The Mural

by Michael Mallory

  “I don’t think I like ice cream anymore,” she replied softly, looking almost fearful.

  “Punkin, did that man who brought you up here give you ice cream?”

  “He tried. He kept saying he would. I didn’t want it and he got mad.”

  Goddamn Marcus Broarty! Was there nothing his touch couldn’t ruin? Even among the roster of Great American Assholes, it took one of supreme talent to rob a child of her taste for ice cream. What Jack wouldn’t give to wrap his hands around the fat miserable fuck’s throat and choke the life out of him, watching him turn the colors of the spectrum as he fought painfully for each breath, relish the sight of his tongue sticking out like a calf’s and his eyes bugging until they burst like pink Bazooka Joe bubbles. If he ever had the chance to kill that rat bastard, it just might be worth going to prison for.

  “Ow, Daddy, you’re hurting me,” Robynn said.

  Jack looked down and saw that his grip on his daughter’s hand had gone white-knuckle. Immediately he let go and knelt down to face her. “Oh, punkin, I’m so sorry,” he said, hugging her. “I didn’t mean to. I guess I’m just so worried that you’re going to get away from me again, I’m keeping too tight a hold on you.”

  Robynn smiled. “That’s okay,” she said. “I don’t want to get away from you, not ever again.”

  Jack hugged her again and fought back tears. “I’ll be more careful. Sometimes it’s possible to want something too much, and that’s not good.” After another hug the two were on their way again.

  They were only a block away from the Glenowen police station when Jack saw a woman rush out of the front door frantically, a cell phone glued to her ear. She was waving and gesticulating like a windmill. Jack did not recognize the woman, but clearly something there was wrong. Had he been alone, he would have run up to her to see what the problem was, but Robynn had already been through enough without exposing her to yet another crisis. They walked slowly and steadily, and eventually the woman, a young, drop-dead gorgeous Latina, ran back inside the station. As they approached the building, Jack said, “We need to stop in here for a minute, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Jack opened the door of the station and knocked on the jamb. “Hello,” he called. “Cree, you here?”

  The woman he had seen outside rushed towards him with panic in her eyes, demanding: “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Jack Hayden. I’m here to see Chief Creeley.”

  “You’re the father of the girl who was abducted?”

  “May I ask who you are?” Jack asked.

  “I’m Robert’s wife, Maria. Robert needs help, please help him!”

  God, now what? “Can you watch Robynn?” Jack asked.

  “Of course.”

  Maria Creeley smiled at Robynn and knelt down to her, but the girl’s hand tightened around Jack’s. “Daddy, don’t leave me again,” she whimpered.

  “Punkin, you’ll be fine,” Jack said. “I’ll be right back out.” Squeezing his hand out of his daughter’s grip, he stepped into the police station. “Cree? It’s Jack, where are you?” There was no answer. Going back to where the tiny cells were, Jack peered through the bars and swore as he recognized the figure sprawled out on the cot: it was not Marcus Broarty; it was Rob Creeley, unmoving, his head bleeding from a wound at the crown.

  The cell door was unlocked so Jack rushed in and slowly rolled the policeman over. “Cree, it’s Jack, can you hear me? Damnit, Creeley, give some kind of sign that you’re alive!”

  “Your boss is an asshole,” the policeman muttered weakly.

  “I told you that days ago. You didn’t have to put yourself in danger to verify it. Can you sit up?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” With effort, the policeman pulled himself to a sitting position. “Man, that smarts.”

  “What the hell happened? And where’s Marc?”

  “I don’t know. He was locked up right here last I saw. I came back out to my desk and the door opened, and I thought it was Carl but then I got clubbed on the back of the head. Next thing I remember I was under my desk bleeding like a stuck pig. I managed to get up and stagger in here, and that’s when I found the cell open and Broarty gone. I guess I collapsed on the bed.”

  “Mr. Hayden?” Maria Creeley called out from entry way.

  “He’s okay,” Jack called back, “just sore.”

  “Is that Maria?”

  “Yes, I think she’s the one who found you. Does Glenowen have 911?”

  “It goes to the county. But there’s a small clinic on the edge of town that passes for a hospital for non-serious matters.” He gingerly touched the back of his head and pulled his hand away, showing the still oozing blood. “God, whoever did this must have hit me with a damned pine tree. Hey, is your girl okay?”

  “She’s fine, and thanks for asking. She’s out with Maria.”

  “I can see where that’s going to lead,” Creeley said, with a wry smile. “She’s wants kids something fierce. This’ll put her over the top.”

  Maria Creeley and Robynn now rushed into the cell, and the woman practically threw herself on her husband.

  “Ow, hey, jeez, I’m still a little sore, honey.”

  Jack, meanwhile, took Robynn out into the office area and started to dial 911, but the stopped when he heard the sirens on their way, figuring Maria had called already. In less than a minute two young EMT’s, burst into the small station house. Deputy Carl Dorgan joined them moments later. Jack got out of the way while the medical techs examined Creeley’s head. “You’ll need a few stitches,” one pronounced, “but I don’t think there’s any serious damage. Your vision is all right, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I can see fine,” Creeley said.

  “Good thing your head is so hard,” Dorgan commented.

  “We’ll take you in for an x-ray, just to make sure,” the tech said. “Can you walk?”

  “My feet are hard, too,” Creeley said, slowly rising. “Yikes, that still hurts. Deputy, it looks like you’re going to be in charge for a while.”

  “Hurry back,” Dorgan replied.

  “While I’m gone, Carl, Mr. Hayden and his girl here are to be offered every consideration. Even if he says something you might not understand, just go with it, okay?”

  “Check,” Dorgan replied, though his expression showed his puzzlement over the order.

  The technicians, one on each side, helped Creeley through the door of the station, anxiously hovered over by Maria Creeley.

  “Bye, Maria,” Robynn said, as they were leaving.

  “Bye-bye, baby,” she called back.

  When they were gone, Robynn said: “Daddy, I gotta go pee-pee.”

  “Okay, punkin. Officer Dorgan, where’s the restroom?”

  “Through that door,” he said, pointing to what Jack had assumed was a small closet besides a row of file cabinets.

  Robynn dashed over to the door and opened it up, reached up to turn on the light, and then closed the door behind her, like a big girl.

  “Your only one?” Dorgan asked Jack.

  “Yeah,” Jack answered. “We got a good one, so I guess we decided not to push our luck.”

  “Can they do anything about her, well, her thing?” He brushed his upper lip with his finger.

  “There’s a possibility of her having cosmetic surgery when she’s older,” Jack said, talking to this man about it with surprisingly comfort. “But there are no guarantees. Right now I’m just trying to protect her from comments from other kids, and even some adults. You’d be amazed how insensitive people who should no better can be.”

  “Oh, no I wouldn’t.” Carl Dorgan pulled out his wallet and flipped the thick photo holder open to a particular picture, then held it up for Jack to see. It showed a boy of indeterminate age who was clearly afflicted with Down’s Syndrome, but who was smiling happily for the camera. “This is my youngest,” Dorgan said. “He’s twenty-two now and he just moved out of the house to live in a place of his own. It was his own idea.”


  “He looks like a fine boy, officer.”

  “When he said he wanted to move out and get a job and take charge of his life, no matter what, I was so danged proud I wanted to rope off the street and throw a parade for him. But that would’ve embarrassed the heck out of him. His mom’s still crying, though. And you can call me Carl, by the way.”

  “I will, and I’m Jack.” He stuck his hand out, which the beefy policeman took and squeezed, and Jack suddenly knew how Robynn had felt earlier, when he was inadvertently crushing her hand.

  From the closet-sized bathroom (and how the hell did someone the size of Dorgan fit in there anyway?), the sound of the toilet flushing could be heard. Jack knew from experience there would be at least a minute of diligent hand washing yet to come.

  Dorgan was tucking his wallet back into his pocket. “I gotta hand it to ol’ Chief,” he said, rather obviously changing the subject. “He’ll go to any lengths to get out of work. What I wonder is what the transfer guards who were supposed to pick Tubby up and take him to county are going to think when they arrive and find out he’s not here.”

  “Cree said he heard the door open and thought it was you coming back right before he got hit,” Jack said. “Who could it have been?”

  “Who knows? But whoever it was took the keys and unlocked the cell, and then the two of them high-tailed out. You know the prisoner better’n anyone around here. Who would be helping him like that?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know anybody who would go to such lengths to help Marcus Broarty.” He looked at the policeman, who was staring back with a steely gaze. “Oh, good god, Carl, I hope you’re not thinking I did it!”

  “Naw.” Dorgan looked away.

  The bathroom door opened and Robynn came out.

  “Everything all right, punkin?” Jack called out.

  “Mm-hmmm,” the girl answered. Then she stopped and looked at the floor for a moment, before reaching down and picking something up. “But Mommy dropped something.”

  “Robynn, Mommy wasn’t here.”

  “Yes she was,” the girl said, taking a couple of steps and then picking something else up.

  Jack went over to her and started examining the floor. “Holy shit,” he muttered.

  “Daddy, that’s a bad word,” Robynn admonished him.

  “You’re right, punkin, and I’m sorry. I’m just surprised that Mommy was here. Can I see those?” He held his opened palm down and Robynn dropped in the four tiny charms, and then went back to hunting. “Here’s another one!” she cried, gleefully.

  “What’re you two up to?” Dorgan asked.

  Jack looked at the small silver charms in his hand. One was in the shape of a scarecrow, and another was a witch. A third looked like a cairn terrier, which a fourth was a monkey with wings. He knew them well. He had had them made special for Elley by a jewelry shop on their second anniversary. The charms were all figures from The Wizard of Oz, and Elley wore it so much that even Robynn had memorized the tiny shapes. And now she was finding them on the floor of a police station where Elley should not have been, and where even the intimation of her presence—let alone the proof—carried implications that Jack simply did not want to consider. Swallowing hard, he told Dorgan: “These are my wife’s. I had a charm bracelet made for her, and these are the charms on it. She was here. God knows why, but she was here and she left these. Oh, good god, you don’t think...no, that just doesn’t make any sense.”

  Then again, what did?

  “Here’s the thing, Jack,” Dorgan began. “Somebody had to come in here and club Chief Creeley over the head, and then spring the prisoner. That’s a given. I’ve been looking around the office here, and I don’t see any heavy object out of place, which indicates whoever it was brought it in with them. I’m leaning toward the theory that Chief was pistol-whipped. I’m taking your word that your wife was here, based on those little charms. So here’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: does she by any chance have access to a gun?”

  “Oh, good god,” Jack muttered. “Yes, we have one at home.”

  “Does she know how to use it?” Dorgan said.

  The butt end, obviously, Jack thought. Did Elley know how to fire the gun? How hard was it really? You point it and squeeze the trigger, and the only real need for skill is when you don’t want to seriously hurt someone. God, could Elley have sprung Broarty in order to take him somewhere and kill him for abducting Robynn?

  “Daddy, is Mommy going to shoot somebody?” Robynn asked.

  “Punkin, I...I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now.”

  That wasn’t quite true; Jack Hayden knew something. He knew he wanted a drink more right now than at any other time in his life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Hello,” Hortensia Abrego called upon entering the Hayden residence. Hortensia had been cleaning the house every two weeks for the past five years, not long after the little one had been born. Her usual day was Monday, but this coming Monday she had promised to help her oldest daughter move to a new apartment. “Hello...hola,” she called again, and received no reply.

  Shrugging, she set about going to work. Back in her native Salvador, Hortensia Abrego had been had been trained as a hairdresser and worked in a salon, but here she was a house cleaner, which was the only kind of work she could get.

  So much for the better life.

  Hortensia’s first stop was the nursery, where she stripped off the sheets and pillow cases and tossed them in a pile to throw into the washer. By the time she was finished vacuuming, mopping and wiping every other room, the laundry would be done. She replaced the bedding with fresh sheets from the closet and then made her way to the master bedroom.

  As soon as she entered the room, Hortensia could tell something was wrong. There was a smell, and since she knew the Haydens did not have pets, the odor could not be explained away as the result of a dog or a cat becoming careless. Hortensia tried to ignore the odor and went about her business, pulling the blanket down and peeling off the layers until the mattress was revealed. She threw the powder blue sheets into a pile on the floor and started to pull the pillows out of their cases, but the smell would not go away. In fact, it was stronger than before.

  Was something under the bed? That did not make much sense, but the smell had to be coming from somewhere. After throwing the pillow cases onto the stack, Hortensia knelt down to take a peek under the bed.

  A face had stared back at her; a white, dead face with a look of horror etched into it.

  Horrified, she launched herself backwards, trying to get away from it. The pile of bedding broke her fall. Hortensia clasped her mouth, trying desperately to keep her breakfast down, because if she were to vomit, she would only have to clean it up herself.

  What should she do?

  Anyone else would have called the police by now, but Hortensia was not about to do that. The police walked hand-in-hand with the INS, and calling them would open her up to scrutiny which she could not withstand. She ran downstairs to the kitchen and splashed water from the sink, hoping it would help her think.

  The house was empty.

  Nobody had seen her let herself in.

  Nobody knew she was here.

  Since this was not her regular day, nobody would know that she had ever been here at all.

  Hortensia went back upstairs to the master bedroom and, forcing herself to ignore the stink, put the sheets back on the Haydens’ bed. Coming back down, she considered stopping the load of sheets in the washer, but decided to let it run. There would be no way anyone would be able to tell that she, as opposed to Nola, the girl’s niñera, or Mrs. Hayden, who had loaded the stuff in there.

  Once she had replaced everything, Hortensia ran into the kitchen, picked up her purse from the counter, and dashed out the front door, making sure there was no on the block to see her. Quickly locking the door behind her, she ran to her car and sped away. She would decide later whether or not she would ever return.

  * * * * * * *
/>   Elley Gorman Hayden had never fully appreciated the size of the trunk in her Lexus before.

  It had always been roomy enough to hold all of the groceries for a big weekend shopping, and it certainly held all the stuff from her office without any problem at all. But who knew that it could contain an entire body, and a lard-assed one at that? As to whether or not Marcus Broarty was in discomfort or pain back there, Elley didn’t really give a rat’s ass. The incessant screaming and kicking had ceased. Maybe the prick passed out. Hell, maybe he died. Either way was no skin off her nose.

  She turned the car radio back on. Elley had switched it off earlier that day after receiving her instructions from the Voice, which had suddenly appeared to her on the way to Glenowen, while she was doing a search of stations in the hopes of finding something other than the religious and Mexican music stations that monopolized the airwaves up here. It had drawn her attention first by signing Over the Rainbow, and then by addressing Elley by name. She recognized it immediately: it was the same low and seductive, seemingly all-knowing voice that had recommended she shoot Blaise back in L.A.

  There had been a time when Elley Gorman Hayden would have become totally freaked out by a voice speaking directly to her, first inside her head, and then over a car radio; a voice that seemed to know everything about her, what she had done, even what she was thinking. But her life stopped being ordinary days ago. There was a new reality now, and a new Elley. Her entire life had been spent doing for other people, first her mother, then her teachers, then Orbit Marketing, then Jack, then Robynn, then Blaise...the list went on and on. But now, right now, was her time. She was doing for Elley, and part of that new reality had been dictated by the voice on the radio. It was the Voice that told her exactly where to find Marcus Broarty, languishing in the slammer of that little toy village on the coast. It was the Voice that informed her exactly where on the head to hit the policeman with the butt of a gun in order to knock him unconscious. It was the Voice that instructed her to lift the unconscious policeman’s keys and handcuffs, release Marcus Broarty from his cell, and then take him hostage again.