“Dad?”
“Yeah, Doug.”
“Are we selling the house?”
Dad refitted the goggles. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
Doug went to his room and drafted three letters. The first he addressed to E. He didn’t want to lose her forever, he said, but she’d had time enough to wake up, and there was no other way to stop her and the group from sleepwalking to their deaths. The second was to his mom and dad, mostly apologizing for the lying, as well as for their last family vacation to the Wisconsin Dells, how he’d a knowingly poor attitude at the water parks and spoiled their good time when he should’ve been grateful to be all together. The last was to the Palos Hills Police Department, a description of the when and wheres of what they’d done, which was fuzzy in the middle and made him stop to rub his temples and say, “Think, genius!”
Doug dropped his pen in a cold sweat. He looked at what he’d done, what he was about to do. To fold and address the many pages seemed impossible. It would be real. Not the consequences of his confessions, but the fucked-up-ness of the experience that was and would forever be his life.
He lifted E.’s letter to attempt a crease.
There was a knock on the door. His dad pushed inside as Doug heaved his backpack onto the desk.
A hooded figure slouched in the doorway, not Dad. The hood lowered. It was John Walker. He was alone, not smirking and terrifying because of it.
“The weather has been something the last few days. Hasn’t it? Nice in here, though.” The boy scanned the room, not budging from the doorway, hollow-eyed as the glass skull on E.’s windowsill.
Doug couldn’t recall when last he’d seen the Dead Man in the early afternoon. Doug had been writing intensely in the meager light that radiated through his closed blinds, his mind on nothing else. The hallway was dim. An overcast glare came through the bathroom window and monochromed John’s right half. He’d changed so much since he’d first materialized in Doug’s life, at school in front of the big window at the end of the hallway, the specter of a legend, misty white in the full noon sun. He was bald now with an anorexic sunkenness and fragility. Daubed in grays, John had gone from ghost to ghoul. A pitiful one, too, as if he were only the ashen remains of a boy who might at any moment be lost to the wind.
“Who told you you could just … come in here?”
“I know what’s going on, Doug. The notes—” His arm rose as if weighted. He pointed through Doug to the writing desk. A corner of the killer’s note flapped up beneath the backpack. “He’s made contact with you again.”
“So you know … I’m not lying.”
“I’m grateful you told us. Now we can finish The Work.”
“There isn’t an end to it, is there?”
“That’s up to you,” he said.
“I’m done with the woods.”
“I wish you could hear the trees.” Beside his head, John twisted his finger in a rising corkscrew motion. “You’re not,” he said. “Not even close.”
“I’m sorry. No—I’m not sorry. I’m telling you, I’m not coming back. I don’t believe in your craziness like the others. It’s no good … for anybody.”
“Doug, you know better than most: Good things can happen … like that—”
The guy snapped his fingers. Across the house, the vacuum cleaner buzzed to life. Doug’s dad woo-hooed and hollered, “He’s back!”
“Use all your tricks …” Doug reached for the backpack behind him in case he needed to pull the hammer. In doing so, his gaze shifted a second. When next his eyes fixed on the guy, John was upright in the doorway. He blocked what little light there was and stood very still. “I don’t care anymore what happens down there,” Doug said. “You can’t make me.”
“You don’t care about E.?”
“Of course. But—”
“Of course you do. That’s why I chose you. I know how you feel about her, and—if that’s where your negative view of me is coming from—I want you to know, I don’t love her. Not the way you do, the way you always will. I know you’d do anything for her because she’s sharp and dear to you. But she’s fragile, too. She’s leading the group to war.”
“That’s what you want.”
“Doug, you need to listen harder. You need to listen harder to her. You need to listen harder to yourself. Harder to the woods.” The boy closed his eyes. “I kept this from you because I know how you get under pressure—you’re the key of the group. All I did was get us together. I can’t save us from ourselves.”
“I know what you’re doing. We’re all in danger because of you.”
John’s eyes opened, plaintively, as did one hand, as if in offering, palm skyward. “Then stay by her side. Be her conscience. Be the group’s.”
“I can’t follow her anymore … not where she’s going because of you.”
“Not even to save her life?”
His mouth was dark. Doug would’ve sworn that its corners had upturned in a grin.
“What’re you going to do?”
“If you’re suggesting I could hurt one of the group, I have lost you.”
“But you’d hurt me if I left? Is that it?”
“I already told you, you’re not leaving us.”
“I am—I have. That’s what I’m saying. But you’re so … full of yourself—so insane, you can’t hear anything that doesn’t fit your plan.”
“No, Doug. It’s because I’m telling you, if you don’t come with me right now, E. is prepared to take your place in facing the killer. And she will lose her life.”
•
Alex waited on the orange tongue of the playground slide outside the community center, hands buried in the pockets of a pair of khaki shorts, head bent in thought, and eyes focused on the sand beneath the boys’ feet. The look was familiar to Doug: a difficult decision.
The Dead Man told Doug to relax and listen to Alex’s story, withholding old resentments or judgment. Also, to remember to breathe.
Alex said nothing. They listened to empty swings creak in the breeze.
“So, where’s E.?” Doug said.
Alex stood abruptly and led the boys to the elevated tracks. Without so much as a glance at Doug or seeming to notice the Dead Man, who wheezed and dragged himself zombie-like behind them, Alex watched the railroad ties pass methodically underfoot during pensive silences between a thorough explanation of recent events.
On Saturday and Sunday, Alex coordinated a surveillance team to confirm Rocco “Rocky” Lordes as the key murder suspect. Tiffany’s druggie friend that’d partied with her and Erika in the woods had moved to the Major Potential Suspect List after Alex spent the last two weeks tailing members of the group with promising motives, just to be sure. These suspects’ names would go undisclosed. Of course, everyone couldn’t be observed on those nights that mayhem occurred at camp, but Alex was now eighty-five percent certain that the Grove’s tormentor was not among them.
“What’d you two talk E. into doing?”
Alex stopped before the train bridge and pointed underhand across the wide canal. Finding Rocky’s current address and the discovery of a back trail into the woods helped in reprioritizing efforts to uncover the killer. The high school boy lived with his mother in Palos Heights in a subdivision on the other side of the river, making the Grove accessible via a relatively short walk. This gave him the means to come and go unnoticed by the group, the cops, and other witnesses. Alex was tired of theorizing, however, and wanted proof.
“And E.’s your bait,” Doug said. “Is that it?”
“Keep up, genius.”
Alex scrambled down the trail and into the trees. The Dead Man stayed at the top of the tracks. He gazed down at Doug with a sad smile. He then looked sidelong at the water.
Walking hurriedly along the path that crossed to the moraine, Alex disclosed to Doug that the setting of traps around the Grove had provided a prime opportunity to map the area for vantage points that the tormentor used to gather intelligence. Thi
s suspicion that their tormentor studied his prey before striking was aroused by the continual uncovering of their hiding spots and by the appearance of the detailed drawing left on the Big Tree last Friday, then confirmed by the appearance of Doug’s locker notes. The initial search of the surrounding area turned up a few lukewarm spots with no conclusive evidence of regular occupation. Alex then decided to test the theory that the guy was watching from much higher up and only ventured down to perform sabotage. Walking the entire valley rim overlooking the Grove led to this—
Alex stopped in the trail and nodded toward a hiding place. The cubby was barely noticeable behind the low-lying branches of a scrubby pine.
“E.?”
Alex waited while Doug pushed beyond the branches and inside. The space was no more than a few feet wide, and the end was hidden from the valley by a huge rock. Beneath the rock, the steep slope plummeted to the Grove—only one way in. The rock was large enough for someone to remain concealed if sitting or crouching. From up here, Doug had a side view of the fire pit in front of the Big Tree and, although far off, binoculars might easily allow a watcher to identify the shoelace color of everyone below. The outpost’s position wasn’t the only evidence of it belonging to the tormentor. Paraphernalia of a demented mind littered the space. Images of older women crudely torn from a glossy magazine had been duct taped to the rock. Their eyes and breasts were stabbed through, leaving black-rimmed holes, as if from a cigarette. Unusual geometric symbols inked the women’s bodies. Knifed into the trunk of the pine was the same upside-down V shape that’d marked the Big Tree, above which, about shoulder height, a name was also carved, the first two letters struck through: DOUG.
“So.” Alex casually took Doug’s picture as he jolted, surprised by someone standing beside him. “Proof that he’s had his eye on you. Likely after your first confrontation. Or you’re the tormentor and left your mark, as John had accused. Which do you think is more probable?”
“I … didn’t do this. Any of it. I—I couldn’t have.”
Alex snapped another picture, camera raised, of Doug with the Big Tree in the distance. “Maybe.”
“Hey, stop.” Doug shielded his face. “You set this up. Maybe you did it. How do you know so much about the killer?”
“The tormentor. Who is potentially the killer,” Alex corrected. “Haven’t you ever seen a crime show? I have less of a motive than you do. Which you would know if you’d spent as much time solving the crime as falling in love with suspects.”
Alex came closer, within Doug’s personal space, and took his left hand. His fingers were splayed and palm examined, then flipped, and his splotchy, bitten-down nails marveled at. For a moment, it struck Doug that he’d been a fool this entire time, to have chased E. and Tiffany when here was this nice-enough girl completely obsessed with him.
“You and Tiffany engaged in sexual relations.” Alex clamped his wrist as he tried to pull away, made uncomfortable by the blunt comment. “Of course, it’s perfectly normal behavior. I’ve been tempted, even. To get involved emotionally, that is.”
Doug allowed his hand to be taken and lifted to the tree where his name had been carved. Alex abruptly dropped it to jot another note, systematically recording evidence, no interest in him other than as a suspect.
“So, where is she? John said—”
“Soon enough, there will be more important mysteries to devote my life to,” the real genius went on. “After I’ve cracked this one.”
Alex checked the time, then hurried back onto the trail and held the branches for Doug, ushering the boy forth, not toward the Grove, but back down the long trail to the train bridge.
Doug had to jog and duck branches to keep the pace. He felt swept up in a familiar and deadly current. Alex drove him on, but it was always the Dead Man and his woods they were lost in, all misbelieving they were on the path to getting where they wanted when they were all just groping for an end in the dark. Doug, too. He had to regain control or lose himself, maybe for the last time.
“You have to know who did it already—that I didn’t, at least. If I did, which I didn’t, or John or Greg or any of us, it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, trying to reach Alex, “not if one of us dies.”
Alex hmph-ed and slackened in stride. “Do you still believe that John—the Dead Man, as you’ve mocked him for months—is Erika’s murderer?”
“You won’t like what I think. I know you worship the guy, like everyone—”
“I don’t worship a phenomenon. It necessitates study.”
“You have to suspect him … even a little.”
“You identified the cloaked tormentor as tall.”
“Maybe he wore tall shoes? John’s crazy. The guy’s got nothing to lose. He’s capable of anything—of faking everything.”
“I’m asking if you’ve evidence that substantiates his guilt, not to criticize the mental health of a dying man.”
“I—no,” he said. “Which I know sounds like I’m just jealous.”
“His single show of force came on only after you dropped top-secret information. I also noticed the words written in the margins of the book he’d found. And, of course, we all saw the mountain symbol left in the Big Tree, tying our tormentor conclusively to the book, as well as to Erika’s digging during the week of the murder—and to you. But I didn’t say anything to the group, waiting for a slip-up. Which is to say, you were a suspect. Though an unlikely accomplice, there was a chance.”
“OK, yes—but what he’s done to us—just being here, we’re in danger. The ritual, his wanting to be in the woods all the time, to die in them …”
“The way you would go about solving the problem would get us all in trouble, ending the most comprehensive investigation of the murder that will ever be conducted, thus leaving the killer at large. That, I can’t let you do. It’s not about the fame for me anymore—Kid Genius Solves Gruesome Woodland Murder—making headlines, earning more renown than John ever had. I want a confession and, yes, the satisfaction of success. But I also want to keep our friends. Because he’s right, you know. There’s something here, bigger than the death of one girl—an old evil in the woods. Or maybe we brought it here. It too necessitates study—and defeat. But John’s wrong to think holding hands around a campfire will stop it. E. and I had to beg him to confront the tormentor directly to get the closure we need. Does that sound like your mastermind urging us to our deaths?”
“He made you believe that you needed to be out here in the first place.”
“False cause.”
“He’s wanted this from the beginning—us to follow him mindlessly, so when he finally goes, we all fall with him.”
“More speculation. Our decision to be here has relied on factors beyond his control—”
A sound stopped Alex, who shushed Doug’s whining. A chainsaw buzzed in the distance, followed by a crack and the shouts of workers.
“The vote passed,” Alex said, almost surprised. “The contractors will make room for larger equipment to clear-cut for the condos and golf course. A two-front war begins.”
“See? You think you’re smart enough to play him and get what you want. But he’s playing you—all of us. He doesn’t need to have stabbed Erika to have killed her. Another person getting killed out here is just—it’s right around the corner.”
Alex looked him over, enthusiasm gone and annoyed, hating to admit he was right. “On that last point, we agree.”
As they neared the end of the path, Alex slowed and confessed to involving John and E. in a surveillance operation over the weekend that almost cost their lives. A lone investigator could only accomplish so much. So, on Sunday they’d tailed him to the woods. Alex had watched the potential tormentor’s house, E. had watched the train bridge, and John had watched the outpost in the woods. Rocky lived in a brick house, the kind in a horseshoe shape, with long gray shutters on the windows and a well-manicured lawn. Alex waited in the rain, crouched behind a neighbor’s bush across the street until the
boy appeared. He didn’t come out of the front door, as expected, but out of his bedroom window, headfirst as if the house were birthing him. Alex tailed the kid down the block, squatted behind parked cars and yard bushes, made easy because Rocky was wearing a canary-yellow rain jacket. He crossed through a waterlogged park with several pitcher’s mounds like islands amid little green lakes. Alex lost sight of him around a high fence. Catching up, there was no trace of the boy across the wide parking lot beyond, which dead-ended into a power line tower and some scrubby trees along the train bridge. This creeped out Alex enough to retreat into a nearby dugout and wait with the letter opener drawn and notebook hidden between the aluminum bench and the wall, to save the evidence in the event of being murdered. A long time passed, straining for the sound of the boy’s slosh-y steps, before the cold command of logic returned and Alex called E. to warn her that the suspect might be aware of being followed. E. had her phone off. She waited, eyes closed—in a location that Alex would not yet disclose—listening for the tormentor’s step, eyelids cracking only as his boots creaked the rail road ties, walking eerily slow for someone caught in the rain and who’d evaded Alex’s pursuit. John held the most dangerous position: in the woods alone, across from the tormentor’s outpost, barely camouflaged in a dark hoodie. The rain was warm, and he sat in the wet earth on the roots of a small tree, content enough to doze. His eyes never closed, he said, so attuned he was to the rhythm of the rainfall and the mud spattering his pant legs and the feel of the living earth all around and inside him that, he swore, he could see the killer slip down the train tracks to the trail, curse after stepping in a puddle up to the knee, then pause at the outpost for a rusted set of tools he’d hidden beneath the rock and test the path to the Grove for traps, disabling some but leaving when the rain began to fall in sheets.
Into that Good Night Page 23