Shoeless Child

by J. A. Schneider

  Minutes later she was at the hospital.

  Halfway across the parking lot, her phone buzzed.

  Gina. Sounding depressed. “Sorry I missed your calls.”

  Kerri’s heart kicked. The voice at the other end was weak and hung over, and the high wail of an ambulance coming in made it hard to hear. “You okay?”

  “Sick as a dog.”

  “I’ve been there.” Kerri switched her Verizon bag to her other hand. “Has your father been back? Any threats from him?”

  “No and no.”

  “You’re at home? You shouldn’t be.”

  “Chain’s across. I pushed an armchair to block the door. He is not coming back here.”

  Emergency’s sliding glass doors swooshed open. Coming in this way was faster, but noisy with ER bedlam. “Gina, do you have any idea where he is?”

  “No. Don’t want to know.”

  “Think.” Kerri sidestepped a moving, laden gurney. “Does he have any friends who might know where he is?”

  “Maybe…some woman named Taz. Never heard her last name, and I ran into her by accident.” A faint, mirthless laugh. “Another woman who rejected him. Guess she didn’t think his mattress in the basement was swank enough. He’s brought a few women there, for privacy. I wasn’t supposed to know, but one left her lipstick, and the reek of perfume stays. He’d get crazy when I guessed he must have paid them.”

  Frank had a mattress in the basement? Kerri entered the busy main hall and hurried, repeating Gina’s comment. “I didn’t see any mattress.”

  “There’s a room behind the boiler. It’s hard to see cuz it’s built into those shelves. Oh God - could he come back there?”

  “Your house is being watched. All entrances.”

  Silence at the other end. Processing was slow there. Then: “Since how long?”

  Good question, dammit. “Since three hours ago.”

  “What if he came back during the night?”

  “Unlikely. He’d know your building’s the first place the cops would look.”

  But uncertainty kicked. The basement must have equipment closets, other small utility rooms. Was it possible Frank had slithered back in?

  Unlikely again, Kerri decided. The killer had been clever in his kills. Even drunk Frank would have known he’d need food and toilet.

  Still, letdown took hold. Gina knew nothing.

  “You sure he’s out of contact with that Taz?”

  “Uh, wait. Come to think of it, I did see her again. They were on the sidewalk talking. No…arguing. I saw them from the window. Ow, my head hurts.”

  “Keep that chain across and your door blocked,” Kerri said. “You have my number. Call if anything.”

  Gina sighed a sickly yes, then wanted to know if aspirin was better than Advil.

  Kerri found herself saying “Advil! Advil!” as she reached the elevators, getting looks from three young doctors in scrubs.

  58

  Billy DeWitt wasn’t there. Instead, an older, broad man in uniform stood guard outside the room, watching a pretty nurse pass.

  Kerri greeted him, and the nurse was forgotten.

  “Ms Sparkes isn’t back yet from some test,” he said low, and cocked his thumb to the room. “I just got kicked out.”

  Kerri didn’t understand.

  “He wants Billy, not me. Told me to scram.”

  “He’s verbalizing?”

  The cop grinned. “Not a lot, just ‘Go! I want Billy.’”

  This was something. Four words in a row expressing attachment to someone? Kerri was thrilled. Baby steps. Charlie had begun the struggle out of his prison, speaking, showing emotion. Had Billy, with his quick smile and love of fun, accomplished more than a dozen visits to a child psychiatrist?

  She entered the room.

  Charlie was on Rachel’s pillows alone, stretched limply on his back, frowning out at the day. He was back in pajamas that looked like his own. His little body looked thinner.

  Kerri walked around the bed, past the cot now a tent. “Hey champ.”

  His eyes socketed in shadow moved to her. He rolled over, his body tightening up a little, knees to chest, facing her. A tray on the side table held two plates, leftovers of what looked like meat loaf, mashed potatoes, gravy and carrots. You could tell which one had been Charlie’s by the laid-waste potatoes, barely touched meatloaf and untouched carrots.

  Kerri pointed to the plate and smiled. “Done with peanut butter?”

  “Yeah,” he said in a sigh.

  “Mashed potatoes and gravy, ooh, so good.”

  “Yeah.”

  He’s responding, responding… And it hadn’t been a struggle. Baby steps. He seemed to want to speak, but this too-quiet room could pull anyone down.

  Kerri sat on the bed. Smiled again, held up her small Verizon bag and said, “I’ve got a present for you.”

  His eyes moved, interested, to her hand. He watched her lean closer and open the bag, take out a box, and open it. She held up a small, black-gleaming thing, oval, measuring about five by four inches.

  “A cell phone,” she announced. “Just for kids and really special. You can speed dial your mom and up to three other people, and look here” – she showed him – “it’s got a special SOS button. If you press it, even if you don’t talk your mom can hear you and everything around you.”

  No need to mention the phone’s GPS tracker. She’d tell Rachel when she came back.

  Charlie rose up on his elbow, blinking at the phone in surprise. Kerri gave it to him. “It’s yours! Works like a regular cell phone. Your mom will program her number into it first, then both of you can choose which other three numbers you want.”

  Kerri pulled out the instruction manual and started skimming.

  “You too,” Charlie whispered. His wide, soulful eyes met Kerri’s, beseeching. She thought her heart would burst.

  “Aw…” she hugged him, forbidding herself tears. Such a brave little soul he was. Tears welled in spite of herself, in spite of reminding herself that kids can recover, provided they have loving, reassuring parents and people who make them feel protected…

  She freed him from her hug, and he peered down at the phone’s screen, intrigued. It had seven buttons, three red and four white. He tentatively punched one, then another, and turned it over in his hands.

  Then he looked up with the tiniest gleam of excitement. “Really mine?” he asked softly.

  “Yup.” Kerri grinned. “You can call from anywhere, and talk or yell or holler about anything. It’s important to talk, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell people if something makes you happy or sad or scared, that’s important, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  His fingers got busier, punching buttons, peering at the screen, punching more buttons…and then he stopped.

  “Thank you,” he said softly, looking up at Kerri. His face brightened with the timid hint of a smile.

  Well you could have heard the Hallelujah Chorus blasting, that’s how Kerri felt. Her eyes disobeyed and filled big time. She so wanted to hug him again, but restrained herself because he was back to busy with the phone, forgetting himself, punching buttons, listening to the hollow sound not yet programmed, punching buttons again, getting excited…

  Kerri pulled a blue strap from the bag. “This is a belt. You can push it through this hole” – she showed him – “and wear it, always have it with you. I’ll bet you could call your mom from the moon. That’s pretty cool, huh?”

  Movement at the door. An orderly was pushing Rachel in her wheelchair. Kerri turned to her, and Charlie held up the phone.

  “Look what I got, Mommy!”

  59

  Oh the squeals.

  It’s amazing, how a thrilled child can get everyone all giddy. The older cop guarding came in all smiles, and the orderly helping Rachel into bed grinned and told Charlie how lucky he was. “My nephew didn’t get one of those till he was seven!”

  Charlie looked proud
. Color touched his cheeks as the two men left amid more grins and waves; then he gave the phone to Rachel and Kerri, their heads close as they figured how to program their numbers.

  New energy sent Charlie back into his tent – “my fort” - with the blanket pulled down. Rachel fought tears of joy as they made their first call to each other. “Hi Charlie, Mommy loves you so much and I’m so happy you’re happy!”

  Kerri went way down the hall and Charlie, pressing a different key, called her there.

  “Loud and clear!” she told him, glancing at two bored teens watching Eminem. “I’m down at the end where the TV is. I could go across town and still hear you.”

  Back in the room she said, “Come out of your fort for a second, Charlie? I want to show you something.”

  He raised his tent’s blanket and came out. Leaned on the side of the bed as Kerri helped them program 911, reminding Charlie that if he pressed that key or any of them, he wouldn’t even have to speak. Mommy or Kerri or the people handling Dispatch would be able to hear everything happening around him.

  His voice was a bit croaky from disuse but it was catching up fast. “Your friend,” he told Kerri. “I want him too.”

  “Alex?”

  “Yeah.” He gave his shy smile again.

  Rachel beamed as Kerri programmed Alex into the phone’s fourth and last number.

  “Done,” she said, smiling. “Alex will be there any time you want, just the touch of a button.”

  Charlie said “cool,” took the phone and crawled back into his fort, punching his pillow, pulling his blanket back down.

  Rachel’s eyes were glistening. “I’m stunned,” she said softly. “Can’t thank you enough.”

  Kerri patted her arm, then gestured to the tent. “Progress…speaking.”

  Rachel fell back on her pillows, weak from emotion. “Yes…” she whispered. “But still suppressing memory. Jake Benton was here this morning after a session with him. He coached me on how to accept…”

  “That it takes time?”

  “Yes. He said some memories the mind doesn’t want to remember, not for a long time.” Rachel’s gaze went to the tent. “I’m not even sure I want him to remember, and that just tears at me. Lauren, my friend…I want you to catch the SOB, and he’s the only…”

  Kerri nodded, feeling back to hollow again. Charlie was the only eyewitness. She looked back to the tent too, pictured a little boy at least starting to feel safe behind his blanket, studying his SOS buttons.

  What to say now? They were quiet for moments. Then, softly, Rachel fretted about where they’d go tomorrow.

  She’d sounded out Charlie, delicately. Realized finally that returning to the apartment was out, even if the killer was caught and they cleaned, restored, and put a million locks on the door. “I’ve asked Terry to call off her cleaning service. This city has lots of kid-friendly hotels. It will be expensive but I’ve got some money…”

  “Witness Protection would cover a lot of it,” Kerri said.

  Rachel nodded gratefully. Described how she’d given herself one week to find a new place and start all over, near a park for Charlie to play in. It wouldn’t be so hard, would it?

  “Might take more than a week,” Kerri said dubiously.

  Rachel let out a sigh. “In the meantime it’s gotten cold. Charlie has this new red jacket I bought, but for the cleanup Terry put it in one of our trunks in the basement. She has to be out of town for tonight…some conference…”

  “I can get it for you,” Kerri said. “Plus a starter bunch of sweaters, clothes. When you’re settled I’ll arrange for your trunks to be picked up. Are they labeled?”

  “Yes, oh my God, thanks again.” Rachel frowned slightly. “I think the trunks were left open. Gina helped Terry carry things down. It was upsetting for them and they got disorganized. Terry thinks she left the keys with Gina.” A hesitation. “I tried to call her…”

  “She isn’t feeling well. No worries, I’ll go tonight, get Charlie’s jacket and more.”

  Rachel almost cried with gratitude, and described their two trunks – one dark blue, a bigger one black, in a stack pushed against the wall near the boiler.

  “We’ve been in the basement. I know where the trunks are.”

  Just then Kerri’s phone chirped. She checked the screen. “Oops, police business. ‘Scuse me.”

  Rachel smiled faintly and nodded.

  Kerri rushed out to the hall.

  60

  “Frank Wheat’s been sighted,” Alex said.

  Kerri’s pulse jumped. “Where are you?”

  “Heading there. You want in?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  After quick hugs and byes-for-now, Kerri was back in her Tahoe racing down Second Avenue, then peeling east onto East Twelfth as far as Avenue C. It wasn’t far, only twenty blocks from the hospital, but the whole time she gnashed her teeth.

  She wanted furiously to question Wheat, but what, really, did they have on him? He’d be full of his memorized alibis: he was alone on the roof, in the tenant’s apartment, his own apartment…and not a single piece of real evidence tied him to the murders. On the other hand he was violent: had abused both his ex-wife and Gina who said he’d had a crush on Rachel. He could have seen Scott Mullin going up to her apartment, carrying roses. Did she open the door and squeal with delight? Was that the first thing that set him off?

  It all fit, didn’t it? He was ashamed of his daughter, had miserably followed to where she pole-danced, and had probably felt lots better about her becoming an actress.

  So? What were the odds he also followed Gina to her auditions with Jed Stefan - who rejected her and then…fury! This was a man hating the world.

  Another damned infuriating pile of circumstantial. They couldn’t arrest Wheat, but questioning might yield something - and the killer wasn’t done. He’d left his horrid emoji at Stefan’s murder to make that clear. Used Stefan’s middle finger to taunt the cops.

  Kerri’s blood boiled, imagining him laughing at them.

  East Twelfth went from seedy to seedier at the far end. Traffic roared on the FDR a block away, and graffiti was everywhere. Kerri parked yards across from a four-story building that looked dark and crumbling, forbidding with the aura of shabby, wasted lives.

  A rap sounded on her passenger door window, and she jumped.

  “You scared me,” she scolded Alex, climbing in.

  “Our secret,” he smirked, his expression changing fast as he went back to watching the street. He was wearing his parka open despite the cold. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said with his hand on his gun.

  “We’re scraping the barrel, we don’t even have probable cause this time,” Kerri groused. “We could try knocking, see if he’s accepting visitors despite seeing his police-posted face all over the media.”

  She scowled again at the decrepit building. “Who called it in?”

  “Some guy named Hurley on the third floor swears he saw Wheat going up to the fourth. With his girlfriend, a woman named Taz.”

  Surprise.

  Both remembered Gina, drunk, mention that name as one of Frank Wheat’s women, probably paid.

  “Interesting.”

  Moments later, they stood in the dingy, paint-chipped hallway outside Hurley’s door. Kerri glanced up at the fourth floor, hearing nothing, her hand on her automatic. They took positions on either side of the door, and Alex knocked.

  No answer.

  He knocked again. “Chester Hurley?”

  Finally, Kerri heard the sound of a chair scraping and footsteps coming closer. A voice rasped, “Whozair?”

  “Police,” Alex said through the door.

  Chains and more chains fumbled, and the door pulled open. Chester Hurley stood there, looking agitated. “Get inside quick. I don’t want him to see.”

  He was about sixty, small and thin, unshaven, a large nose red with broken capillaries. A longtime alcoholic in a white T-shirt over crumpled gray trousers, in a room reeking of b
ooze. Behind him, a small table, two wooden chairs, a metal-frame bed with a thin mattress.

  “Got your guns?” he nervously asked the two policemen. His eyes darted to Alex’s hand near his holster.

  “Frank Wheat,” Alex said. “You’ve seen him?”

  “Yes, yes!” Hurley gave a phlegmy cough as they both moved in. He pointed excitedly to the ceiling. “Last night,” he rasped. “I saw him come up drunk, lookin’ mean as hell and she was wid him. He told me, ‘You wanna get plugged too?’ – real threatenin’ like – an’ I ran back in fast. They had sex after that. Wild, crazy, noisy. What a pain inna neck. Bad enough havin’ the FDR out dere.” He pointed the wrong way.

  Kerri eyed the half empty bottle of whiskey on the table. No glass and Hurley looked unsteady. “You’re sure this was last night?”

  “Sure as I’m standin’ here,” Hurley wheezed.

  “Is Taz still up there?”

  “Yeah, both of ‘em. I think they’re having sex again.”

  Alex sent Kerri a look: Sounds quiet up there. She glanced up at the ceiling: Gotta check anyway. Meanwhile Hurley was squinting an appraising look at both of them. “Izair gonna be a reward ’cause I called you?”

  Alex ignored the question. “When he threatened you – did you see a gun?”

  “No, ran back in here and locked the door! He had his hand in his pocket.”

  “We’d like you to go to the station to make a statement. Are you willing?”

  “Sure, anything to get away from him.” The reddened eyes gaped back up. “Jist take him away, will ya? He scares me.” Then Hurley looked back to Alex. “So what about da reward?”

  Within minutes, two uniformed officers were climbing the stairs, quietly ushering Hurley out, helping him fumble with his decrepit lock. Alex and Kerri thanked them. The five of them spent just seconds on the landing.

  Then the two detectives started up the stairs, flicking their automatics off safety.

  61

  Taz’s real name was Teresa May Curry, according to their police records. Her hall and door were a depressing, paint-chipped repeat of Chester Hurley’s, and she didn’t answer Alex’s knock.