The Last Child

by John Hart

  Johnny stared at the startled brown eyes, the stained teeth, and the long hair spiked with gel. The kid spit blood and stepped away. “Damn freak.”

  Johnny shook with rage, with a long year’s silence and with all of the things he’d repressed since waking in a hospital room stained red. The senior mistook the trembling for fear and started to smile, then looked over Johnny’s head at the suddenly watchful crowd. He lowered his hands, tried to laugh it all off. “Easy, Pocahontas.”

  No one else laughed. Johnny was a celebrity of the darkest kind, a strange, wild kid with eyes that were savage and black. He’d seen things no boy was supposed to see. He’d lost a twin, found Tiffany Shore, and maybe killed a man.

  He was war paint and fire.

  Insane.

  Johnny held up a single finger, then looked into his friend’s bright, brimming eyes. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He started to leave, then saw Gerald, who stood three rows back, tall and broad, with sandy hair and skin the color of fired clay. Johnny pulled Jack into his wake, and the crowd parted. He stopped in front of Gerald and saw how the pretty girls stepped back, how naked Gerald looked without them.

  Johnny dragged Jack from his shadow and draped an arm around his neck. He did not see how his friend lowered his eyes and rolled a curve into his spine, did not see the shame and the fear and the quick, nervous twitch. Gerald towered over Johnny, ten inches taller, a hundred pounds heavier. He was summer sweat and green grass, a hero in the making, but no one watching could doubt who was in charge.

  Johnny held up the same finger, stabbed Gerald in the meat of his chest. “He’s your brother, you dick. What’s wrong with you?”

  —

  The boys stalked through the press of silent people. Johnny looked straight ahead and tried to avoid eye contact, but he did see one person he recognized, another senior, tall with white-blond hair and wide-set eyes. It was Detective Hunt’s son, Allen. From the river. Alone, in steel-toed boots and a jean jacket, he leaned against a column near the back of the crowd. A toothpick rolled between his teeth, and he guarded his eyes. When Johnny looked at him, he neither blinked nor moved. Just the toothpick. Side to side.

  The security door accepted the key card that Steve had given him. The door clicked open and Johnny pushed through, into a cool, open space that smelled of damp and cement. Stairs rose to the right and beneath them was a low, gray space. Jack threw himself onto the floor, back against the wall, feet drawn up. Johnny sat next to him. Chewing gum made dark marks on the floor. One of Jack’s shoes was untied, and his jeans, at the knees, were stained with grass.

  “Well,” Johnny said. “That sucked.”

  Jack put his face on his knees and Johnny looked up. His fingers explored a rivet, then a weld line. When Jack’s face came up, Johnny saw wet spots that turned the grass stains black.

  “How did you get us in here?”

  “Uncle Steve.”

  Jack sucked in two quick breaths, smeared mucus along the back of his bad arm.

  “Those guys are dicks,” Johnny said.

  Jack sniffed. “Shit munchers.”

  “Yeah. Asswipes.”

  Jack laughed, a nervous expulsion, and Johnny relaxed. “What was that all about?”

  “He wanted me to say something,” Jack explained. “I wouldn’t do it.” Johnny looked the question and Jack shrugged. “Jocks rule. Gimps drool.”

  “Fucking Gerald. How’s your arm?”

  Jack rotated his arm at the shoulder, then pressed it across his chest. He pointed at Johnny’s chest. Bandages were visible above the buttons. “You’re bleeding, man.”

  “I tore some stitches.”

  Jack stared at the bandages. “Is that from the other night?”

  The bandages darkened. Johnny pulled the shirt closed.

  “I should have gone with you, Johnny. When you asked me for help, I should have gone.”

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Johnny said.

  Jack beat a fist on his leg. “I’m a bad friend.” The fist sounded like a hammer on meat. “I am”—he paused, hitting again—“a bad friend.”

  “Stop that.”

  “I didn’t do anything for Alyssa.”

  “You couldn’t have.”

  “I saw it happen.”

  “There was nothing you could do, Jack.”

  But Jack ignored him. “I didn’t do anything for you.” He hit again, hard.

  “Stop it, Jack.”

  Jack stopped. “Is it true?” He looked at Johnny. “The stuff that they’re saying about you? You know?” He made a motion over his face, fingers wiggling.

  Johnny knew what he meant. “Some of it, I guess.”

  “What the hell, Johnny?”

  Johnny looked at his friend, and knew, without a doubt, that Jack could never understand Johnny’s desperate need to believe in something more powerful than his own two hands. Jack had never felt the loss or the fear. He had never lived the nightmare that had become Johnny’s life, but he wasn’t stupid, either.

  Johnny had to tell him something.

  “You remember that book we read in English? The Lord of the Flies? About those boys on the deserted island and how they go feral with no adults around to tell them different. They make spears and blood paint. They run wild through the jungle, hunt pigs, beat drums. You remember?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “One day they were normal, then one day the rules didn’t matter anymore. They made up their own rules, their own beliefs.” He paused. “Sometimes I feel like those boys.”

  “Those kids tried to kill each other. They went insane.”

  “Insane?”

  “Yeah.”

  Johnny shrugged. “I really like that book.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Maybe.”

  Jack picked at a thread on his jeans, looked around at the concrete and stairs. “I thought you hated your Uncle Steve.”

  Johnny explained about DSS, Detective Hunt. “That’s why.”

  “I wouldn’t do anything special for that cop,” Jack said.

  “What do you mean?”

  He waved a hand. “Stuff I hear from my dad. Cop stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like he’s sweet on your mom. That they’ve been … you know.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “That’s what my dad says.”

  “Well, your dad’s a liar.”

  “He probably is.”

  A silence fell. They were awkward together for the first time. “You want to spend the night?” Johnny asked. “It’s just Steve’s place, but, you know—”

  “My dad won’t let me hang out with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Lord of the Flies, man. He thinks you’re dangerous.” Jack tipped his head against the wall. Johnny did the same. “Dangerous,” Jack said. “Dangerous is cool.”

  “Not if we can’t hang out.”

  They fell into another long silence. “I really loved your dad,” Jack said. “He made me feel like the arm didn’t matter.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “I hate my family.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Jack wrapped his arms around his knees and his fingers went white where he squeezed them. “You remember last year? When I broke my arm?”

  The arm was weak; it broke easily. Johnny remembered at least three times that Jack had been in a cast. Last year, though, had been a bad one, with breaks in four places. Fixing it took more surgeries: screws and pins and other bits of metal. “I remember.”

  “Gerald’s the one that did it.” The small hand danced at the end of its narrow wrist. Jack’s voice fell down a well. “That’s why my dad gave me the new bike.”

  “Jack—”

  “That’s why I never ride it.”

  “Shit, man.”

  “I hate my family.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Hunt stood in the Chief’s office. Flags graced t
he corners of the room, and on one wall hung pictures of his boss with various state functionaries: the lieutenant governor, a former senator, a two-bit actor who looked vaguely familiar. Photos of his children were spaced along the credenza. The local paper sat on the desk. So did the papers from Wilmington, Charlotte, and Raleigh. Johnny’s picture was on the front page of each of them. Face paint and feathers, blood and bone.

  A wild Indian.

  The Chief filled his chair, tilted back, hands crossed on his stomach. Anger carved deep lines at the corners of his eyes. He was tired, with unwashed hair that glistened on his forehead. The county sheriff, a lean man in his sixties, with cracked skin on his knuckles and leathery bags beneath his eyes, stood against the wall. He’d been sheriff for almost thirty years and was as feared for his temper as he was respected for his abilities. He studied Hunt with dark, impenetrable eyes and looked no happier than the Chief.

  Hunt refused to flinch.

  “Do you have any idea,” the Chief began, “how many people work for this department? How many officers, how many trainees?”

  “I am well aware.”

  The Chief gestured at the sheriff. “And in the Sheriff’s Department? Any idea?”

  “A lot, I’m sure.”

  “And how do you think those people would feel if we let you root around in their personnel files? Their confidential personnel files?”

  “I have reason to believe—”

  “We’ve seen your reason.” The sheriff’s voice cut through the room. He shifted but kept his shoulder on the wall, his thumbs in his heavy, black belt. “And neither one of us can tell what that word says. Maybe it’s “cop,” but maybe it’s something else. Maybe this kid is mistaken.”

  The Chief leaned forward. “Or full of it.”

  “Or crazy as a shithouse rat.”

  Hunt stared at the sheriff. “I respectfully disagree.”

  “Are you some kind of expert now?” The Chief thumped a finger on the newspapers. “Just look at him.”

  The photograph damned the boy to ready judgment: feathers, wild hair, Tiffany frozen in terror, and his eyes shocked to utter blankness.

  “I understand how that looks, but this is a smart kid. If he thinks he saw a cop, there’s a reason for it.”

  The sheriff interrupted. “The boy claims he made it up. You said so yourself. Now, that’s all I really need to hear.”

  “He’s worried that DSS will take him away from the only family he has left. He thinks a cop was involved with Burton Jarvis.” Hunt could not contain his frustration. “He’s terrified. He’s protecting himself.”

  “Do you have any other reason, beyond this kid, to think that one of ours, a cop for God’s sake, might be involved in this unholy mess?”

  “Tiffany Shore’s handcuffs were police issue.”

  “Found at any decent surplus store,” the sheriff said.

  “It’s strong circumstantial evidence, especially in connection with Johnny’s observations.”

  “We’re done discussing that boy’s observations,” the Chief said.

  “Is there anything that links Tiffany Shore’s cuffs to either department?” The sheriff’s features barely moved. “Serial numbers? Anything?”

  “No.”

  “Anything at the scene? In Jarvis’s past? On his property?”

  “No. But at the very least, the kid has identified a dangerous predator who has so far avoided detection. The files are a logical place to start. If he’s right, then we take a bad guy off the street. If he’s wrong, no harm done.”

  “No harm done? For God’s sake, Hunt.” The Chief splayed his meaty hands on the desk. “Giving you access to those files would piss off every employee I have and probably violate more employment laws than I care to count. Not to mention the image problem we’d have if word gets out.”

  “And it would,” the sheriff said.

  “The kid has already made me look like an ass on national television, and you—my lead detective, my right arm, or so I’ve been told—you have managed to drag this department into a lawsuit with one of the city’s most respected businessmen.”

  “That lawsuit is crap and you know it.”

  The Chief ticked off points on his fingers. “Police brutality. Harassment. Intentional infliction of emotional distress. False arrest. Is there anything else? I’m running out of fingers.”

  “There may be a pedophile with a badge running loose in this county. That’s the issue, and it should concern both of you. Ignoring that possibility puts children at further risk. You”—Hunt stressed the word, repeated it—“you would be putting children at further risk.”

  The Chief came out of his seat. “If you repeat anything like that outside of this office, I will have your ass and I will burn it.”

  “Ignoring this won’t make it go away.”

  “That’s enough.”

  “If another child goes missing because of self-serving public relations concerns—”

  “Why are we listening to this son of a bitch?” the sheriff demanded. “If we lose another kid, it’ll be because of his incompetence. That’s the bottom line here and everybody knows it. Just look at him, for Christ’s sake.”

  Hunt bristled and the Chief tried to settle everyone down. “Jarvis is dead. Tiffany is safe. That’s what matters.”

  The sheriff barked a laugh. “Thanks to a twelve-year-old girl and a thirteen-year-old punk.”

  “I’ll handle my own people,” the Chief said, and stared the sheriff down. “Is that clear?”

  The sheriff returned to his post on the wall and nailed Hunt with a finger. “Well, you tell supercop to keep his eye on the ball. ’Cause I think he’s losing it. I think he’s trying to make himself look better by dragging other cops through the mud. My people. Your people. Us, for all I can tell.”

  The Chief held up a hand and spoke to Hunt, a red flush climbing his neck as he did. “Are we clear on this issue of cop pedophiles? I don’t want to hear one damn word about this.”

  “I think your stance is painfully clear.”

  “Good. Because you should be looking into the circumstances of David Wilson’s death, Levi Freemantle, Burton Jarvis’s known associates. Not figments. Not maybes. Known, as in factual. If someone else is involved with Jarvis, that’s the way to find him. I want every loose end nailed down. We will reconsider your request to examine personnel files if and when Johnny Merrimon decides to talk about what he saw.”

  “If he saw it,” the sheriff said.

  “If he saw it,” the Chief agreed. “What he saw. How it happened. All of the usual things we, as cops, like to hear before going off half-cocked. Is that clear, Detective?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then get the hell out.”

  Hunt did not move. “There’s more, I think.”

  “You think?” The sheriff’s scorn was pronounced.

  “The Freemantle case.”

  “Have you found him?” the Chief asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Then what?”

  “We have ID on the bodies: Freemantle’s girlfriend and a guy she was probably sleeping with. We’re pretty sure Freemantle did it. No forced entry. Looks extemporaneous. Crime of passion, maybe. We think he walked in on them.”

  “Extemporaneous,” the sheriff said. “That’s a big word.”

  “Freemantle walked off a work detail that morning. Probably went straight home and caught them in the act. His probation officer says the girlfriend was pretty much a whore.”

  “Fine. A good, clean case. I like it.”

  Hunt pushed out a breath. “They have a daughter.”

  “And?” The Chief’s entire body swelled.

  “She’s missing.”

  “No.” The Chief stood. “No, she’s not.”

  “What?”

  The Chief kept his voice calm and level, but a fierceness underlay it. “No one has filed a missing persons report. No one has called us for help.”

  “That doesn’t mean i
t’s not true.”

  “She could be with relatives, a grandmother, an aunt. Levi Freemantle probably has the kid. He’s the father, isn’t he? He hasn’t lost custody rights yet.”

  Hunt stood, angry. “You’re just going to ignore this?”

  “Ignore what?” The Chief turned his palms flat. “There is nothing to ignore. There’s no case here.”

  “I get it,” Hunt said.

  “You do?” The fierceness moved to implicit threat.

  “No one wants another missing kid, so you bury it. You stick your head in the sand and pretend there’s no problem.”

  “If you utter one word about another missing child …”

  “I’ve had enough of your threats.”

  The Chief straightened. “Don’t you have enough on your plate?”

  “I want you to think hard about this,” Hunt said.

  “And if I don’t?”

  Hunt looked at the sheriff, the Chief. “I think that would be bad for all of us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Johnny went home to Uncle Steve’s two-bedroom apartment. It was a dump, even from the outside. Steve opened the door and looked embarrassed. “This okay?” he asked.

  Johnny smelled beer and dirty clothes. “Sure.”

  Steve showed Johnny his room and closed the door when Johnny asked him to. The room held a single bed with a table and lamp. A closet. A dresser. Nothing else. Johnny dropped his bag and opened it. He put the photograph of his parents on the table, then opened his shirt and checked the bandages. Red spots had soaked through in a diagonal line eight inches long. It was the worst of the cuts, but the blood was dry and Johnny guessed it would be okay. He buttoned up.

  At sunset, Steve called out for pizza and they ate in front of a game show that he described as educational in nature. Afterward, Steve put his hands on his knees, looked awkward. “I have a lady friend …” His fingers shifted on the weave of his fine polyblend pants.

  “I’ll stay in my room. Or you can go out if you want. It won’t bother me.”