The Lion, The Lamb, The Hunted

by Kaufman, Andrew E.

  She never recovered from his death; I expect no parent ever does, but they do usually move on. Not her. She talked about him constantly, and the theme was always the same: Benjamin could do no wrong. Sometimes it felt as though he ruled my life from the grave, since I spent my childhood competing against him for my mother’s affection. It was hard going up against a ghost, so naturally I lost.

  I came to realize her grief wasn’t normal, that it wasn’t really even about Benjamin—it was about her. She used him as a tool to draw attention to herself, as a weapon to make me feel less-than. Whenever she became angry or upset with me, what usually followed was, “Your poor brother would turn in his grave if he saw the way you treated me. God rest his soul.”

  My poor brother. I don’t know…sometimes I thought he got off easy; after all, he didn’t have to live with her for very long. I was the one who ended up doing hard time.

  I started blaming my brother just like my mother blamed me, grew resentful, privately referring to him as Saint Benjamin. Condemnation always rolled downhill in our house, and since Benjamin couldn’t defend himself, he was an easy target.

  Then one day, the inevitable happened; I’d always figured it would, I just didn’t know how, or that it would hurt so much.

  My mother had a music box that she loved. Her father had given it to her. It was a porcelain figurine of a young girl sitting Indian style, facing a corner, with tears rolling down her cheeks. When my mother wound it up, the music played and the girl would slowly spin around. “There’s my Little Sad Girl,” she would often say. Personally, the thing gave me the creeps. Sometimes I’d walk into the living room and find her holding it lovingly against her cheek, her own tearful eyes closed as the music played softly. She’d look up at me, startled, then try to act unaffected, as if doing so might somehow negate her moment of vulnerability.

  I arrived home to an empty house after school one day. Nothing unusual there. Mother always seemed to be running around, although I never understood where. I tossed my books on the counter, then searched the fridge for something to eat. Hardly anything there—also not unusual—just a single apple somewhere on the outer edges of its lifespan and a can of soda. The phone rang as I was pulling them out. I put the soda down so I could answer; it was a call from the dentist, reminding mother of her appointment the next day. After writing the information down, I headed for the living room.

  I had just turned on the TV when I realized I’d forgotten my soda in the kitchen, so I tossed the apple onto the side table, then headed back. A few steps later, I heard the smashing noise.

  Little Sad Girl was on the floor in pieces.

  Then I heard mother pull up in the driveway.

  She walked in, took one look, and froze in her tracks.

  “It was an accident!” I said, shaking my head, stepping away from the broken pieces as if doing so might somehow separate me from my catastrophic mistake. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

  “No!” She leaped forward, dropping to her hands and knees. Then came the tears as she scrambled around on the floor, frantically trying to gather up the pieces. I knelt beside her to help. That was when she shot me the death glare, and with her voice filled with venom and anger, screamed, “Get away! Don’t you touch her! Don’t you dare!”

  I stood, then backed away slowly as she continued picking up the pieces, examining each one, and sobbing uncontrollably. I knew there was nothing I could say, nothing I could do except stand and watch.

  Finally, she looked up and caught my gaze. With tearful, bloodshot eyes and in a tone low and angry, my mother said, “You…ruin…everything.”

  “I’m sorry!” I said, crying, “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Get out of my sight.”

  I turned away, headed for my room. And then behind me I heard her say those words, the kind you can never take back.

  “I wish you were the one who died.”

  Chapter Ten

  The Sports Page didn’t seem very sporty. The theme, more than anything, was dark. Dark ceilings, dark walls, dark floors. Just your typical hole-in-the-wall bar. They did have a baseball game playing on the big screen, but that was about as athletic as it got. A kid who barely looked old enough to drink, let alone serve one, took my order. About a half hour later, CJ walked in.

  “Sorry,” she with a smile that matched her apology. “Got hung up at work. You know how that goes.”

  “I do. And don’t worry about it. I’ve kept my share of people waiting. More times than I can count.”

  “We do make horrible dates, don’t we? One of the many downfalls of being in this business, I guess.”

  She had that right.

  A few moments later, Waiter Boy came back with a Tom Collins for her and another beer for me. CJ smiled her thank you.

  “So …” she said while settling into her seat. “Nathan Kingsley.”

  “Yeah. What can you tell me about him?”

  “It was the biggest story this town’s ever seen, but like I said, kid’s been dead for a long time. Lucas too …” She shrugged, took a sip. “We do a follow-up every now and then—you know, on the anniversary if nothing else is going on— but really, it ends up being more of a recap than anything else. Same old stuff, recycled.”

  “They never found him,” I confirmed.

  “Nope.” She lifted her glass, swirled it around, stared into it.

  “And they were still able to convict without?”

  “A classic no-body murder trial. No question the kid was murdered. Evidence was rock-solid. Lucas was dumb enough to leave some pretty incriminating stuff in his apartment.”

  “I read about that. The boy’s clothing and the knife.”

  “With Nathan’s blood on them—it left little doubt.”

  “And blood typing was enough?”

  “It was all they had at the time, but they were able to confirm that the clothes belonged to Nathan. The parents verified. You put one and one together—”

  “And you get two.”

  “Hopefully. If you do it right. Plus there was Lucas’s history. It tore at his defense that he was a convicted sex offender, but even worse was the eyewitness who placed him in the neighborhood at the time of the kidnapping.”

  “The mailman.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Pretty compelling.”

  “About as slam-dunk as they get,” she said. “Only took three hours to come back with a verdict. Guilty on both counts. Then they went for the death penalty. Not much sympathy in Texas for child killers.”

  “Or anywhere else, for that matter.”

  She took another sip, nodded. “True.”

  “So what about the body?”

  “He buried it out in the desert somewhere; they’re pretty sure of it. You could get more on that from Jerry Lindsay.”

  “Jerry Lindsay,” I repeated.

  She nodded. “The sheriff at the time. Retired now but still local. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to hook up with him, anyway. He’s an irascible old bastard but good for a quote or two. I usually drag him out whenever I do a follow-up.”

  “How about the boy’s parents? What were they like?”

  “Salt of the earth, decent, but very young at the time. Father worked. Mom stayed home. Dennis is still in town, lives up in the hills north of here. Keeps to himself. Can’t say I blame him.” She placed her drink firmly on the table and frowned at it, shaking her head. “Their lives really fell apart after Nathan died.”

  “The suicide.”

  “Yeah. Talk about tragic.”

  I nodded, thinking again of Dennis Kingsley and what he must have gone through.

  “I guess it was too much for her to handle.” CJ’s smile was sad. “The guilt.”

  “How’d she let him out of her sight long enough for someone to grab him, anyway? In her own home, no less.”

  “Well, according to the prosecutor, it all went down fast—real fast. They walked home from the corner store. Probably Lucas follow
ed them and hid behind the house waiting for the right time to make his move…which came when Jean stepped out to get the mail.”

  “How’d he get in?”

  “Climbed through the bedroom window. The screen was tampered with.”

  “So the window was open,” I confirmed.

  She nodded. “It was June.”

  I thought about the physical logistics for a moment. “But how did he climb back out with a three-year-old in tow?”

  “It was pretty easy, actually. The window was low enough to the ground where he could practically step right through it. They demonstrated it in court with an exact replica of the window and a life-sized doll of Nathan.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Very dramatic, very effective.”

  “And no one saw him leave with Nathan?”

  “Nope. Just the mailman beforehand, but the timeline seemed to fit.”

  I wrote a few notes, then looked up to find her gazing pensively at me.

  “Something wrong?”

  She tipped her empty glass toward herself and stared into it. “It may not be my place to say this—or maybe it is—I’m not sure. But I’m going to, anyway.”

  I shook my head.

  “The Kingsley case left a bad taste around here for a long time.”

  “Understandably.”

  “And someone like you, an outsider, asking questions, digging up the past—it’s likely to rub a few people the wrong way.”

  “What exactly are you telling me?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I completely understand what you’re doing, where you’re coming from. But the locals may not be so understanding.”

  “Is this some sort of warning?”

  “Not so much a warning.” A compassionate smile. “More a friendly word of caution from one professional to another.”

  “And that would be…”

  “To tread lightly—that’s all. Corvine’s come a long way. They’re nowhere near as backwoods as they once were—trust me on that one—but hell, even I still run into a tense situation or two while covering the story. And I’m local. People in this town are super hyper-sensitive about the case. I’ve learned to ask the right questions and when to back off. Do that and you’ll be fine. Don’t do it, and you might be headed for some trouble.”

  Chapter Eleven

  CJ’s talk about unfriendly territory left me feeling a little uneasy. I got her point, and I understood it. Through the years, I’d run into my share of hostile subjects. But understanding didn’t mean I had to like it.

  Like it or not, she was right, as I quickly found out when I tried to visit the old Kingsley house. Bill and Norma Bansch now owned it and had been living there for the past fifteen years. When I called to request a look inside, Bill gave me a definitive no—then promptly hung up on me.

  So much for southern hospitality.

  But I wasn’t going to let it deter me from stopping by and checking out the neighborhood. I needed to see where Nathan had lived and where his life had come to its tragic end.

  ***

  It was a small place on the south side of town just past the railroad tracks. Starter homes, I think they call them: tiny houses with even tinier yards. It was probably a quaint little neighborhood back in the day, but the years had chipped away at its charm; pride of ownership no longer seemed to be a priority here. More than a few of the houses had paint peeling, driveways cracked, and no landscaping to speak of—unless, of course, you counted the brown, weed-infested grass.

  I parked a good fifty yards from the Kingsley house, figuring I could make a quick getaway if someone became disagreeable. Then I took a good look at the place; it was in better shape than some of its neighbors, but something about it made me vaguely uneasy, as if there were a need for spiritual repairs. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but…well, a young boy had been kidnapped from here, sexually abused, and murdered. That would creep anyone out.

  I pulled a baseball cap down low on my forehead, then picked up a stack of flyers I’d grabbed off the counter at the local coffee shop: Carpet stains getting you down? Clean one room, get the other free! 100% satisfaction guaranteed! Call The Carpet Doctor today for your no-obligation estimate!

  I crossed to the opposite side of the street and went to work stuffing flyers in doors.

  The first thing that pinged my radar was how close together all the houses were, separated only by narrow driveways and thin slices of lawn. That would have made it more of a challenge to grab a kid in broad daylight. Also odd, I thought, was that only one person had seen Lucas that day—the mailman—and that was before Nathan disappeared.

  Nothing during, nothing after.

  Nabbing a toddler is noisy business; they tend to scream a lot when a stranger pulls them from the comforts of home and their mothers. Someone should have heard something. I watched a few cars drive past from different directions, then looked up and down the street: open on both ends.

  Very odd, indeed.

  What’s more, the newspaper said that Jean had gone to the curb to check the mail. But the mailbox was less than fifty feet from the front door. Unless she’d stopped to read a letter, it shouldn’t have taken her more than twenty-five seconds to make it back to the house.

  Lots of obstacles, and yet Lucas seemed to sail through them all with no trouble at all.

  Closer to the Kingsley house now, I slowed my steps. I needed to see that back window. I peered up the driveway and saw the garage door was open and the inside empty. A good sign. I came to the front, shoved a flyer in the door, then moved quickly to the rear. Stood by the window. CJ was right: the ledge was only a few feet off the ground. Easy in, easy out. Kid didn’t stand a chance.

  But then I gazed out at the mailbox. Just as I’d thought; it was a straight line of sight. This meant Lucas had a very small margin of error if he wanted to avoid being seen, and with a toddler under his arm, no less. Yet another obstacle.

  What the hell did she do, hand the baby over to him?

  Doubtful, but too many unanswered questions lingered in my mind.

  Then I realized where I was standing, and stepped back. Quickly. This was the exact spot where a toddler had been pulled away from his loving family and straight into hell. Sexually abused. Murdered. Tossed in the dirt somewhere out in the remote Texas desert like so much trash.

  A three-year-old boy, for Christ’s sake.

  I couldn’t stay there any longer, not by that window, not even in that neighborhood. I hurried down the driveway, crossed the street, then went straight for my car. Got in and sped off down the road without so much as a backward glance.

  I may not have seen the Ghost of Nathan, but I’d seen enough.

  Chapter Twelve

  My mind was speeding faster than my car after I left the Kingsley house. I shouldn’t have let it get to me. I’m a reporter. I’m supposed to separate my feelings, keep them out of my way; it bothers me when I can’t. I’ll admit I’ve got a soft spot for kids, maybe because my own childhood was so lousy. My experience paled in comparison to what Nathan Kingsley suffered, but on some level, in some way, it still resonated. I felt for him. Death was too good for this Lucas guy.

  Then I reminded myself that my mother and Warren also had a hand in this, and my stomach did another flip. How the hell could they?

  I drew in a deep, shaky breath, tried to find balance in my perspective. Drove on.

  I wanted to stop by the grocery store where Nathan and his mother had shopped that day, but soon found that it no longer existed. Now standing in its place was the town’s very first McDonald’s.

  There’s progress for you.

  I walked around the area for a bit instead, trying to grab hold of my emotions and maybe a better understanding of how things had gone down that long-ago day. Tried speaking to a few merchants, but nobody seemed remotely interested in talking to me.

  I was starting to get the message.

  ***

  Jerry Lindsay lived in a
1950s colonial style house on the north side of town. His wife, Beatrice, answered the front door and led me to their sunroom where the retired sheriff was drinking coffee and reading the paper.

  At sixty-three-years-old, he was still rock-solid: six-foot-plus frame, broad shoulders, and large, rough hands that had clearly done their share of work over the years. He looked every bit the retired cop with his thick silvery hair, matching mustache, and an intense, unyielding stare that I imagined had proven useful in the interrogation room.

  He stood and shook my hand—nearly squeezing the life out of it—then pointed at the chair across from him. It felt more like an order than an act of hospitality.

  I slipped my pad and pen from my pocket as I took my seat.

  “The Kingsley case,” Lindsay said, filtering his words through mild laughter. “What on earth made you wanna pick up and come all the way out here for that?”

  “It fits with a story I’m doing on missing children.”

  He grunted. “Huh. No missing kids over there in California?”

  “We’re a national magazine, Sheriff. I cover crimes all over the country.”

  He held my gaze, arched a brow, went silent.

  I said, “Did you ever figure out what Lucas did with the body?”

  “No, and I doubt we ever will.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’m guessing it’s because he did a damn good job of hiding it.” The tone was smug, the look on his face even more so.

  I ignored both and kept pushing. “How far did your search go?”

  “From county line to county line.” He ran a hand through his hair, gazed out the window. “That little boy is buried in the desert somewhere. I’m sure of it.”

  “What makes you so sure? Was the conclusion based on any evidence?”