Afterward, Jordan would go directly across the street to Big Joe's Tavern and drink until he was numb, glad that the annual review of Tito's case was over, glad the Mexicans were gone for another year.
“Where'd you find him?” Jordan finally asked Holister. His mouth was dry. It was as if the sun had burnt his tongue from top to bottom. But he knew the heat wasn't the cause. It was the past rising up in the back of his throat.
“Down at the pond. Half-buried. There ain't much left. Just bones. Probably been there all along.” Holister drew in a deep breath and looked to the sky. “We looked here, goddamn it. We covered every inch of these woods. A few of the deputies from Carlyle County even got their scuba gear and searched the pond, remember?”
“I remember. You've told me about this a million times. The sheriff's department divers said it was just too damn deep and muddy down there to find anything,” Jordan answered, staring down the path that led to the pond.
He always wondered if it had been a white kid instead of Tito Cordova who disappeared, if the divers would've looked a little longer or dived a little deeper.
“It started snowing, and then the pond froze over, that's why we stopped looking for him,” Holister said.
That's not the only reason why the search stopped, Jordan thought, but could not bring himself to say aloud. Holister always left that part out of the story, left out what happened to Esperanza Cordova. That pained Holister as much as never finding Tito did.
“Somebody's out there, Jordan,” Holister repeated. “Somebody thinks this is awful goddamned funny.”
“Are you sure you're all right? I can call an ambulance out here . . .”
“Would you just listen to me?”
“All right. Just who in the heck do you think is out there?”
“I don't know. I just heard a laugh. Heard somebody runnin' through the woods screamin' like a wounded banshee.”
“Louella said she got a call about a meth lab out here last week. County didn't find anything. I was out here a month ago for the same reason. You know what goes on in these woods. Why didn't you call the sheriff's department for backup when you heard the laugh?”
Holister fidgeted and glanced away. “I didn't need them.”
Jordan knew Holister well enough to know he wasn't telling him everything. But the fact remained that Holister had discovered some bones. Whether the bones belonged to Tito Cordova was yet to be seen.
He needed to get his bearings. The heat made it almost impossible to think straight, and he was tired and guilt-ridden. He not only had betrayed his own vows by sleeping with Ginny, he had betrayed Holister and created another secret to keep from him. It almost felt as if the world had stopped moving—the drought had changed everything, exposing events of the past rapidly.
Jordan could not help but wonder if he could keep his break in character, his secrets, hidden away so they wouldn't hurt the ones he loved the most—or would they be exposed to the whole world like the skeleton?
Now was not the time to bring up his suspicions about Ed Kirsch to Holister.
The air was still, like the moment before a storm hits. Even the insects were silent. Any cicadas that had survived their seventeen-year birth cycle were not celebrating, and the shadows underneath the canopy of leaves stood motionless, in prayer for the next breeze.
Jordan shivered again, stared at Holister, and then looked toward the pond. He had an unnerving feeling that he was being watched. “You're not making any sense. Why'd you come out here in the first place? It had to be more than a lark. You're usually having breakfast at the café right now. This isn't normal.”
“It don't matter,” Holister snapped. He started to walk away. “Come on, you need to see this.”
Jordan reached out and grabbed Holister's shoulder. “It does too matter. Why in the hell were you out here?”
Holister was still stout for his age, heavy but not overly laden with fat from his years of sitting behind the wheel of the cruiser and living on a diet made up mostly of biscuits and gravy and cheeseburgers. There was nothing about his appearance that suggested old age had weakened him. Until now. Holister looked like he'd aged ten years since Jordan had seen him the day before.
“I didn't want to tell you until I knew what was goin' on,” Holister said.
“Tell me what?”
Holister reached into his back pocket and handed an envelope to Jordan. “Go ahead, open it.”
Jordan reluctantly pulled a letter out of the envelope. A gold medal fell to the ground. He ignored the medal for a second, unfolded the paper, and read it:
Be at Longer's Pond on Tuesday at five o'clock. Don't bring no one with you. Go to the spring and wait.
The writing looked like chicken scratchings. It wasn't signed, and the paper looked like normal typing paper.
“Somebody wanted you to find the bones,” Jordan said.
Holister nodded.
Jordan flipped over the envelope to look at the postmark. The letter had been mailed two days prior from the post office in Dukaine. “You've been out here since five o'clock this morning?”
Holister nodded. “I got a little scared when I couldn't chase after him when he started laughin'. That's why I called you.”
“Him? Was it a male?” Jordan asked.
“I don't know. I didn't see anybody, goddamn it. I'm just assumin' it's a man.”
“But it was one person?”
“I think so. I don't know for sure. I ain't got X-ray vision, Jordan. If I did, I'd be eatin' breakfast like usual, and you'd be home asleep.”
Jordan nodded. “All right, all right. You got this letter yesterday?”
“I didn't know if it meant evenin' or mornin'. I figured if nothin' happened then I'd have Johnny Ray come out with me this evenin'.”
“But something did happen?”
“I guess so. He's out there, but when I called for him to show himself everything got quiet,” Holister said.
Jordan reached down and picked up the gold piece that had fallen out of the envelope.
It was a St. Christopher's medal. There was an inscription on the back. Etched in thin, tiny letters was the name Esperanza. Even in the dim light, Jordan could see tarnish and the dullness across the face of the protector saint. He grazed the full length of the cloaked figure with his thumb and felt the pain of failure, not only for Holister, but for Esperanza and Tito.
“It looks like you might be right,” Jordan said. “You might have finally found Tito. But I'm calling the sheriff's department to get a few more sets of eyes out here. Somebody's up to no good, playing games with the past or with you. Either way, I don't like it. Gives me the creeps is what it does.”
“I don't like it neither. Not after seeing them bones.”
Jordan folded up the letter, dropped the medal back in the envelope, and handed it back to Holister.
“You hang on to it for now,” Holister said.
“All right.” Jordan stuffed the letter into his back pocket. “Can you make it back down to the pond and show me?”
Holister nodded and headed slowly toward the path.
“Hold on.” He radioed Louella and had her request a sheriff's deputy come out to the pond, unholstered his Glock, and chambered a round. “All right. Let's go have a look.”
The path opened up to the pond and the bright morning sun danced across the surface like a flashlight shining on a cracked mirror. Cattails, russet brown and cottony, shot up out of dried, crusty banks. The water had receded ten feet from its normal bank, exposing a desert dotted with fallen trees and trash. Red and white fishing bobbers and tangles of stray fishing line hung from bare tree limbs. A lawn chair, the webbing rotted away, lay on its side next to an old tractor tire.
Longer's Pond had changed, just like everything else in Dukaine had changed, after Tito Cordova disappeared. What had once been a getaway for fishing and swimming was now a nearly stagnant puddle, the water tainted by years of fertilizer runoff and neglect. There was an overgr
own sandy beach on the north bank of the pond. A small cement block building that had housed a concession stand sat vacant, marred by graffiti, its windows broken, the inside a haven for raccoons, meth cookers, and other vermin.
Twenty feet out into the water an aluminum slide rose up out of the muck, rusted and leaning heavily to the right side. At the height of summer a water hose would be extended from the concession stand to the slide, creating a makeshift water-slide. A huge cement foundation that was once a diving board platform, cracked and crumbling, jutted up a little farther out into the water. The depth of the pond back then was at least twenty-five feet. The bottom was comprised of a thin layer of sand, on top of a limestone base that had holes and caves that went to depths unknown. Jordan had spent a lot of time at Longer's Pond in the old days, during summer vacation. It saddened him to see it as it was now.
A huge NO TRESPASSING sign was posted in English and Spanish, NO PASSÉ, at the entrance to the wetlands beyond the pond. Unlike the days when he was a kid, the migrants were not legally allowed to camp anywhere but on SunRipe land. After Buddy Mozel bought the land surrounding Longer's Pond a year or so after Tito disappeared, he convinced the Town Board to prohibit the migrants from squatting in the wetlands, which was public land. And if they didn't have the money to pay him rent for one of the forty or so ramshackle houses and trailers he owned, he'd either deduct the rent out of their pay or make sure they didn't work at the plant.
Holister pointed to the pond. “The bones are over there by that big sycamore. I heard 'em run just up over the bank and into the woods toward Huckle Road,” he said as he pushed through the thick stand of cattails and disappeared.
Jordan followed and stopped when he got to the edge of the pond.
A small, four-foot skeleton lay half-submerged in the dirt. A frail, bony hand reached out to the right. The other arm and hand were still buried. The rib cage was partially exposed and Jordan could see about half of the pelvis and most of the right leg. Both feet were still lodged in the hard ground. One visible eye socket, dark and empty, pointed upward to the sky, and the mouth was locked open, like it was crying out, screaming silently.
Holister turned to Jordan and started to say something, but the only sound he made was a quick wheeze and gasp.
Jordan heard a loud noise behind him. At first, the noise didn't register in his mind, it sounded like distant thunder, but the echo was close enough and he quickly realized what he'd just heard was a gunshot.
He spun toward the woods where Holister said he'd heard laughter, and raised the Glock into firing position. Another shot went off, striking the ground a few feet from his boots. Jordan jumped to the ground, tackled Holister, and rolled up onto his knees firing blindly into the trees. After unloading his magazine, his body went into full reactionary mode. His training kicked in so forcefully it was like an out-of-body experience. He grabbed another magazine, reloaded, and searched the woods for movement before firing again.
Holister's shirt was covered in blood, starting just above his pocket, and the old man rolled over and began to struggle to his feet, pulling himself up on all fours. His eyes were wild with pain. When he tried to say something his voice was a garble of bloody spit and grunts. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, grabbing his chest. Another shot came out of the woods and the bullet exploded squarely in Holister's back, sending him sprawling facedown into the dirt.
CHAPTER 5
January 17, 1986, 3:15 A.M.
There was blood everywhere. Hard pebble-sized sleet bounced off the cracked windshield, but all Jordan could hear was the reverberation of the crash. Metal against metal ringing in his ears, as the family Pontiac station wagon slid sideways and came to a sudden stop against an oak tree. He could not quit screaming.
He tried to move, but was trapped in the backseat between the driver's seat and the twisted door that rested against a tree. Tears streamed down his twelve-year-old face and he could barely see. Blood mixed with the tears from a cut that was caused by biting his bottom lip during the crash, and from the glass shards embedded in his face, under his right eye. His left hand was free, and he inched it up to his face to wipe away the blood to clear his eyes. Each time he moved glass stabbed through his pants.
The smell of gasoline and antifreeze burned deep in his throat, making it difficult to breathe as he gasped in between screams.
A single siren seemed to grow closer. But it was distant, and Jordan could not be sure that it was actually a siren he was hearing. It could be his ears still ringing from the crash. He was dazed, and could only hope that it was a siren, that someone, somewhere, was on the way to help.
His father, Big Joe McManus, was sitting upright, his skillet-sized hands still gripping the steering wheel, eyes wide open, staring straight ahead. Only his right finger twitched. His mother, Katherine, was slumped over, her head against the window, blood dripping out of her ear onto Jordan's brand-new white Chuck Taylors he'd gotten as a Christmas present from Kitty. Her eyes were closed and she was moaning softly.
Every second seemed like an hour as Jordan replayed the crash over and over in his mind a million times. He tried to think of something else while he screamed, hyperventilated. His voice was catching. His vocal chords were starting to freeze up.
What he really wanted was to still be at Kitty's, asleep in the spare room behind the kitchen, so he could have pancakes for breakfast when he woke up. But his parents had shown up, waking him at three o'clock in the morning. Kitty was not happy, but she was accustomed to the uncertainty of Saturday nights, the uncertainty of the life her only daughter had chosen when she'd married a man who owned a tavern.
The radio had been on low when Jordan got into the car half-awake, tuned to a crackling AM country station out of Indianapolis. It was still on, but now the music was nothing but static. His father loved Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton. His mother liked quieter music, Johnny Mathis, John Gary, and Perry Como, but she never got to pick the radio station in the car, only in the mornings on the Philco radio in the kitchen before his father got out of bed or after he left for work. She referred to his father's choice of music as “hillbilly music,” as if it were somehow beneath them all.
His parents had always seemed like an odd couple, a mismatched pair of socks, even to Jordan. One was neat and quiet, and the other was loud and a slob. And lately, they had been like magnets opposing each other, with him and Spider caught in the middle. He heard them talk about divorcing over the summer, and Big Joe had spent a few nights away from home. But after Tito Cordova disappeared, he came home for good. Nothing had changed between his parents. They argued even more intensely, and it was worse than it was before Big Joe left.
One minute Jordan was on way his way home, safe and secure in the backseat, but uncomfortable with the wall of silence that was cemented between his mother and father. The next minute his parents were screaming at each other. The interior of the car smelled of beer and whiskey, but that was not unusual. His father always smelled like a tavern, a mix of yeast and cigarette smoke, harsh yet comforting.
Jordan's father owned Big Joe's Tavern at the corner of Jefferson and Main. Joe McManus was a hulking man, well over six feet tall and solid as a two-hundred-and-ten-pound Indiana University linebacker, which he was for one season until he lost his scholarship for poor grades and too much partying.
Jordan's sixteen-year-old brother, George, who everybody called Spider, was the spitting image of his father. All the way down to the unmanageable cowlick in his thick black wavy hair.
Jordan, on the other hand, favored his mother. His features were softer, his chin less chiseled, his hair sandy blonde instead of black, his eyes blue though, just like Big Joe's. And it was already obvious, at the age of twelve, that he lacked the coordination and natural athletic ability that had allowed his father a brief stint in college, and Spider a reputation that was almost legendary in the high school gym, which is where he'd got his nickname from. When George ran across the basketball court, his long,
black, hairy legs made him look like a giant spider scurrying down its web, intent on killing the unfortunate moth that had flown into his trap.
Big Joe always blamed Jordan's clumsiness on his mother's side of the family, and was quick to show his disappointment at every football or basketball game Jordan sat the bench. The distinction between Jordan and Spider did little to build a brotherly bond. They navigated the four-year difference the best they could as their father pitted them against each other. Jordan's refuge was Kitty's house, while Spider's refuge was wherever Jordan wasn't.
His mother did not work outside the house, but sometimes she worked at the bar on Saturday nights when there was a live band playing. She'd wait tables if needed, but she'd rather dance if the band played music she liked.
Saturday night was the only night his father drank at the bar. At least that was the way it was for a long time. Lately, he'd been drinking a lot more than normal. Staying at the tavern long after it closed, while his mother slept in their bedroom alone. He'd seen his mother's eyes fill with tears, standing over the sink scrubbing burnt macaroni and cheese out of a casserole dish, and while she had been folding laundry the day before the accident.
Big Joe had an obvious dislike for the Mexicans that came into town in the summertime, and he made no bones about how he felt about Buddy Mozel and the SunRipe plant in general; he thought the plant had ruined the town, growing into a dominating force that allowed foreigners to soil the town with brown skin. Buddy was the enemy, the gatekeeper, and lately, he'd been buying every piece of land in Dukaine that became available for sale. And some that wasn't. Buddy had even tried to buy the tavern, but Big Joe swore that would never happen. Not as long as he was alive. People had to have some place to go where they didn't have to smell Mexican dirt, is what Jordan heard his father say one day when he was talking about Buddy trying to buy the tavern.
Jordan's mother was more tolerant of the migrants, of Buddy Mozel. She was, at times, enamored by Buddy's class, his knowledge of fine things, and his ability to put on a pair of boots and walk in the mud like an everyday person. Buddy called his mother Katherine, a formal nod that made her smile, while Big Joe called her Katie like everybody else in town.
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