A Guide for Murdered Children

by Sarah Sparrow

  “You did, Dad. You took care of me.”

  “His mom didn’t want him. Uh-uh, no way. I got rid of that particular problem a few years after he was born. What kind of mother rejects her own son? Yeah, yeah, I had to break his nose a few times—a jaw, a rib—but hey, what’s a father for?” He laughed and Grundy did too. “Gave him a helluva beating that day you and Maya were in the trunk. See, I was present and accounted for when your daddy sent you for that accursed lighter fluid. I say ‘daddy’ but what I really mean is executioner, ’cause that’s what he was—the man sent you straight to your deaths, but hey, what are fathers for?” He winked. “I briefly recused myself from the happy festivities. Whispered to Father of the Year that my boy needed to take his meds and have a little quiet-time siesta, which everyone was used to because wherever Roy Eakins appeared, his gruesome spawn was soon to follow. A package deal, that’s all. We got snubbed all over the place but Ronnie and Elaine still invited us over, which was very kind. Good people, Ronnie and Elaine. So I took Grundy into the house, threw him in the guest room and told him to keep his mouth shut and stay put. He knew the drill. He was already pretty well-trained ’cause that’s exactly what I would do with him at home when I was up to sundry off-color shenanigans with my Huckleberrys and Lolitas—once I got Dumbshit into the guest room, oh, it was on. When he got older, I’d let him watch, but that’s a bedtime story for another day. Not that you’ll live to see one. Anyhoo. I knew the shortcut you’d be taking with your bike, so off I went—probably a bonehead move on my part if you think about it, ’cause you never can tell who’s watching. But that was before every random asshole was whipping out his phone to piss on the notion of some kind of public privacy; a kinder, gentler time. And I was younger then—young and in love! Impetuous, that’s the word. Have to say I was always lucky that way: lucky in finding my kids and lucky in not getting caught. Lucky in love. But I digress. When I got back, Ronnie was still prattling about some football game whilst putting the final touches on another round of muy perfecto Rummerburgers—the man had skills! And there you were just fifty yards away in the trunk, having sweet and sour dreams, quiet as two bugs in a rug. You weren’t conscious, so that couldn’t have been too tough. I couldn’t believe how beautifully I pulled that off. But . . . I was getting cocky. Careless. That’s the cliché, isn’t it? Started to scare myself. I didn’t want to be one of those dumdums the profilers always say are dying to get caught. I hate when they say that because it’s bullshit. The only people dying to get caught—the only ones dying ’cause I caught ’em—were kids like you! Anyhoo, I thought it best to lay low after our steamy little ménage à trois. Pardon my Middle English. I was like a crocodile: I drowned ’em, grabbed ’em by my tail and sank down deep, deep to the bottom of the river. Could stay at the bottom for years. I seem to be a bit of a departure in that regard. The experts at Quantico don’t know quite what to do with a gent like myself. I’m the anomaly, the square peg . . . the square peg who sticks himself in tiny round holes! Hahaha! In rare form today, aren’t I, Grundy?”

  “You are, Dad.”

  Laverne appeared, carrying a plated sandwich on a tray, which she offered to Roy. He lifted the top piece of bread. “Too much mayo.”

  “I’m sorry, Father.”

  “Don’t say you’re sorry,” he said amiably. “Just scoop some of that shit off. Unless the genius wants it.” He nodded to his son.

  “I’ll take it,” said Grundy.

  “Waste not, want not. Just make me another, Angel.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  She took the plate over to her husband, curtsied and left.

  Out of nowhere Roy took a hammer to Daniel’s kneecaps. He patiently waited for the screams to subside, like someone waiting for the sirens of fire trucks to subside before resuming quiet conversation. Then, his eyes lit up.

  “Holy shit, I just thought of something! Grundy doesn’t know I’m dead! Whoops! Forgot to tell him! Hey, Grundy! Your old man’s been dead for ten months!”

  Grundy smiled in confusion. He thought that his father was making another joke, albeit one he couldn’t comprehend. Roy had the brief impulse to lay it all out—the story of his death and transfiguration—but didn’t have the energy, even though the prospect amused. It would have been pointless.

  “I guess that falls under the category of things that aren’t appropriate for a parent to share with their chillun . . . Want to know another interesting thing? When you and your sis showed up at the Meeting that first time, I didn’t put it together! The Porter introduced you as Troy and Maya, but I drew a total blank—couldn’t make the connection. How ’bout that? I finally figured out that Dabba Doo was making me senile! Señor Gummy Bear was gumming up the works . . . That piece of shit . . . but when ‘Winston’ showed up, now that got my attention. See, I’d been out of the game—hiding at the bottom of the river—but that didn’t mean that Grundy wasn’t keeping me abreast of his repulsive nocturnal activities. The turn of the screw was the day Ugly Girl showed up and the Porter introduced her as Winston. Because I was aware of a child who went by that very name who’d been ‘involved’ in some of Grundy’s recent hijinks. He and Mrs. Angel snatched him at the Cherry Street Mall. Grundy told me so during one of his late-night telephonic confessions . . . A puzzle remains: How is it that you didn’t recognize me? I’m much obliged, because it might have made things unnecessarily complicated if you had. Still, I wonder—what gummed up your works?

  “A most intriguing scenario lies before us, amigo. I’m dead; you’re dead. Is that not so? Therein the stage is set for that Holy Grail, that elusive theorem which heretofore was thought to be unsolvable. Gödel would turn over in his grave. And I sincerely believe . . .” He paused to arduously suppress a deep cough. “I sincerely believe that we shall soon be assured a place in the annals of history. You see, what we have here is bigger than the invention of the iPhone, bigger than the Internet—bigger than the discovery of fire!” Roy had a sort of seizure and then blew out a dark scab of blood. It took a few minutes for him to recover. “Tonight, my friend, we are pioneers. Because, by reason of our both being dead, your murder will have no killer or victim.” He broke into a jack-o’-lantern grin. “Isn’t that beautiful? The world at last will be provided with the equation it has yearned after for centuries.

  “We’ll be living and dying proof that there is such a thing as the perfect crime.”

  He doubled over, unable to catch his breath. Grundy went to his aid but Roy peevishly waved him off. Different-colored ejecta from his lungs spattered the captive’s chest.

  “We were in unknown territory before, no shit, but now are we ever . . . We might even become immortal! I might anyway. Sorry about that”—his soliloquy was interrupted by a death rattle of congestion; it jolted Grundy, who was amazed that his father was able to continue—“God truly does reward the worst of the worst. Talk about anomalous serial killers—Our Father Who Art in Heaven is the ultimate. The ultimate outlier! What would Quantico make of Him? And the Man Upstairs knows I have nothing against you! I didn’t have anything against you when you were nine years old and I’ve got nothing against you now. It’s just how He made me . . . made me a survivor too—I mean, look at me. What is there to gain from what I’m about to do? What is there to gain from killing you? You’re already dead! You and your bratty little soul mate, that whiny scumbag Troy . . . but here’s the rub. I can’t get this cockeyed idea out of my head that killing you again will help me live. Or some alchemical variation thereof. God must have put that thought there, no? Even though I’m starting to think it’s so much bull because in case you haven’t noticed, I ain’t feelin’ so well. I am not the picture of health. But what I was saying . . . is that God ordained that you should die twice. Daniel and Troy die twice! Isn’t that terribly mean of Him? And I thought I was diabolical! What do you think will happen after I kill you for the second time? I’m talking to Troy now, because, well, I don�
��t see a real future for him, unless there’s a Hell. Which I guess there is because you’re in it now, huh, Daniel . . . So this is for Troy: What do you think’ll happen after ‘sloppy seconds’? Maybe you’ll just wake up on the train and the whole cycle will begin again. You know, you’ll be sipping your lemonade and then those pesky Subalterns will debark you to your new life . . . where you’re reborn in a dog’s body! A dog landlord! A dog who just had the shit kicked out of him and died in the snow—or maybe you’ll wake up inside some stinky homeless woman with pussy cancer. Wouldn’t that be fun? No, wait—I know. Wouldn’t it just be insane if your mommy died—if Elaine finally managed to take herself out—and you came back as her? If Mommy were your new landlord? Wow!” Roy mulled over his fantasy. “That’s some dark, twisted shit right there.”

  A noise came from the living room and he disdainfully turned toward his son. “She’s vacuuming,” explained Grundy.

  “Tell that fat, crazy bitch to knock it off or I’ll vacuum that kid out of her!”

  “Laverne! Turn off the vacuum!”

  “I’m too old for this,” said Roy introspectively. “Too old and too dead. I think I’m gonna book it, compadre. And let my boy take over.” He nodded to Grundy, who approached. “Tell Laverne to take me home—I’ll sit this one out, much as I hate to. Always best to go out on top. Didn’t Seinfeld say that? They offered him crazy-money to do another season but he’d have none of it. Gotta respect him for that.”

  He left the room without ceremony and Grundy hovered over their quarry.

  “I would like to see my . . .” strained Daniel, with great, dignified labor before Troy interrupted—

  “I want my mommy!”

  The last thing the landlord and his tenant saw was the butterfly-winged angel on Grundy’s vintage rock tee.

  He hadn’t washed it yet; nor did he plan to for the next few weeks.

  4.

  The suicide of Honeychile unraveled her.

  She allowed herself the heretical thought that the wayward girl had shown a courage that was completely justified, a courage Lydia herself might not be capable of. She knew that Daniel was in similar despair—she could feel him—and when he told her that he needed to retrieve something from the house in Smiths Creek, she began to worry. After all, he was the one who had the idea to go and see Honeychile. He and the girl seemed connected and she wondered how deep that connection went.

  Lydia had given up her lightweight opiate habit months ago; she stopped taking painkillers a week after dying on the Orchard Trail. But tonight, she washed down four Oxycontin and three Xanax with white wine. She sat on the couch in the dark and waited for that lush, familiar sense of well-being to come but fell asleep too soon to savor it.

  At 11:20 P.M., she awakened bolt upright and thought:

  He’s leaving me now—

  —finally, she knew!

  And though her knowledge was flawed, she acted.

  * * *

  • • •

  She arrived at the New Baltimore residence of Roy Eakins at 11:47 P.M.

  The house was dark.

  She lifted one of the windows and went in.

  She walked to the bedroom.

  She heard the sound of lungs in distress (more the sound of gears being stripped) and turned on the light.

  He was in bed, propped with pillows so he could breathe.

  Was that what he’s doing? Because it didn’t sound like breathing.

  He blinked and smiled. “Hello there, Christian—”

  The borrowed life was already leaving his body.

  “Where is Troy!” she said, crouching over him like a jackal.

  “Well,” whispered Roy, with ragged intimacy. “I could tell you he’s dead but that would be redundant.”

  “He isn’t!” she said corrosively. “I still feel him. Where is he?”

  “You really don’t know, do you?” he said woozily, like a wizard toad to a babe lost in the woods. “I guess that’s a prime example of what Annie called ‘haywire’: you managed to get here, to me, but you still can’t get there, to him. You’re botching it just like Winston did—”

  She bent back his fingers, breaking them. He yelped but still managed to be jovial.

  “It’s all about vengeance, isn’t it, Maya? I guess I was a little more pure. Less . . . judgmental than you kids. I didn’t have your righteous arrogance. Because I never sought vengeance—what I did, I did for pleasure.”

  “Tell me where my brother is!” she commanded, stone-faced. She looked ancient and timeless all at once. “Or I’ll do exactly to you what you did to me.”

  “I’ve been thinking. Maybe when I die—again—when you ‘kill’ me—maybe right then, another tenant will come along. And a few weeks from now, voilà: I’ll be back at a Meeting, with Annie and the gang. Wouldn’t that be special?”

  “I swear I’ll take my time sending you from this world—”

  “Do you have any idea how crazy you sound? Send me from what world? I’m not here, Chiquita, I’m already gone . . . and you know it. I left ten months ago . . . neither one of us is here! Not Lydia, not Maya, not Roy, not Dabba Doo—we’re ghosts! The moment of balance only works if the one you come back to kill is alive. How you gonna kill a ghost? You dumb bitch.”

  With his last breath he said, “You are so fucked.”

  She knew that Roy Eakins was right.

  BALANCING ACTS

  1.

  Willow arrived at the Cold Case office early, with a mission.

  They hadn’t yet sent Maya’s birthday card for DNA testing. Willow contacted an eager beaver buddy of his at the forensic science lab—a fingerprint expert. The detective was certain that if his friend were able to get a footprint off the scrap of paper that Roy had stepped on (with his son’s phone number) it would match the one on Maya’s card.

  After the messenger came and picked it up, he made himself a cup of coffee, lit a cigarette and opened the computer. A few days ago, he’d requested photos of the crime scene at Mount Clemens High, and he was stunned at the image now on his screen: the football player was wearing an Iron Butterfly T-shirt when Honeychile stabbed him. There it was again, just as it had looked in her sketch at the hospital—the chrome angel, its naked torso sprouting brilliantly colored wings. Willow’s wheels started turning. Was the person who killed Winston wearing a shirt with the same design when the boy was abducted and slain? Since Honeychile was Winston’s landlord, might seeing the image of the angel have triggered her attack on the student? According to the sheriff, the distraught girl kept saying she had “killed the wrong one” . . . is that what Honeychile meant? That she’d lashed out in a case of mistaken identity?

  Lydia and Daniel were late. (Meaning, they weren’t early.) He’d give ’em that; yesterday was one hell of a day. The death of Renée “Honeychile” Devonshire had been a serious blow, and not just to the investigation. That a landlord had offed herself was a little too close for comfort. Willow closed his eyes. The detective slipped away and the Porter he was becoming took its place. He sunk deep, trying to feel his recruits. Daniel was nowhere to be found . . . but he felt Lydia. And with that feeling came a surge of crackling energy—a vision.

  He jumped from his chair and literally ran from the building.

  * * *

  • • •

  He gunned it to the orderly neighborhood in New Baltimore where Roy Eakins lived. Lydia’s Kia was parked haphazardly in the drive, blocking Roy’s vehicle. Shit—

  Too late!

  He drew his gun.

  Avoiding the front porch, he skulked around the side of the house, clinging to the wall. There’d been a respite from the storm but the sky was darkening again. A neighbor in the yard next door just finished taking her clothes off the line; she took her basket and went in without seeing him.

  He tried the back door—locke
d.

  He saw an open window and wondered if Roy had escaped.

  He climbed in . . .

  The house was quiet, like a void where sounds couldn’t live. The table where they had eaten their sandwiches was still set. The plates hadn’t been cleared.

  Gummy bears littered the carpet.

  He did some quick cop moves, gun raised while ducking into empty rooms—the sink of the front bathroom was stained with what looked like dried blood—before moving slowly down the long hall . . .

  There was a body on the bed. Was it Lydia’s?

  Motherfuck—

  He moved closer . . . It was a man.

  It was Roy—

  Willow reflexively wheeled around, pointing his revolver at an immobile figure in the chair.

  “Jesus Christ, I almost shot you!” he said.

  She didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t say a word.

  Was she injured? Was she dead—

  He stepped toward her and saw that she was all right, whatever all right meant . . .

  She was alive.

  He swiveled again, drawing his gun on Roy. He moved toward the bed, keeping the weapon trained on the body. The man looked like hell. The smell overtook him now, stronger than any he’d ever experienced—industrial-strength death. He fought the urge to vomit. He turned back to attend to Lydia.

  She was still doing her Lincoln Memorial thing: rigid in the chair as she stared into space. Sphinxlike, regal . . . maybe that’s what all the children of the train look like, après moment of balance.

  “Lydia, are you okay?”

  “I failed,” she said softly.

  “What happened?”

  “Eakins was right.”