Tall Oaks: A gripping missing child thriller with a devastating twist

by Chris Whitaker

  He sat back. “Really? Why?”

  “Because you provide for me. I mean, I know we come from money, but you still worked hard for us, just like my father did. And that’s what I think of when I think of a real man: a provider. Probably a bit old-fashioned, but who cares?”

  “Is that why you could finally say goodbye . . . to Thomas?”

  She nodded. “It wouldn’t be fair on the new baby. I needed to let go.”

  He smiled.

  “And what of you? Are you happy?” she asked.

  “I am.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “I was . . . I am, but I think we’ve got to a point in our lives where we need to put our own needs first.”

  “I think I’ve always known that we weren’t quite right for each other. Does that make me a horrible person, that I’ve always known and I didn’t do anything about it? Didn’t let you go?”

  She shook her head, standing and placing a hand over her stomach. “No, Roger. I like to think that it makes you loyal. Well, up until now of course.”

  He smiled.

  “How did you find out?”

  “A mix up at PhotoMax.”

  She pulled a photograph from the envelope in her hand and handed it to him. Then she walked back to the house.

  Roger looked down at the photograph and smiled at the memory. The memory of him and French John hiking through Despair, hand in hand, the sun setting behind them.

  “I need to tell you something. I just hope that you’re not going to be mad,” Manny said.

  Furat turned to him. “Okay. Go ahead.”

  He took a deep breath. “I said that Abe could come with us to prom, because he’s been really down about the whole Jane Berg thing, and I’ve been friends with him for a long time, since we were little kids, and he said he wasn’t going to come to prom. He said he couldn’t face going alone.” He kept his eyes down, not daring to look up at her. “So I said he should come with us. We’ll still be able to dance and stuff, and there’s other kids going stag, so when we get there he can go off with them—he just didn’t want to walk in alone. I’m sorry.”

  When he finally did look up, she kissed him.

  “It’s fine. I’m glad you asked him.”

  He sighed. “Shit. I’ve been so scared to tell you.”

  She laughed.

  “Oh yeah, one other thing, I kind of spent all my money hiring the dinner suit. And then your corsage cost more than I thought . . . so, the thing is . . .”

  “Let me guess? You have to wear the wingtips, because you ran out of money?”

  “No, much worse than that. You see, the limousine, it was like two hundred bucks. I think it would’ve been less but the fuckhead that owns it used to be sweet on my mother, and then she blew him out, and now he’s getting revenge. So that’s the thing. I couldn’t afford the limousine, so we have to compromise.”

  He held up the keys to the duck-egg. “It’ll be dark, and I haven’t washed it so some of the shine has come off.”

  Elena came over and smiled at Furat.

  “Thank God you talked him out of wearing the three-piece tonight.”

  “It wasn’t easy.”

  “I can imagine. You know he wore it for his graduation ceremony? I’ll have to ask Jerry if he can airbrush it out, the fedora at least.”

  Furat laughed.

  “Is he still bitching about driving to prom?”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s a nice car, Manny. Most kids would be thankful to drive something nearly new,” Elena said. “And you need to wash it before tonight. You can’t pick up Furat in it when it’s got bird poop on the hood.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve been praying that a bird would a take a shit on it, dull the color a bit. And now, after I’ve spent two weeks leaving seed all around it, it finally happens and I have to clean it off. No fucking way.”

  “I sometimes wonder if you’re really my son.”

  Furat laughed so much that Manny scowled at her.

  “You’re lucky to have a son like me. I’m the fucking man around this house. Who’d you call the other night when that spider was by your bed?”

  “Yeah and I wish I hadn’t now.” Elena turned to Furat. “He came in with a baseball bat. There’s a hole in the drywall now. And anyway, back to the point, Jared said to keep the bodywork clean.”

  “He’s not even here. How the fuck will he know?”

  Furat smiled at Elena. “Is he any better?”

  Elena was about to reply when Manny interjected.

  “The thing about Jared is that she’s a lesbian. That’s what all this fuss has been about.”

  Elena glared at him. “I explained all of this to you, Manny.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, I got it.” He turned to Furat. “I mean he’s a lesbian, and he’s a he. Except he hasn’t got anything downstairs yet. Still smooth as an Action Man doll.”

  Elena slapped his arm.

  “Jesus, Ma. I’ve gotta get my picture taken tonight. How are you going to explain the bruise to Child Services when I send them a copy?”

  “So he’s transgender?” Furat said.

  “Yes, and he’s been through a very tough time.”

  “Will he be okay? I’d never have been able to tell. I think he’s really handsome,” Furat said, holding a hand up to Manny before he could say anything.

  “He is handsome, and nice too. And I think he’ll be fine. He’s going to go home for a while, to be with his parents. I think he needs that. We’ll stay in touch. I may even go and visit him when he’s feeling better.”

  Manny glanced over at Thalia, who was playing in her sandpit.

  “Anyway. I’m going home to get ready now, so I’ll see you later,” Furat said.

  “You’ve still got four hours. What the hell are you going to do for four hours? Bear in mind I like the natural look, not too much makeup. The complete opposite of my mother.”

  Elena went to hit him again, but this time he ducked.

  “I’ve still got it. It never left me,” he said, as he raised his fists and shadow-boxed around her.

  “Somewhere out there, a Somali kid just pissed himself laughing,” Elena said.

  “You look like shit,” Jess said.

  Jim tried to smile. “Tough night. I’ve been at the hospital.”

  “Anything wrong?”

  “No. Not really. Just something I was working on. Didn’t pan out the way I thought it was going to, and I’m glad it didn’t.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  He sighed, shook his head.

  “I heard about that guy in Despair,” Jess said.

  “Yeah. It’s in all the locals.”

  “You okay?”

  “If I say yes does that make me a monster?”

  “I don’t think so, though it probably doesn’t make you normal either.”

  He lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke up and watching it drift toward the tops of the tall oak trees. “Who wants to be normal?”

  “Will he die?” Jess asked, her tone even.

  “Maybe.”

  “Will anyone come looking for you?”

  Her shoes crunched on the twigs under foot.

  “No. It’s a different jurisdiction but I know the cops out that way. And there was no one around that night. Even if there had been, it was dark. They’ve already chalked it up to a bar fight that got out of hand. He had no shortage of people that hated him.”

  She took the cigarette from his hand.

  “I’m surprised you told me about it,” she said, blowing the smoke away from him.

  He looked across at her. “Why?”

  She passed the cigarette back to him. “Because I could tell on you.”

  He smiled. She did too.

  “I’m surprised because most people in my life think I’m so fragile that I can’t take the truth; that I’ll just crumble away if I see any more pain. B
ut you don’t.”

  He squinted when they made their way back into the clearing, the harsh sunlight too much for his tired eyes to take.

  “I know how tough you are, Jess, just to keep going. To get out of bed and live each day, even if you do it from the bottom of a bottle or from the bed of a stranger.”

  “But you still like me?” She stopped walking and faced him.

  “I never said I liked you.”

  She smiled. “I got your message. I got the flowers too. It was nice of you.”

  “I was angry, before,” he said, quietly.

  “Yeah, because you care. I don’t have much left, Jim. I need you in my corner.”

  “I am in your corner. I always have been.”

  She kissed him.

  She held on to him long after he tried to pull away.

  She leaned into him, trying to stop the tingling that surged up her spine. She took a breath, tried to step back but now he held her.

  And then she was crying.

  Beating his chest and crying.

  Letting everything out, the pain and the suffering, the things she had done and things she had let happen to her. She cried and she fell to her knees with him, and buried her face into his neck, biting him and scratching him.

  He pinned her arms to her side and then, after she had nothing left in her body, no tears left to cry, she closed her eyes, exhausted, no fight left at all.

  Because at that moment, by the tall oak trees, while in the arms of a man that really loved her, she felt it.

  That he was gone.

  And he wasn’t coming back.

  It had been a long day for Jerry. Longer still because he hadn’t slept again, even though it was warm out, he liked to have a sheet to cover himself. But all of the sheets were on his mother now. Every single one of them. And the smell was stronger. So strong he could almost see it in the air, lying heavy, weighing down his lungs with every breath he took.

  But he also couldn’t sleep because he was worried about losing his job. And losing his job made him feel worthless and stupid, so perhaps his mother had been right all along. He was a little slower than the rest.

  Some people had come into the PhotoMax to look at it: a mother and son. And, though the son was fat, like he was, he wasn’t stupid and he didn’t have a funny voice. He heard them tell the realtor that they wanted to turn it into a coffee house, even though there were lots of coffee houses in Tall Oaks, and only one PhotoMax. And then they had walked past him and gone into the office and dark room, even though they weren’t really supposed to because only he and Max had been allowed back there. He should have stopped them, because he was the manager after all, even though he didn’t feel like the manager, especially when the son had looked at his shorts, and his shirt and tie, and laughed at him.

  Jim laid out the video tapes in front of him. Fifteen of them. He’d watched some of them before, not expecting to see much. They were news tapes: local and national; every piece ever run on the Harry Monroe story. Adam had helped collate them. Some of the segments were brief, others detailed. The reporters were a mix of male and female, all the right side of forty, all with perfect teeth. He noticed this because there wasn’t much else to take note of.

  He closed the blinds. He always did now, finding the sunlight harder and harder to take. He heard the phone ringing outside and cars passing by.

  He rubbed his eyes, the exhaustion hooding them.

  He put another tape in, watched another reporter standing in the lashing rain in the middle of Main Street the morning after Harry had been taken. The screen cut to a photograph of Harry as the reporter detailed what little they knew. Someone had leaked the Clown. Not one of his men. The reporter spoke animatedly about the sinister revelation, almost tripping over her words as she fought to get them out before her rivals.

  The screen cut back to her. She stood beneath her umbrella. Behind her stood a thick crowd of a hundred, all lined up in their waterproofs, all waiting to be given instruction so they could start searching. All except for one. He was walking the opposite way, his shirt soaked through. Jim recognized the walk, the labored gait.

  He froze the screen, zoomed in.

  The picture was clear, despite the deluge.

  Jerry looked nervous.

  Jim leaned forward, calm, focused.

  He saw marks on Jerry’s face. Scratches.

  He played the tape, then watched Jerry disappear into the pharmacy.

  Jim grabbed his keys and left his office, then walked briskly up Main Street toward the pharmacy.

  He found Hung inside, watching a small television behind the counter. He could see Luli out back, sorting prescriptions into bags.

  “Jim. How are you?” Hung said.

  “I came over to congratulate you.”

  Hung beamed. “You heard about the show?”

  “It was hard not to. You lit up the whole of Tall Oaks. We got a call from Mrs. Lewis complaining about the noise, and she lives miles from the McDermotts.”

  Hung smiled, bashfully, then turned to Luli who grinned at him.

  “One other thing. Can I take a look at your security tapes?”

  “Sure, from when?”

  “March 5th.”

  Hung stood. “The day Harry went missing.”

  They sat in the cramped back office, knees touching as Hung searched through the tapes.

  He found the one he wanted and slotted it into the machine.

  “Can you go to 12.30 p.m.?”

  Hung forwarded the tape.

  They watched in silence as Jerry walked into the store. Rainwater dripped from him. Jim could see his face clearly. The scratches looked raw—streaks of red against his pale skin.

  Jerry kept glancing out of the window.

  “Can you tell what he picked up?”

  Hung shrugged. “What he always picks up: his mother’s prescription.”

  “You don’t remember the scratches on his face?”

  “It was busy that day, with Harry.”

  Jim nodded.

  “What’s this about?” Hung said.

  “Probably nothing,” Jim said, his pulse quickening.

  Jim stood up and walked to the door.

  “Jim?”

  Jim turned.

  “Jerry didn’t pick up his mother’s prescription yesterday.”

  “Maybe he forgot?”

  “She’ll have run out by now, and he’s never forgotten before.”

  Jerry kneeled beside his mother’s bed. The smell was strong, her skin dull.

  She looked so different.

  Jerry reached out and held her hand.

  It was cold.

  He swallowed.

  “I know that you’re dead.”

  He heard the floor creak as he shifted his weight.

  “I’m not ready to be on my own, Mom. I need you, just like you said.”

  He laid his head on his mother’s chest and tried to pray. He longed to feel her push his cheek up and down, to feel the beat of her heart against his ear. He wanted Mom to ruffle his hair and ask him what he wanted for dinner, like she used to, when Jerry was small, before she found out he was special and started to treat him differently. He wanted his old mom back—before the tumor came along. Although, when he thought about it, he wondered if it had always been there. And while he was asking, seeing as God was already listening, he’d like his dad back too, and then they could be a family again. And that would make him happy, because nothing else could.

  With his eyes closed he heard the sounds of Tall Oaks floating in through the open window. He heard children laughing and birds singing. They all sounded happy. And so he asked God to make him happy too, just this once, seeing as he had never asked him for anything before. He asked him to save the Photo Max, because he loved his job and he wanted to work there forever. But if God couldn’t do that, if he couldn’t do any of that because Jerry had asked for too many things at once, then could he please take him too? Take him to wherever Mom and D
ad were? Because without them, and without his job, his place, he didn’t belong anymore.

  He rubbed his eyes but couldn’t stop the tears.

  He couldn’t stop them when he heard the knock at the door. The knock he had been waiting for.

  He couldn’t even stop them when the bee flew into the room and landed on his hand, and especially not when the bee stung his hand.

  He tried to stand, but he felt dizzy. And then his throat began to swell, and he had trouble breathing.

  He fell backward into the wall, hearing the baseboard crack as the drywall crumbled.

  He clutched his chest as he rolled over, and through swollen eyes saw all the money in the hole he’d made. More money than he could count, more money than he had ever seen before.

  He lay back on the carpet, on the worn patch beside his mother’s bed. He raised his hand and looked at his Death Watch.

  It was wrong, he thought. It had always been wrong.

  Jim knocked on the door again.

  He took a step back and looked up at the house, at the top floor, where all the drapes were closed. He could feel the heat on his back. The fucking heat that was starting to get unbearable.

  He banged the door, then glanced around at the deserted street. Everything looked so bright he could barely take it.

  He tried the door. It opened.

  The smell hit him first.

  “Jerry?” he called out, drawing his gun.

  He moved slowly along the hallway. He could hear the clock in the living room, the ticking louder than ever.

  He stepped into the kitchen, saw the dishes piled high on the counter. He glanced at the refrigerator, at the photographs pinned to it. Jerry looked young, sad, even though he was smiling. His mother stood beside him, her arm tight around his shoulder.

  He moved back into the hallway, then into Jerry’s dark room. Everything was neat. He stepped back out.

  The stairs creaked as he climbed them, his gun trained in front of him.

  “Jerry? It’s Jim. I just came over to check on you.”

  He saw one door closed, the rest open. He checked each room quickly, then swallowed as he turned the handle.

  It was dark inside, the air asphyxiating. He placed a hand over his mouth while the other gripped his gun tightly, the metal cool against his skin.