“I did, but I figured this mess was just startin’ since that boy was here now. And I was right about that, too, wasn’t I?”
“Probably so. Burke say anything about putting a deputy out front?”
“Why in the hell would he go and do that?”
“The boy might have seen something he shouldn’t have. I figured you knew the risk you were taking.”
Linda Dupree shook her head, and the color drained from her face. “He didn’t say a word about that.”
“All right, I’ll talk to Burke about it.”
“You don’t think somebody would try to hurt that boy do you?”
“I hope not. Seems to me he’s been through a lot the way it is. Can I talk to him?”
“Sure, sure, he’s in my room. It’s this way,” Linda said, then turned and headed down a narrow hallway.
Hud lingered for a second, looked out the screen door to the vacant road with concern, then followed after the woman and the scent of cigarette smoke she’d left in her wake.
Chapter Twelve
Memories of his own childhood danced just underneath Hud’s skin. The tips of his fingers tingled, his chest ached, and his face felt as if it was on fire. He clamped his lips together so the boy wouldn’t see his pain. Everything around him was lost in a swirl of gray light. The air was still, dank, and musty, with a hint of a woman’s perfume just out of reach. Creaky floors threatened to collapse underneath his feet, encouraging his fear of falling, unaided into the darkness, that had pursued him since he had returned home. Somehow, even this far away, he could still taste the autopsy on the tip of his tongue.
The curtains were three-quarters drawn in the bedroom, and the boy laid in the middle of an unmade bed, curled up in the fetal position, staring off into space. A whole wall of disinterested family pictures stared down at him.
“Timmy, there’s a man here to see you,” Linda said.
Hud had almost forgotten that she was there, in front of him. He couldn’t take his eyes off the boy. If his chest hadn’t been moving, it would have been easy to mistake him for dead.
Timmy was small for his age. He was tall enough in a normal way, but his extremities were thin and fragile, just like his mother’s. When Hud had seen Pam Sizemore naked, laid out, ready to be filleted, he had been convinced that she had abused her body with drugs and the lifestyle that came with them, but now he wasn’t so sure. The boy almost looked like he had rickets or some debilitating disease with thirty-two letters in it that he’d never heard of. No one had suggested such a thing to him, that Timmy was sick or sickly, and there wasn’t anything in the file. Maybe no one knew. That was possible. Somehow, Hud had missed seeing the frailty when he’d pulled the boy out of the fake lion’s den at the Dip.
The boy didn’t flinch, didn’t acknowledge Hud’s presence. He just kept his vision trained on some distant, nonexistent object or place. “Can he make momma better?” he finally said. It was almost a girl’s voice, sounded exceptionally high. Hud hoped it would change when puberty hit, or life was going to be even tougher for Timmy Sizemore than it already was.
Linda Dupree looked at Hud sadly. Her tongue was all tangled up in her loose, yellowed false teeth, and she was unable to answer the boy. The corner of her right eye glistened with a tear.
“I’ll just sit with him for a while, if that’s all right?” Hud said to Linda, his voice low and gentle. He touched her arm, didn’t let it linger. Leave us alone. I’ve got this.
“That’d be all right,” she said. “I gotta get us some supper anyways. You holler if you need me, you hear, honey?” she said to the boy.
Hud nodded. “We’ll be fine.”
“I’m trustin’ you,” Linda Dupree insisted.
He nodded again. “I’ll do my best not to upset him.”
“I know you will,” she said, backing away into the hallway, her eyes glassy, and her intention and route uncertain. She really didn’t trust Hud. He knew that. Heard it in her voice. He didn’t blame her. Trusting strangers in your house was something he could never manage for himself.
Hud eased into the bedroom like he was about to share space with a wild animal he didn’t want to spook. “My name’s Hud,” he whispered, stopping halfway between the door and the bed.
“Momma said never to trust a cop,” Timmy said.
Most mothers told their kids to never talk to strangers, Hud thought, but didn’t say.
“You’re another one, aren’t you?” the boy went.
“Why’s that?”
“What?”
“Why’d she tell you that?”
Timmy sat up and stared Hud directly in the eye. “Just because they wear a badge it don’t mean they’re the good guys.” He blew a long strand of brittle blonde hair from the middle of his face. The boy needed a haircut, not so much because of the length, but because it needed to be pruned, encouraged, like a neglected bush in front of the house. There was nothing healthy about the boy. Even his eyes were dull and curiously dry. Hud hated to think it, but maybe the boy would get the help and sustenance he needed at Linda Dupree’s house. Maybe he was better off with his mother dead, even murdered like she was. Maybe he had a chance at a decent life now. It was raw hope. Selfish hope. And Hud knew it. The boy was fucked. Most likely had been from the moment he’d been born.
“Well, I suppose your mom was right about that,” Hud said. “You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. I’ll just sit here with you for a while if that’s all right?”
Hud understood the distrust that had been bred by the boy’s mother. He’d known bad cops and mean cops, along with weak cops who carried a gun and wore a badge to give themselves courage, who used the position to boost their ego, found reasons to search out the weakest ones and tower over them. Those kinds of cops were more common than not, but he wasn’t quite sure they had been what Pam Sizemore had meant. He didn’t know what her relationship with cops was, but something had set her off enough to warn her kid about the bad guys. In his own way, Leo Sherman had been a cop, a man charged with keeping the peace and law enforcement. He wore a badge. Maybe that’s what she’d meant, that she’d had reason not to trust the CO long before she fled in fear and took a bullet to the back of the head.
“You don’t have to trust me,” Hud said after a long stretch of silence. “But all I want to do is help you.”
The boy shrugged. “I want to go home. I just want to go home.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Ever?”
“Probably not.”
“I don’t like it here.”
“I’m sure you don’t.”
“You can’t make her better can you?”
Hud shook his head. “I wish I could. I wish I could tell you that this is all going to be okay, that you’ll get everything back the way it was, but I can’t tell you that. I can’t lie to you. I won’t lie to you.”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
“I don’t know. But you’re lucky.”
“How’s that?”
“You’ve got a lot of people that are looking out for you, who just want you to be safe and happy.”
“I’ll never be happy again,” the boy said. “Never. Not until she comes back home.”
“She’s never coming back,” Hud said.
Timmy Sizemore stared at him, and a sudden flash of understanding crossed his eyes. It was a mix of pain and horror, a look and feeling Hud knew too well.
“It’s just you and me now,” Gee had said . . . But it was Hud’s own words that rang in his ears, not Gee’s. They weren’t hateful or mean. Just as honest as they could be. Too honest. “I’m sorry,” he offered. But it was too late.
Timmy Sizemore collapsed on the bed and let out a wail so loud that it threatened to shatter the windows of the small bedroom and every small bedroom beyond it. The pitch of it hurt Hud’s head, reminded him of his own wound, and reignited his desire for another dose of morphine.
Hud couldn
’t offer anything more to the boy than he already had. He couldn’t reach out to him and offer a comforting touch. He didn’t say another word. He just backed away from the bed and walked as slowly out of the room as he had entered it.
He passed Linda Dupree in the hall. They slowed, but neither stopped, had the ability to. “What’d you do to him?” she demanded.
“I told him the truth.”
The road curved around the lake, with cottages on one side and the shore on the other. The sun was starting to angle downward to the west, casting harsh yellow light onto the few feathery clouds that dotted the endless blue sky. A flock of ducks floated on the surface of the still water, and a great blue heron hunted ankle deep in the shallows, each move as calculated as its next breath. Hud slowed in hopes of seeing it strike but knew that if he stopped the Crown Vic the prehistoric looking bird would light into the air, its opportunity for a meal taken away by a man’s desire to see a kill, to see nature working in its glory, the way it was intended. Hud knew the heron only killed so it could live. Unlike the human who had killed Pam Sizemore. He didn’t know what the motive for the crime was, and he was no closer to finding that out than he had been when he first started. But he knew this: the kill hadn’t been for survival or pleasure. It had been for something else. Greed. Betrayal. Passion gone wrong. A drug deal gone bad. A secret threatened to be revealed. Something human. Something immoral. Something the great blue heron could not even begin to comprehend.
Hud looked in the rearview mirror just in time to see the bird thrust its long beak into the water. But he had to glance away to stay on the road. He didn’t see if the heron stabbed its prey successfully or not.
“Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“A yes or no one.”
“You want more than that. You came back to this one.”
“So it’s a yes?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Will you answer me?”
“No, I don’t think I have to. We all have things that keep us awake at night.”
Burke was waiting for Hud at the door. “In my office,” he growled.
Hud looked past the chief into the well-lit conference room. Lancet and Sloane had their backs to him, staring at the board of clues. The overhead fluorescent lights hurt his eyes, and Burke’s tone, while not shrill, made Hud feel as though an icepick was being shoved into his eardrums. He said nothing, just did as he was told and followed Burke into his office like a dutiful dog. Whatever Lancet and Sloane were puzzling over would have to wait.
“What’s up?” he said.
Burke pushed the door shut, then angled past Hud. He stopped at the front side of his desk so the two of them were facing each other. “What are you up to?”
Hud sighed, rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “I wasn’t that late,” he offered, defending his tardiness to the autopsy, trying to defuse Burke.
“What’re you talking about?” Burke’s pockmarked face was drawn tight, dancing just on the edge of anger. It was clear that the pressure of the murder was getting to him.
“I figured Bill Flowers told you I was late for the Sizemore autopsy.” Hud tried not to react to the obvious anger that had accompanied him into the room. Burke was always angry about something, and he’d expected this confrontation sooner or later.
“Oh, I talked to Flowers all right. He called and raised hell with me about you, but not your bullshit tardiness. You promised me that this wasn’t about her.” Burke stepped forward so he was inches from Hud’s nose.
Hud could smell the onions on Burke’s breath from his lunchtime burger.
“Now it’s my turn,” Hud said. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Her,” Burke said, “your mother. You told me coming back here wasn’t about her. But before I could turn my back, you’re querying the computer, trying to access her file, then you’re asking Bill Flowers questions. You lied to me, and I don’t like it one bit. The last thing anyone needs around here is you going around stirring up more shit while there’s a killer on the loose.”
Now that he knew what Burke was really pissed about, the air between them changed. Hud had known Burke would be upset about his search for his mother. He had known, too, that he would get caught poking around about his mother sooner or later, and he hadn’t cared. Not really. He couldn’t help himself. “I didn’t lie to you,” he said.
“Then why in the hell did you come back here?”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go, goddamn it. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Chapter Thirteen
The late afternoon light was pure gold, cascading through red oak and yellow birch leaves, dappling the ground in warm, earthy tones and hues that promised to be as short-lived as the sunshine. The smooth surface of the lake looked like the top of a bowl of soup, transforming it into something comforting and serene instead of the foreboding and bottomless blackness it had offered the night before. A slight breeze pushed cold, moist air off the water, hinting that the wind would get stronger in the coming weeks. Dry leaves vibrated with anticipation, spreading autumn’s song to anyone who would listen.
The change of seasons and the coming of night promised a brief moment of beauty, but Hud was in no mood to digest scenery or spend time in awe of it. He was certain that he had overlooked something important on his first visit to the original crime scene. He just didn’t know what.
He stood at the shore, just outside the yellow tape, staring at the ground where Pam Sizemore had taken her last breath. Bill Flowers had been absolutely sure that she had not been moved there, and Hud agreed with that conclusion, had seen no evidence to suggest otherwise. But it was an odd place for her to die.
What where you doing, Pam? Out and about on a rainy day wearing jogging shorts, a T-shirt, and no shoes? Was he chasing you? You left Timmy. Was he alone? Did you leave your little boy alone, Pam?
“I thought I’d find you here,” Moran said, walking down the slope that led to the lake.
Hud looked up directly into the deputy’s face, recognized the voice first, then struggled to remember her first name. Luckily, it came to him quickly: Joanne. The kickboxer. She moved easily and comfortably toward him, unaffected by the physical or emotional gravity of the land and the duty that she was in the midst of.
“Why was she here?” Hud asked out loud as Moran eased up to him.
“You know we have to talk about the incident in Detroit.”
“The shooting is well documented.”
“It is.”
“Then you know all you need to know. A snitch turned on me. Not uncommon. Not unheard of. He’d been made. Killing was me was his redemption. I was double-crossed, lured into a situation that I wasn’t prepared for.”
“And you were carried out on a stretcher.”
“I got lucky.”
“The snitch took it a little worse.”
“I was faced with a tough choice.”
“To kill a man or not to kill a man?”
“Yes.”
“It was your first time?”
“Yes.”
“Do you regret it?”
“I don’t know how to answer that question.”
“Humor me.”
“I’m just glad to be here.”
Moran looked at Hud curiously, then cast a glance over the golden surface of the lake. “You have a theory?” she said.
“The obvious one,” Hud said.
“That she was being chased. Hunted.”
“Exactly.”
“But you’re not sure about that?”
“No. There were no deep footprints in the mud. It was raining that day. She would have left a full impression if she had been running for her life, you know? But there was nothing to suggest that. There were hardly any footprints at all. It was like she was dropped there, or taking a casual stroll, which is why I initially disagreed with Flowers’s assumption that she hadn’t bee
n moved.”
Moran nodded. “I looked at the pictures. You’re right. There were no deep footprints. She wasn’t running.”
Hud studied the deputy’s face, searching for the ambition he had first seen there. It was gone. Any anger at his sudden appearance as a detective had been replaced with need, determination, and curiosity. He was starting to like her even more. “There were other pictures that weren’t on the board in the office.”
“I saw enough,” Moran said. She shifted her weight uncomfortably, looked at the ground for a brief second, then back at Hud.
“You have a theory of your own?”
“Not my place,” she said.
“Yes it is. The victim, or victims in this case, deserve every consideration there is. You have a voice, a badge, skin in the game.”
“Burke doesn’t like deputies poking around where they don’t belong.”
Hud flinched, knew she was right. “He’s not here. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
Moran looked him in the eye. Her tight jaw relaxed, and relief flitted through her blue eyes. “You’ve been gone from here a while. Things have changed around here,” she said.
“It almost feels like I was never here. Everything and everyone I knew is gone, or changed in a way that I don’t recognize.”
“I get that,” Moran said. “But some things haven’t changed at all. There’s a lot of people who aren’t in tune with the modern world. They want things to be like they used to be. They don’t want to acknowledge anything has changed at all.”
“This is vacationland,” Hud answered. “Some of those cottages look the same as they did sixty years ago. Inside and out. That’s what people want when they rent them for a week. They want the memories they had as kids for their kids. Change is resisted for that very reason. And then there’s the fact that some people don’t have the money to change. I’ve never seen this place as run-down as it is now.”
“It’s more than that. Burke’s a Luddite. You have to know that. He walks around like it’s the 1970s. We’re lucky to have decent radios in our cruisers. Have any of you guys looked at the vic’s social media pages?”
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