wall switch. The large lightbulbs at the peak of the ceiling responded, illuminating rows of cots. And a row of unmoving shoes and legs.
Boys, children, with duct-taped mouths.
And now she saw why the door was open. To air out the building. On the floor near the door was a portable propane heater. Off now, but what was it doing there at all? Not vented, something for outdoor use.
The next minutes were a blur as she searched the room for any sign of life, kicking and tugging and sobbing. Dead, all dead. Unable to take it anymore, she ran out, slammed the door.
Lyle, coward that he was, just stood there watching her, hands at his sides.
“What’d you do?” she screamed.
“You told me to put heaters in there.”
The building had heat, but she’d been worried about the below-zero temperature. That’s why she’d set the alarm. “Electric heaters! Not propane! Electric.” She beat him on the chest with her fists. “You idiot!” She started crying. Yes, they dealt in the trafficking of children, but those kids were her responsibility, her babies. She’d let them down.
She slugged Lyle in the face, maybe more than once. He put a hand to his bleeding nose, and he was crying now too. She wailed, thinking of the kids, thinking of the suppliers and buyers and how much damn trouble she and Lyle were going to be in.
He grabbed her by the arms and gave her a shake. “Shh. Be quiet.”
He was right. They lived in an isolated area, but someone could be nearby. You never knew.
“Let’s think,” he said.
“What are we going to do? We can’t bury them. The ground’s frozen solid.”
“I could haul them across the country. Dump them somewhere far away from here. Less chance of anybody being able to trace it to us.”
“And what if you get pulled over? What if you break down? What if the delivery truck is inspected at a weigh station? And what about the smell?”
“We could burn them.”
She marched back to the house. Pulled out a bottle of vodka and started drinking it straight from the bottle. Maybe they should just pack up and leave. That was it. In the bedroom, she dug through the closet and tugged out a suitcase. “We have to run. Get a plane to some other country. Any other country. Just get the hell out of here.”
Lyle stood in the doorway, phone in his hand. “I called my brother.”
Oh shit. “You shouldn’t have told anybody.”
“He has an idea. He owns an old food-delivery warehouse downtown. Says it’s got a walk-in freezer. We put ’em in there and bury them later. But John’s worried about one of the buyers. This person’s not going to be happy and could cause some serious problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Like turning on us, or worse.”
She didn’t want to ask what the worse might be.
“But we’ll try to figure it out. Maybe we can substitute another boy for his.”
“We don’t have another.”
“Maybe we can get one.”
It wasn’t that easy. They didn’t do abductions. They were the middlemen for a reason.
Nan rode with Lyle to the meat locker. Thirty silent miles with a truck full of ten dead bodies. The vehicle was loud and the ride was rough, and she kept wondering if she smelled exhaust fumes, even cracking the window a few times to let in fresh air. Now she was paranoid about carbon monoxide poisoning.
She wished she could have stayed home, got drunker, but she didn’t trust Lyle not to screw things up more than he already had. They rode in silence, Lyle occasionally making some weird sound with his throat, like he was having trouble swallowing. She’d tossed the bread bag on the front seat, and now she pulled out two sandwiches, offering one to him. He shook his head and put a fist against his mouth, like the thought of eating a sandwich meant for a dead kid made him sick. She put his sandwich back and ate hers. It didn’t taste too bad. She still wanted to scream at Lyle some more, but what good would that do?
“I’m done with trafficking.” He pounded his palms against the steering wheel. “Done.”
She didn’t know if it was the end for her, but she’d think about it. She wasn’t surprised about Lyle. Even though it was his family business, started by his father and grandfather, his heart had never really been in it. But it was good, easy money when things went right. And she enjoyed her short time with the kids and felt like she’d helped them transition. A mother figure, even though she told them to call her Nan. The real question was whether she wanted to stay with Lyle. A guy who couldn’t keep from screwing things up no matter what. But he’d never hit her, and he lit her cigarettes and poured her coffee. Sometimes he even fixed her breakfast.
Lyle’s older brother John met them at the warehouse. He opened the big sliding door and they drove inside, John closing the door behind them.
The locker was located at the far end.
Unloading the truck was hard, gruesome work, the bodies limp as rag dolls and heavy. When they were done, the bodies stacked like firewood, his brother produced a length of heavy chain and ran it through the meat locker handles, the sound of metal against metal echoing in the empty warehouse. He secured the chain with an industrial padlock, then passed a leather fob with the outer door and padlock key to Lyle.
“Thanks,” Lyle said, pocketing the keys. “Jesus, thanks.”
His brother grabbed him by the throat and backed him to a wall, pinning him there, talking through gritted teeth.
Growing up, Nan used to wonder what was wrong with her, why she wasn’t like other kids her age, why she didn’t have the emotions others had, but then she met Lyle’s brother. In comparison, he made her seem like a bag of love and warm fuzzies.
“You two blew the hell out of this,” John said. “Our business was growing, but we might have to shut down thanks to you.”
True about the growth. It was no longer a mom-and-pop operation, but that might be where they’d gone wrong. Too many people involved.
John released Lyle, who dropped to his knees, clutching his throat. John seemed to come to an abrupt decision and said, “I want you both out.”
“What’ll we do for money?” Lyle croaked.
“I don’t give a shit. You should have thought of that before you destroyed our merch. Get this fixed and then go back to Oklahoma or grow your crops or whatever. Don’t fucking talk to me again.”
Back in the truck, Lyle threw up in the sandwich bag. Then he started crying.
“Scoot over.” Nan waved him into the passenger seat. She half stood and he slid under her so she could take the steering wheel, grinding gears but finally hitting reverse.
He hopped out long enough to lock the warehouse door, and they were on their way home.
“You could have helped me back there,” he said.
“I have to be honest: I get where your brother’s coming from. You screwed things up for a lot of people, and you’re lucky to still be alive. Knowing what a temper he has, I’m kinda surprised he didn’t shoot both of us and stick us in that meat locker too.”
Lyle wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Would you have let him choke me to death?” He rolled down his window and tossed the bread bag.
Maybe. She reached across the seat and gave his knee a p
at like you would a kid. “Of course not.”
Back at the farm, she hung the warehouse keys on a hook next to the kitchen door. “Once spring comes, you can just pick the bodies up and put them in a deep hole on the farm. Easy peasy.” And then they could move back to Oklahoma.
CHAPTER 20
Back at Homicide, Jude called Child Protection Services and offered to test the boy’s reaction to the photo of Nanette Perkins she’d found online. Overworked, they were happy to let her step in. She caught up with Uriah in the break room and told him about her visit to the hospital. This time he reacted in the way she’d expected him to earlier.
“Maybe you should let them take it from here.”
She appreciated that he didn’t outright order her to step away even though their full focus should have been on the bodies from the lake. “I’m good at time management,” she pointed out.
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” He poured a coffee, silently asking if she wanted one too.
She shook her head and filled her water bottle instead.
“Do you think you’re becoming too attached?” he asked. They were alone, and he might have felt he could be more candid here rather than at their desks, where conversations could be overheard. “Is this because you want to see the boy again?”
“I’m concerned for him.”
“Your loyalty to people is admirable. It’s a good trait, but after all you’ve been through . . .” He paused as if considering whether he should continue. She got the idea he was working on something he’d wanted to say to her for a while now. “You’re drawn to people who need your help,” he said.
She wouldn’t disagree. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Sometimes. I seem to recall a dead body in your apartment not that long ago.”
“I don’t think my attention and concern was misplaced. She needed help. And she was someone who could have broken the case. Either way, it was a logical approach. You’re talking emotion.” She didn’t have emotion anymore.
He set his mug aside. “Just think about trying to keep a little more distance. That’s all I’m saying. I’ve seen you. You feel for these people. Not just the victims and the dead, but the criminals.”
His words reminded her of what Elliot had said about sympathetic resonance. She just didn’t see it. “That child is not a criminal.”
“I never said he was. I’m just laying out why I’m concerned. Your experience has changed you in ways I can’t begin to imagine or really understand. You’re an empath. You soak up the people around you. You feel their emotions.”
“I didn’t know you were into science fiction.”
“I’ve seen it, Jude. I doubt you’re even aware of it, which is why I’m bringing it up. I think you should be conscious of it and try to protect yourself.”
“This conversation has gotten ridiculous.” She wasn’t angry, just baffled and annoyed. “I’m going to see the boy, and I’m going to find out if he recognizes the woman I saw at the hospital. How much more straightforward can that be?”
Back at her desk, she picked up a stack of papers still warm from the copy machine, tapped them together, and tucked them into the side pocket of her messenger bag along with the photos of the boy.
The distance from the Minneapolis Police Department to the foster home was under ten miles. Due to side streets that still weren’t optimal, it took Jude thirty minutes to reach the Richfield address given to her by CPS.
The south Minneapolis neighborhood was composed of streets laid out in a grid—a logical design—with similar small houses interspersed with larger apartment buildings. Stucco had always been a popular building product in the Twin Cities, and this area of town reflected that aesthetic.
The heater in her car spit out tepid air as the GPS on her phone told her to stop at a two-story foursquare with a chain-link fence and narrow sidewalk. Three snowmen in the yard. Through the narrow space between the houses, she caught a glimpse of a swing set and snow-covered garage in the backyard.
The foster mom, a woman named Lori, was expecting her. She answered the door and invited Jude inside. As was typical of many Twin Cities homes, the space had been remodeled at some point; walls didn’t quite meet, and there was evidence of patched floors where built-ins had once stood. Directly in front of the entry was a kitchen, to the right a living area. Wooden and tile floors, paint of soothing shades. A wall-mounted wooden rack packed with children’s coats, the boy’s included, with boots lined up below. From beyond the open pocket doors came the sound of a television and cartoons.
“We’re calling him Michael,” Lori said. She held out her hand to take Jude’s jacket. Jude shook her head but unzipped. “I know it’s not his name, but we had to call him something. It just didn’t seem right otherwise.”
Jude picked up on how tense the woman was, and she thought about Uriah calling her an empath. “Michael’s a nice name.” He did not look like a Michael.
Lori was one of those earth mothers, probably good at hugs and giving comfort. She wore a heavy floral skirt, clogs, and wool socks; medium-brown hair skewered to the top of her head with two decorative sticks; fresh face, no makeup. She smelled like dish soap and coffee, and maybe a bit of the Goodwill store. Her agitation might have been caused by having a cop dropping in with very little warning. Or it could have been because of the boy.
“He’s sweet,” the foster mother confided as if trying to convince herself as she glanced over her shoulder into the living room, where two children were lying on the floor, watching cartoons. The third, the child with the temporary name of Michael, sat cross-legged on the puffy brown couch. He wasn’t watching the TV. Instead, he was watching the children watch TV.
“I don’t think he’s ever been around other kids,” Lori said. “He doesn’t play or interact. He just . . . observes.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping, lines of worry around her eyes. “Do you think it’s safe for my girl and boy? To have him here?”
Good question. Jude had been surprised to hear he’d been put in a house with other children. She would have avoided kids until they could be sure he wasn’t a danger to anyone.
Violence instilled violence. That was a fact. It didn’t mean every child who grew up around violence would become violent, but kids learned from adults. Even a child with no natural violent tendencies would pick them up if that’s all they were exposed to. Children mimicked adults. But the good news was those kids could sometimes unlearn the behavior with the right guidance and role models.
“I honestly can’t answer that question,” Jude said. “It’s obvious he’s experienced some bad things in his short life. Add that to his lack of socialization, and I don’t blame you for being concerned. I would advise you not to leave the children alone together, and if you have any pets, take the same precautions.”
The woman put a trembling hand to a red cheek. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all. They called and were desperate for a home, and I’m a softie. This month has been a busy one for them. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the cold weather. Everybody has cabin fever and they’re taking it out on the kids.”
“I can’t really give you advice other than to take precautions. Call your contact person if you have any concerns. Call me, for that matter.” She pulled out a business card and handed it to the woman. “Day or night.”
Lori glanced into the living room. “He’s been through so much.” Her eyes teared up. “Poor little soul.”
“I know. But don’t put your own family at risk. Never do that. Trust your instincts.” It was what she told everyone. And it was probably a much more realistic warning than the one the woman had gotten from CPS, if she’d gotten a warning at all. “Listen to that nagging voice.”
“It’s talking to me now, honestly, but I don’t think it’s directly related to anything he’s done. I think it’s just his odd behavior.” She dropped her voice again. “It’s kind of creepy.”
Jude thought about conversations she’d overheard abou
t herself since her escape from captivity. Almost everybody at work was uncomfortable around her except for Uriah. “I’d like to talk to him privately,” she said. “If that’s okay.”
The mother seemed relieved to pass the responsibility of him to someone else, even for a few minutes. She called into the living room. “Kids! Come help me fix a snack.”
“Michael” didn’t respond. The two other children jumped up from the floor and scrambled to the kitchen, jockeying for position, one opening the refrigerator and the other grabbing a bag of sliced carrots. One of them said something about cookies.
Jude nodded to the mother and slipped into the living room. When “Michael” saw her, he let out a gasp and jumped off the couch. “Hey!”
“Hey, you too.”
“Are we going back to your house? So my Nana can pick me up?”
“Not today.” Jude sat down on the sofa and grasped him by both hands, holding on gently, giving him the option to pull away if he wanted to, as she looked into his serious face. She didn’t even care that his palms were slightly sticky. “I just came to see you. And talk to you.” She smiled, and she didn’t have to force it. She was glad to see him again. That was followed by a drop of her stomach as she thought about what Uriah had said. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was getting too attached. “Do you like it here?”
He nodded.
“What about the other children? That must be nice. To be around children close to your age.”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
They talked a little more. She asked about the snowmen outside. No, he hadn’t helped make any of them. They were there when he’d gotten to the house. But he liked them.
Despite the sticky fingers, she noted that his face was clean and his hair had been brushed. His foster mother seemed like a good person. Jude was reassured by everything she saw. Her concern had undergone a shift in the last ten minutes, and she was no longer worried about the boy as much as she was worried about the foster family. They knew nothing about him. Nobody did.