Deeper Than the Dead

by Tami Hoag

  “No. Janet and I had a fight.”

  “What about?”

  “She was angry that Tommy’s teacher had asked him some questions about our home life. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, my wife can be a formidable character in an argument,” he said. “It’s been a long week. I’d just had it. I didn’t want to hear any more, so I went out.”

  “Out where?”

  “I had dinner at O’Brien’s Pub, watched the American League Championship game. Around nine Steve came into the bar—”

  “Steve Morgan?”

  “Yeah. We sat around and cried in our beer until closing time.”

  “What was his problem?”

  “A fight with his wife. What else? She kicked him out.”

  “Why did she throw him out?”

  “She accused him of having an affair, which has gotten to be a routine thing with her.”

  “Is he?” Mendez asked. “Where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.”

  He didn’t answer for a while, turning words over in his head, trying to choose them carefully. “Steve’s a complicated guy.”

  “I don’t care,” Mendez said. “I want to know: Was he having an affair with Lisa Warwick?”

  Peter Crane rested his elbows on the table and hung his head, looking defeated.

  “Don’t fuck around with me, Dr. Crane,” Mendez said sharply. “The woman was murdered. Was he having an affair with her?”

  “Yes.”

  63

  Dennis crept through the woods like a commando, crouched low, sometimes crawling on his belly. He had smeared dirt on his face for camouflage and tied a rag around his head like Rambo.

  He could hear voices in the park. People talking, kids laughing. People with normal lives. He hated them.

  He could see them from the edge of the woods, where he hid behind a tree. Little kids, bigger kids, a couple of adults. He crept a little closer.

  They were having fun. They were happy. And there was Cody, who was supposed to be his friend, playing catch with a kid from the fourth grade.

  “Hey, Cody,” he said, standing at the very edge where the park became the woods.

  Cody glanced over at him and frowned.

  “Hey, Cockroach, come ’ere.”

  Cody pretended not to hear him.

  “Come on,” Dennis said. “I have something cool to show you.”

  Cody came a little closer, looking at him kind of suspicious through his stupid, crooked patched-together glasses. “I’m not supposed to play with you, Dennis. My mom said.”

  Dennis rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. I found something. It’s really cool.”

  Cody glanced back at the people who had brought him to the park. The kid he had been playing catch with ran over to the swings.

  “Come on. Don’t be such a wuss,” Dennis said as he took a step back into the woods.

  “I’m not supposed to go in the woods.”

  “You’re such a mama’s boy.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are so.”

  Cody looked tempted but unsure.

  “I thought we were friends,” Dennis said.

  “You’re mean.”

  “You’re stupid.” Dennis shrugged his shoulders. “Suit yourself. You’ll just miss it, that’s all.”

  He turned sideways and started to walk away, back into the woods. Cody looked back at the playground, then back at Dennis, then back at the playground. Dennis took a few more steps, turning his back. Then footsteps came behind him in the fallen leaves.

  Dennis glanced at Cody and started to jog. Cody broke into a trot. They went over a little rise and out of sight of the playground.

  Dennis stopped, laughing. Cody ran up on his heels. He was laughing too. Then Dennis turned, still laughing, and plunged the knife into Cody Roache’s belly as deep as it would go.

  64

  Wendy sat on the park bench looking out into the woods. She had made a sketch in her notebook showing the scene of the crime—the hill they had jumped off and tumbled down, the rocks and trees, and the grave at the bottom. She was afraid to draw the head of the dead lady, like the drawing would somehow come to life and the head would start talking to her.

  That was stupid, of course. If Tommy had been there, he would have told her what a stupid idea that was. Although it might be a good, really creepy thing in their movie: If the head of the dead lady haunted them and followed them around in ghost form, and talked to them about what had happened. And no one would be able to see her except Wendy and Tommy. Unless she wanted to be seen in order to scare people, like Dennis or the killer.

  Or maybe, in the movie, Dennis would be the killer. THAT would be really weird. There was nothing scarier in a movie than an evil kid. Dennis wouldn’t even have to be acting, she thought.

  She wished now she had called Tommy and prodded him into coming with her to the park. Now, in the full light of a beautiful day, the woods didn’t seem so scary, and she wanted to go back in and retrace their fateful journey from school that day. But it would have been much better if Tommy had been there to help her recount the tale.

  It made Wendy mad that Tommy’s mom was so strict. He always had to go to this lesson or that recital. He couldn’t just be a normal kid and play. He had to be here by a certain time and there before dark, and he couldn’t this, and he couldn’t that.

  And he wasn’t like Harlan Friedman, who pretended to be weak and allergic to everything so he didn’t have to do gym class or go on field trips. Tommy liked to do stuff. He just didn’t like to get in trouble.

  Wendy was in no mood to be that careful. Her parents were already going to be mad at her because she had left the house without permission. She might as well do what she wanted before she got caught. And even when she got caught, what were they supposed to say to her? How could her father talk to her about not breaking the rules, when he was breaking the biggest rule of all himself?

  Emboldened by her temper, Wendy hopped off the bench, tucked her notebook under her arm, and started walking. It wasn’t far before she veered off the path and into the part of the woods they had run through on Tuesday with Dennis and Cody chasing them. She remembered calling Dennis Fartman, and wondered if she would be allowed to put that in the movie. Probably so. They let people swear in movies—not movies she was allowed to see, but still . . .

  Here she remembered looking back over her shoulder and Tommy yelling, “Jump!” And down the bank they went, skidding and sliding and tumbling. Wendy took the long way down this time then looked back up the bank. It was like they had fallen into a bowl, she thought, and she opened her notebook and scribbled that down, sticking her tongue out the side of her mouth as she tried to write and walk and look around all at the same time.

  Tommy had rolled the farthest, stopping right—

  The scream that split the air came so fast and so instinctively that Wendy didn’t even realize it had torn up from her own lungs. There in the grave, half-covered with dead leaves and branches, Cody Roache sat crying, with blood all over his hands and his stomach and his face.

  He looked right at Wendy and sobbed, “Dennis killed me!”

  Dennis bolted out from behind a tree. He grabbed at Wendy, catching hold of one braid and yanking her off her feet as she tried to run. Her notebook went flying. She landed on all fours and barely managed to dodge sideways enough that Dennis missed her back as he plunged down with the knife.

  Scrambling to get up, looking over her shoulder at Dennis, she ran smack into Cody, and they both fell flat. Wendy was covered in blood as she rolled off him and started running, Dennis Farman right on her heels.

  Dennis was bigger and stronger, but Wendy was quick. Every time he lunged for her, she managed to arch her back and evade his grasp—until the toe of her sneaker hit squarely on the exposed root of a tree.

  She fell hard, the wind going out of her in one big, painful whoosh!

  “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” Dennis screamed over and over.
<
br />   He fell to his knees on top of her, the knife flying out of his bloody hand as he drew his arm back to stab her. He didn’t seem to notice it was gone and kept bringing his arm down again and again, as if he was driving the knife into her, his fist thumping so hard against her chest she saw stars with each contact.

  Wendy’s vision filled with black lace. She couldn’t get a breath. Dennis was on top of her. She was going to die.

  65

  Tommy spent the day walking on eggshells. It was something he was very good at because he had a lot of practice doing it. He had always known how to read his mother’s moods—or anyone’s for that matter. He never understood people who couldn’t.

  His father had left the house very early to help with the search for the missing lady. Tommy had asked to go along, but his dad had explained they didn’t allow kids to be there.

  That didn’t make sense to Tommy, since kids could look for things just as well as adults—and probably better. They were closer to the ground and they paid more attention to what was around them. And besides that, he had already seen a dead body before, so it wasn’t like he would be afraid if he saw one again.

  But it didn’t matter, because his dad left him once again to deal with his mother, who got out of bed mad, slamming doors and drawers, muttering to herself. That was the worst thing: when she talked to herself under her breath, so angry, her eyes hard and cold.

  She went through the house “cleaning,” as she called it. Throwing things left and right, out of drawers, onto the floor—magazines, newspapers, mail. She went through the kitchen throwing out food, throwing things out of the refrigerator into the sink.

  Later, when she had calmed down, she would go through the house again, following the trail of destruction, making sure there would be no signs left of what she had done. By the time his father got home, the house would be perfectly neat and clean, like nothing had ever happened.

  Tommy stayed in his room for most of her tirade, but knew that eventually she would come in there as well, and if he hadn’t done a perfect job of keeping his room neat, he would have a BIG problem. His mother would tear the sheets from his bed, throw his toys in the garbage, tear up papers he had brought home from school to save because he had gotten stars on them from Miss Navarre, or she had written a note on them saying how well he had done.

  He knew how his mother would particularly be after those because she was still angry at Miss Navarre. More than ever after Detective Mendez and the FBI man had been there.

  Tommy made a special effort to hide the things he valued most, pressing papers between the mattress and box spring of his bed.

  He wished he dared to just leave, but he didn’t. Instead he slipped from his room and followed two rooms behind his mother, going through the mess to make certain she hadn’t thrown out anything of value. He sometimes found things like watches and jewelry, money, checks, all kinds of things that his mother would never throw away if she hadn’t been in one of her moods.

  Today was no exception. Tommy sorted out the good things and put them back where they belonged. Books, magazines, and drink coasters in the family room. Figurines and photographs in the living room. In his parents’ room—where he had to be extra careful not to be caught—he saved his father’s ring from college and a tangle of jewelry his mother had thrown in the wastebasket.

  When she finished her tirade, she was in the study, sitting on her knees sobbing amid a pile of papers, letters, newspaper clippings. And like always when she started crying, Tommy went in and sat with her, and held her hand. He told her that he felt bad for her, and he was sorry for her, and he hoped she would feel better soon.

  It wasn’t a job a kid should have, but that was just his life.

  He wished he could have just gone to the park on a Saturday like everyone else.

  66

  “Steve wouldn’t kill Lisa,” Crane said. “He cared for her.”

  “So much that he would only see her in the dead of night?” Mendez asked. “Wouldn’t admit it to anyone, wouldn’t let her tell anyone?”

  “He’s a married man.”

  “He should have thought of that before he unzipped his pants,” Mendez said.

  Crane got up and started pacing, his hands on his hips. “I’m really not comfortable talking about this.”

  “You said Steve is a complicated guy. In what way?” Mendez asked.

  “He’s your friend, man. Tell me about him.”

  “I just meant that Steve is very driven. He’s passionate about the work he does for the center. Steve comes from a tough background—single mom, not much money, desperate times. He had to fight his way to get where he is—including being married to Sara. She’s from a good family, educated, beautiful.”

  “She’s a trophy for him?”

  “No! I don’t know.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “I should have kept my mouth shut. Why don’t you talk to Steve? I’m sure he’ll tell you anything you want to know. He doesn’t have anything to hide.”

  “Except a mistress,” Mendez said. “What time did you leave O’Brien’s?”

  “One thirty, quarter to two.”

  “Where did you go from there?”

  “I went home. Steve was going to check into the Holiday Inn.”

  “All right,” Mendez said, getting up from his chair.

  Crane looked at him, a little suspicious. “I can go?”

  Mendez spread his hands. “Sure.”

  Peter Crane breathed a sigh of relief and started for the door. Pausing with his hand on the knob.

  “How is Karly Vickers?” he asked. “Has there been any news?”

  “Much better,” Mendez lied. “She’s a tough cookie. The doctors are pretty confident she’s going to come around soon.”

  “Really?”

  “I guess there won’t be any questions left then.”

  “I guess not.”

  The door opened from the outside then, and Hicks leaned into the room, a grim look on his face. “We’ve got to go. There’s been a stabbing in Oakwoods Park. Multiple victims.”

  The EMTs were already on the scene and loading a gurney into their bus when Mendez and Hicks pulled into the parking area.

  “Who’s our vic?” Mendez asked, running up to the back before they could close the doors.

  “A kid. He’s bleeding out! We gotta go!” The tech shouted at his driver. “Go! Go!”

  A couple of deputies slammed the back doors shut, and the rig turned around, siren bleating, scattering onlookers like sheep.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Mendez called out, holding up his shield.

  One of the deputies said, “The call-out was a stabbing with multiple victims—both children. They’re both on their way to Mercy General.”

  “Does anybody know what happened?” Hicks asked.

  “Several people reported hearing a little girl scream. They ran over here,” he said, pointing to the woods in the direction of the place where Lisa Warwick’s body had been found. “And they found the subject attacking the little girl. Blood was everywhere.”

  “Mother of God,” Mendez said. “And the subject?”

  “You aren’t gonna believe this,” the deputy said, leading them over to his cruiser.

  Sitting in the backseat with his hands cuffed together with zip ties was Dennis Farman, covered in blood and staring blankly straight ahead.

  They drove directly to the hospital. Hicks got on a phone to call Dixon. Mendez watched the medical team working frantically on the boy. The same doctor who had worked on Karly Vickers barked out orders the staff jumped to carry out. There was blood everywhere. Too much blood to have come from so small a patient—and have him live, Mendez thought.

  Jesus. He had already known Dennis Farman was a disturbed child, but who the hell could have predicted this? Kids beat each other up on the playground; they didn’t pull knives and go berserk.

  What could drive a child to that kind of violence?

  There had to be a
lot more to the story of the Farman household than a mother who drank a little and a drill sergeant for a patriarch. Dennis hadn’t gone off this deep end because he got spanked for cutting school.

  Suddenly the doctor was shouting at his staff to GO! and half a dozen people bolted into action, wheeling the gurney out of the exam room and down the hall. Mendez had to jump back out of the way.

  The doctor pulled off his bloody gown and gloves and threw them on the floor in disgust.

  “How does it look for him?” Mendez asked, holding up his shield.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s still bleeding. I think the blade might have nicked his spleen.”

  “Will he make it?”

  “He’s on his way to surgery. He can live without a spleen. He can’t live with less than half his blood supply. We’ll know within the hour. Do you have any idea who did this to him?”

  “Another kid,” Mendez said. “Where’s the other victim?”

  “Room three. Another kid? What’s the world coming to?”

  “Nothing good. Have you had any word on Karly Vickers?”

  “She’s up in ICU. Stable.”

  “Conscious?”

  “Don’t get greedy. She’s in a coma. She should be dead.”

  The big glass doors whooshed open and a panicked couple—Renee Roache and her husband—rushed in, Mrs. Roache sobbing hysterically.

  “That’ll be the Roaches,” the doctor said. “I’d better go talk to them.”

  Mendez turned to go down the hall.

  “Frank’s not working today,” Hicks said, joining him. “Dixon’s got everyone looking for him. How’s the kid?”

  “We’ll know within the hour. He’s on his way to surgery. The other vic is down here.”

  Wendy Morgan sat on the table looking like a refugee from a horror movie with blood on her face, on her clothes, on her hands. Mendez showed his badge to the nurse standing beside her, holding her hand.

  “Wendy,” he said with genuine concern. “How are you, sweetheart? Are you hurt?”