Iron House

by John Hart

  “If this is about trust—”

  “I trust your intent,” Abigail said. “I know nothing of your ability to care for Julian.”

  “So, come with me.”

  “I’m staying with my son.”

  Michael looked at his watch. Minutes were ticking past. “Give a cop a body, and he’s like a dog with a scent, especially if it’s a headline case, which this will be. These cops…” Michael paused to give his words weight. “The only thing they smell is Julian. Understand? They missed him last time. This time, they’ll come with the weight of the world behind them. They’ll eat him for lunch.”

  “Julian’s under a doctor’s care. The lawyers say that will buy us time.”

  “Lawyers can only do so much. We need to find out why Ronnie Saints was here. We need to know who the other body is. If Julian didn’t kill these men, we need to know who did. And if he did do it, we need a plan to save him. We can’t do any of that without information. We can be in Asheville in five hours. It’s a start, Abigail. It’s what we have.”

  “Just take the car and go.”

  “They’ll break him. Do you understand? Julian’s mind will not handle a custodial interrogation.”

  “I’m sorry, Michael. I have to stay with Julian, and my heart says he should stay home, where he feels safe. You’ll have to go without me.” Abigail pushed a button and the bay door began to rise. They saw pavement, then trees and a hint of sky. Michael saw the cops first.

  “Ah, shit.” He stepped to the door. Cars were on the lake road, lights flashing as they accelerated for the house. “We’ll never get him out.”

  The police were a quarter mile away, and coming fast. Abigail’s cell phone rang. “It’s Jessup,” she said, then answered, her face still and smooth, her gaze on the police cars. “Hello, Jessup.” A pause while she listened. “Yes, I know. I see them coming now.” Another pause. “No, I’m in the garage. Yes, Michael is with me. They found something in the lake.”

  She listened for a long minute, then covered the mouthpiece and whispered to Michael. “Jessup was on-scene when the body came to shore. He says its been in the water for a few weeks; a male, mostly skeletal. Weighted with cement blocks. No identification.”

  The first police car disappeared around the front of the house.

  “They’re at the front door,” Abigail said, back on the phone. “I’m going in now.” She listened for a moment, and then said, “No. I want to be there.”

  Michael heard Falls’s voice this time, tin-like in the quiet of the garage. “That’s not wise.”

  “But I need to be there. I need…”

  “I don’t want you involved with this. It’s not smart. You know it. The senator’s there, the lawyers. We need to keep emotion out of this, let the professionals handle it.”

  “But Julian…”

  She stopped talking. Falls’s voice faded to a low thrum, and Abigail seemed to shrink as she listened. Finally, she said, “Okay. Yes. I know you’re right. Yes. May I—”

  A light died in her face, and she lowered the phone. “He had to go.”

  “I’m sure he did.”

  “He’s afraid I’ll lose it. Emotionally.”

  “Would you?”

  “Normally, no, but it’s different with Julian. I get protective. I overreact. It won’t help Julian to see that.”

  “Come with me, then.”

  Abigail looked momentarily lost, her gaze uncertain as it moved from Michael to the car, the house. “Do you really believe Julian didn’t do it?”

  “Ronnie died about the same time that Julian had his breakdown, so maybe he had something to do with it. But you say the other body is skeletal. That means weeks have passed, maybe more. How was Julian a week ago?”

  “He was fine.”

  “Two weeks ago?”

  “Same thing.”

  Michael shook his head. “He didn’t do it. We need to know more.”

  “But, Asheville…?”

  “Elena’s gone. I can’t get to Julian. This is what I have: my brother, who needs me.” Abigail looked at the house, and Michael said, “You can’t help him here.”

  “Just there and back, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  They got in the car, and the road out was silent and smooth. Abigail said little. Turn here. Straight ahead. At the perimeter wall, an arched gate opened in equal silence, and Michael pushed down on the gas, the heavy car sliding into light traffic. Michael worked his way west around the edge of town. Fields gave way to subdivisions. Shopping centers marred the roadside. Traffic thickened.

  “You want the main highway north.” Abigail spoke softly. “A few miles up. That’ll take you to Interstate 40. The interstate goes all the way to the mountains.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s how I brought Julian home.”

  She said it quiet and small, and when Michael looked at her, their eyes met as a very simple idea hung in the air between them. Iron House was not far from Asheville.

  An hour, maybe.

  A lifetime.

  * * *

  Fifty minutes later, Michael gunned it onto the interstate, the Mercedes at 110 before the speed even registered. He took his foot off the gas and settled down at nine over the limit. Put the car on cruise.

  When he checked his phone, Abigail noticed. “She hasn’t called?”

  “No.” He put the phone in his pocket.

  “Did you two have a fight?”

  “Something like that.”

  “She’s a pretty girl.”

  “She’s my life.”

  “Are you married?”

  “Not yet.” A mile of tarmac slid under the car. “She’s pregnant.”

  Abigail turned her head, and Michael expected to hear something predictable and bland: Congratulations.

  That’s not what he heard.

  “If a schizophrenic has a sibling, that sibling has a forty to sixty-five percent chance of being schizophrenic. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Forty to sixty-five. Better than half. It tends to run in the family. Siblings. Children.”

  She was talking about Elena’s pregnancy. Michael tensed.

  “Have you ever been diagnosed?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever felt—”

  “I’m not schizophrenic.”

  She watched hills rise and fall, shook her head. “It’s a terrible affliction.”

  “A violent one?”

  “Different people suffer differently.”

  “How about Julian?”

  “Memory loss. Hallucinations. Muddled thinking. It’s why he still lives at home. Home is safe. Less chance of stress. Less chance of delusions.”

  “What kind of delusions?”

  “Voices.” Her jaw tightened. “The medicine helps.”

  “Does he ever talk about what it feels like?”

  “Once, a long time ago. He said the voice hurts, but keeps him strong. He said it props him up, makes him big when he knows he’s small. He was drunk that night, distraught. It sounded pitiful, and he knew it. I think he’s always regretted telling me. Sometimes I catch him looking at me, and he always looks worried. He asked me once if I love him less.”

  Michael pictured Hennessey, dead on the bathroom floor. He saw the blade in his throat, squares of black tile etched in red. Julian’s disconnect. “What about stereotypical schizophrenia?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like you see in the movies. Multiple personalities.”

  “That’s rare, and overdramatized, a Hollywood inflation that helps no one. The disease is more complicated than that. It has infinite degrees. Julian is confused, but his problems don’t rise to that level.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “I know this disease inside and out.”

  * * *

  The senator called when they were an hour from Asheville. Abigail asked a few q
uestions, then listened for a long time. When she hung up the phone, she said, “Media’s at the gate. It’ll go national soon.”

  Michael was not surprised. “What else?”

  “Julian’s okay for now. A superior court judge granted a temporary injunction protecting him from police interrogation until he hears evidence from medical experts. They’ve bought a day, maybe two. Cloverdale put him back on antipsychotics.”

  “Is that it?”

  “They’re still searching the lake.”

  * * *

  Asheville nestles into the Blue Ridge Mountains in the western part of North Carolina, a jewel of a city surrounded by places with names like Bat Cave, Black Mountain and Old Fort. There was culture in Asheville, music and art and money; but there was poverty, too, great swaths of it in the deep mountains that stretched out in all directions. North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee—it didn’t matter. Abigail explained it as they rolled across the city line. “Iron Mountain is forty miles further west, deep in the mountains, three thousand feet higher, close to Tennessee. It’s not much more than an hour’s drive, but may as well be in a different country.”

  “A poor part of the state?”

  “State lines don’t really mean much down here. Lost Creek, Tennessee. Snake Nation, Georgia. Blackstrap Pass. Hells Hollow. It’s all mountains. It’s all history.”

  “You’ve never been back, have you?”

  “Iron Mountain?” Abigail shook her head. “No desire to, and no reason. Julian was safe and you were lost.” The road dropped off and Asheville flattened out beneath them. “This part of the world has felt wrong to me ever since.”

  * * *

  They found Ronnie Saints’s house where the Asheville line rubbed against a broad valley at the base of steep mountains. The road was narrow, black and winding. Michael saw small houses with kids’ toys on short grass. Pickup trucks sat in driveways, and American flags flew on short poles. Water flowed fast in the streams and hemlocks rose close to a hundred feet.

  “This is somehow not what I expected,” Abigail said.

  “Ronnie Saints was a horror story figure from your son’s worst nightmare. No reason to suspect he’d be human.”

  They turned onto a short street. The houses were yellow and brick and white with green shutters. Ronnie’s house was the smallest on the street, old but decent, the paint just beginning to crack. A panel van was parked in the driveway, SAINTS ELECTRIC on the side in white letters.

  “Looks like the right place.” Michael drove slowly past. He checked the neighbors’ houses, the side yards and parked cars. “That’s his work truck. He must have a second car. That could mean he’s married. No kids’ toys, though. Maybe a roommate.”

  “This feels wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.” She was agitated, hands closed tight. The truck sat like a barrier in the drive. The house was dark and still. “Deep down, something says this is dangerous.” She shook her head. “I can’t place it. It’s like a vibration.”

  Michael turned around where the street ended, drove back and parked at the curb. The Mercedes stood out on the narrow street. So far, nobody seemed to care. “Let’s do this.”

  He opened his door, and Abigail said, “Michael…”

  She looked frightened, pale, and Michael felt a stab of sympathy. “You should probably stay in the car. If the cops in Chatham County find Ronnie and ID the body, they’ll have Asheville PD out here first thing. You’re recognizable. It would be best if no one here sees you. Could be hard to explain back home, senator’s wife rings dead man’s doorbell. You see what I’m saying?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Just sit tight.”

  Michael closed the door and she locked it. He looked back once, then the house was coming up, a white bungalow with a wide driveway, a covered porch and a single car garage. The gutters were clear of debris. A tall tree grew in a patch of grass near the sidewalk. Michael studied the windows. The truck’s hood was cold when he touched it. Stepping onto the porch, he looked back once, then rang the doorbell.

  Nothing.

  He rang it again.

  A third time.

  Michael stepped left and cupped his hands at the window. No crack in the curtains. He listened for a long minute, then he tried the door.

  Locked.

  Solid oak.

  He found the key under a planter.

  * * *

  Abigail saw him check under the mat and on the lintel above the door. She saw him find the key, watched him open the door and slip inside. Her heart hammered for reasons of its own, her breath so short she wondered if she were having a panic attack, if everything had simply become too much. Bodies. Secrets. A broken son.

  What the hell?

  Sweat rolled beneath her shirt.

  Jesus …

  She could barely breathe.

  * * *

  Michael felt the lock give. Metal slid over metal and he was inside. He listened for movement, and heard nothing but the rush of air through vents. The room was neat and orderly, with hardwood floors that needed stain, a brick fireplace and furniture that didn’t quite match. On the right, an arched opening led through to a dining room with burgundy walls and better furniture on a cream-colored rug. Ahead, another opening led to a small study. He smelled chicken and cigarette smoke that had not yet had time to fade. His hand found the forty-five at the small of his back. He moved farther into the room, saw a table that could seat four, and shelves with cheap crystal and ceramic ducks. He paused in an archway, and the woman spoke even as he rounded into the room, gun up and tracking right.

  “I already called the cops.”

  She had both legs pulled up on the broken-down sofa, an eight-inch butcher knife in her fist. She was small-boned and pale, with pretty features and thick, wavy hair. Twenty years old, maybe, with eyes that were deep and afraid. The knife shook. A cardboard shoebox was clenched under her left armpit.

  “Anyone else in here?” Michael kept the gun up.

  “Cops are coming,” she said, but that was a lie. The weight of her arm had squeezed the shoebox out of shape so the lid gapped. Michael saw bands of cash in the box. Lots of it. She was nowhere near the phone.

  “You planning to stick somebody with that knife?”

  “Not if I don’t have to.”

  She wore pink, terry cloth shorts, a white T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Michael leaned back, checked the kitchen. There’d be a bedroom somewhere, maybe two. “I’m not planning to hurt anyone, okay? But if I get surprised, it could happen. So, tell me. Do you have children? Anyone that might decide to walk in unannounced?”

  “No children. No surprises.”

  “You sure of that?” He kept his voice low, and let her see him drop the hammer on the gun.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay. I trust you. You trust me. That’ll make this go much smoother.” He tucked the gun under his belt. She watched it all the way down; the knife in her hand didn’t move. “Are you Ronnie’s wife?”

  “You know Ronnie?” She lifted the knife higher, but Michael could tell it was getting heavy.

  “Are you his girlfriend?”

  Her arm bent at the elbow. “Fiancée,” she said.

  “I’m not here for your money.”

  She looked down, surprised to see that the money was visible. She fumbled the box into her lap, jammed the lid closed. “Do you work for Flint?” She sniffed wetly.

  “Andrew Flint who ran the orphanage at Iron Mountain?” She nodded, and Michael tried to get his head around that. He’d not heard Flint’s name in over twenty years, and to come across it in Ronnie Saints’s house was surreal. Michael had never imagined anyone from Iron House keeping in touch. It was not that kind of place. “Why do you ask about Andrew Flint?”

  “Ronnie said if Flint showed up, I should run. That was four days ago. When I saw your fancy car, I figured you were with Flint.”

  “Do you know where Ronnie i
s?” Michael asked.

  “Not run off on me, is all I know for sure. Not with this still here.” She shook the box.

  “May I see that?”

  Michael nodded at the box of money, and her arm tightened on it. “He’ll kill me.”

  “I won’t take it if you tell me what I need to know.” Her eyes flicked to the gun. “I promise.”

  She blinked away sudden tears, and the fight went out of her, knife coming all the way down. “I told him this was too good to be true.” She put the knife on a coffee table, then put the box next to it. She picked up a pack of cigarettes, sparked one with a cheap lighter. Michael put the knife on top of the television and moved a chair from the far corner.

  “What’s your name?”

  She blew smoke, rolled her eyes up and left. “Crystal.”

  Michael lifted the lid from the box. The bills inside were crisp, still in bands of ten thousand each. He began to lift them out, lining them up on the table.

  Fifteen bands.

  “That’s a lot of money,” he said.

  “He’s going to kill me.” She stared at the cash, both arms crossed beneath small breasts. Michael saw a pattern of scars on one arm, a dozen perfect circles puckered white. She saw him looking and covered the scars with one hand. Michael caught her eyes and she looked down. He knew cigarette burns when he saw them.

  “How long have you been with Ronnie?”

  “Since I was in high school.” She flicked ash in a white saucer. “He had a job and told me I was special. He was good like that. A man, you know.”

  Michael riffled the bills. They were nonsequential and, as far as he could tell, real. At the bottom of the box was a scrap of paper. He picked it up. “Ronnie’s handwriting?”

  “He writes pretty for a man.”

  The paper held five names written one below the other. “Where’s the money from?” Michael asked.

  She looked away.

  “Crystal…”

  “It was delivered last week.” Her lips left lipstick on the filter. “All official and sealed up, brought first thing in the morning by a fancy man in a shiny car, all yes-ma’am’s and no-sir’s. Ronnie had to sign for it and everything.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “Ronnie says it’s not my place to know. Just ’cause we’re getting married…” Her voice broke. She stubbed out her cigarette, and covered her eyes. “Please don’t take it. I just want a baby and a paid-for house. Please, mister. Ronnie’ll do terrible things if he comes home and finds that money gone.”