The headline proclaimed in black type face: BODY OF HONOR STUDENT FOUND. A grainy colorful photo depicting a rickety wooden fence surrounding a wide grassy meadow backed by a tall screen of thick oaks and pines was located on the lower right-hand corner.
According to the report, a local fisherman was leaving Lake Michelle when he saw something lying against the bottom of the fence at approximately ten-forty-five. He’d parked his pickup and checked her pulse; when he found none he hopped back into his truck and called the police at a bait shop half a mile away. An hour later, the police and the media had flooded the scene like paparazzi.
He passed up a series of articles, one about an event that a group of college students were holding to benefit the cancer wing at a local hospital, a second article concerning a former presidential candidate who was coming to Portsmouth to speak to the students at a local middle school about global warming proceeded to Page Three. In a second photo, Harry Weaver held his sister tightly against him with one arm while using the other to block the camera flash from hitting her in the face, burying her tear-streaked face into the front of his shirt. The mask of concern and anger etched across his face said it was more out of respect to her than out of disrespect for them.
In the background of the photo, a black plastic body bag lying across a gurney was being loaded into the back of the Coroner’s vehicle. More photos were provided, showing small groups of police officers in crisp black uniforms rooting around the scene in search of evidence.
The pictures sent vivid images parading through his mind.
Sadness tore through his chest, driving a jagged spike into his heart. His cheeks flushed as he blinked back the river of hot tears welling in his eyes and gazed away from the laptop as if the pictures were too contagious. He felt himself slowly crawl down those dark avenues again, back into that dark corner of his subconscious where pain and misery are neighbors waiting to slap his pride on the tabletop between them and gnaw at the very fiber of his soul until there were nothing left but a pile of bones so they could lick the gristle off their fingers and laugh like the sick gluttonous bastards they were.
It was a sight he’d known all too well. The tears, the questions, the deep realization knowing that your loved one was separated from this world by the cruel twist of fate.
He remembered every second of that terrible night when he sat on the curb, sobbing uncontrollably into his blood-soaked hands while the crowd peered over crime scene tape and other shoulders to gawk at him as if he were a zoo exhibit (come one, come all, see The Sobbing Man in all his broken-hearted despair). The only difference between him and Lacey Graham were that she and Harry were spared a photo that showed the pain etched across their faces. On the night of Terri’s death, he resembled a dark cardboard cutout people perch on their front porches to scare off intruders.
Nothing can repair the damage that follows the death of a loved one. Not even a brand-new I-Phone.
He wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his left hand and continued reading the article. It mentioned that Mary had recently earned a scholarship to Stanford University to pursue her Bachelor’s degree in teaching. It also stated that her boyfriend, and starting quarterback for the high school football team, could not be reached for comment.
Kevin scrolled up to the top of the site, clicked on the tab marked LINKS and waited. When the next page opened, he scanned an entire list of web pages posted in bright yellow font on a gray marble background, took another sip and double-clicked on the high school’s official website.
The screen flickered over to an animatronic photo of a giant wolf’s head with piercing yellow eyes; the side flaps of its aging gray snout flared in anger along with its nostrils, exposing two rows of jagged white teeth. After he clicked on the wolf’s head, he was taken to a large photo of a stout bald man in a white shirt and red tie standing with his arms laced proudly across his chest next to a painted mural of the same angry wolf’s head plastered across a cream-colored brick wall. The words SHALLOW ROCK HIGH SCHOOL were spread above the photo in a massive golden arch that looked as if it’d been done on a version of Print Shop that didn’t exist anymore; the motto “turning little cubs into fierce wolves since nineteen forty-five” was strewn across the bottom of the photo in a bright red font.
He moved the arrow over to the tab marked ATHLETICS and clicked the left mouse button. There, he found a team photo of the coaching staff sitting below a long list of this year’s top athletes; he slid the arrow across their faces and saw their names pop up inside of a tiny black box. He scrolled down the screen and saw the caption PLAYERS NOT FEATURED IN PHOTOGRAPH located on the bottom right-hand corner.
The names were Dylan Polk, James McCord and Greg Roberts. He tapped his finger repeatedly against the tip of his chin and tried to remember the last time he’d seen those names. The first names didn’t register but the last names rang a bell.
He perched his elbows on the edge of the table and reached over for his mug when a sudden realization hit him again. He leapt out of his chair again and back around to the headstone rubbings still spread out across the tabletop. He reached across the table and snatched the pinky-thin piece of gray chalk from the table behind the laptop when something burst across his dining room window.
10
HIS body prickling with shock, Kevin clutched the back of the chair with both hands ready to gaze into the face of his dead counterpart, and felt his skin bristling with fear. He peered up from the table, his thumb and forefinger still grasping the sliver of chalk and felt the hairs along the nape of his neck grow stiff. Sweat broke out along his forehead in tiny lucid rivulets, pasting the back of his tee-shirt to his spine.
A blue jay was perched on the window, its head jostling this way and that. It tiptoed along the window, its beady black eyes glinting in the sunlight and burst away from the window in a bluish-white blur. He took a few deep breaths and waited for the momentary sense of shock to dissipate from his nerves before getting back to work.
He bent over the table, rubbed the piece of chalk across the page marked MCCORD and blew the excess dust away. When the name JAMES appeared, he backed away from the table and felt a phantom coldness tracing the contours of his spine. The chalk fell from his hand, struck the edge of the table, landed on the seat of the chair in front of him (where Terri had once sat) and swayed back and forth.
He clamped his left hand across his mouth and gazed down at the page, his scalp tingling with shock. He backed up against the doorway beside the hallway and felt his legs weaken. He slid down the wall, sat on the floor, drew his knees toward his chest and buried his face in his hands.
Why me?, he thought, Why did it have to be me? His brain was buzzing with so much activity he failed to answer his own questions. He hadn’t the foggiest idea how to solve a murder than he knew how to tie a sheep shank or repair a car.
He rose up from the floor and, his body pumping with energy, retrieved the piece of chalk from the seat of the chair. He rubbed it across the page marked ROBERTS, blew off the excess, took a sip from his coffee mug and glanced down; the name GREG bloomed across the page. He moved onto the page marked POLK, rubbed the piece of chalk across it too and blew off the excess dust only–
This is impossible, he thought, eyeing the blank spot on the left side of the page. He tossed the spent sliver of chalk onto the tray, selected a new fresh stick of black chalk and repeated the process. Adrenaline racing through his veins at breakneck speed, he moved the chalk back and forth across the page as fast as he could until his hand glided across his face in quick blurry movements.
He stopped, blew the dust away and cursed under his breath. He tried it again, his fingertips pressing tightly against the sides of the chalk stick until his knuckles bled white.
The first names of each of the two absent-minded athletes were as visible as the laptop on the table except for this one. His brows creased with confusion, he set the mug down again, rubbed the chalk across the page again and blew off the exce
ss. He closed his eyes, drew a long breath deep into his lungs and slowly rubbed the pads of his fingertips against his temples.
“What the fuck am I doing wrong?” He asked himself. “What the fuck am I even doing?”
He tossed the splinter of chalk between the three wide-open pages and balanced his hands on his hips. He carried his half-empty coffee mug off the table into the kitchen, pour it out into the sink and left it sitting on the countertop. He tossed the sliver of chalk into the trashcan and came back into the dining room to glance at the rubbings again.
Why weren’t they featured in the photo if they were a part of the team? What could’ve been more important than that?
He could just imagine how angry the coach must’ve been when they arrived a few minutes after the picture had already been taken; they might’ve even gotten there while the picture had been taken and decided not to bother with it. He was sure their parents would’ve had a lot to say as well.
He walked back to the table and sat back down when something stirred inside of his right pocket. He flinched, jerking his right leg in a spasmodic twitch and reached his hand inside. He gazed down at the number flashing across the screen, thumbed the green ACCEPT button and caught it on the fourth ring.
“Hello.”
“I’m trying to reach Kevin Perkins.”
“This is he. Who may I ask is calling?”
He expected to hear a cheap sales pitch from someone promising him a grand vacation or a recording reminding him that his health insurance wasn’t as good. Instead, all he could hear was the sound of heavy breathing.
“This is Lacey Graham.”
When he realized who it was, Kevin snatched a quick breath and sighed. He had enough surprises for one day.
“How are you doing today, Misses Graham?”
“Please call me Lacey.”
He shrugged. “Okay, Lacey. How did you get my phone number?”
“Uhhh.” She said, her voice trailing off. “Officer White gave it to me. Yeah, Officer White that’s who it was.”
“Okay.”
He wasn’t entirely sure that he felt comfortable with Officer White giving out that sort of information and made a mental note to confront him about it. He wasn’t even sure about the odd timbre in her voice that made it sound rehearsed and a little robotic.
“Harry and I still feel bad about what happened.” She said, her voice pinched. “We’d like to invite you over for dinner.”
“That’s okay, Mrs. Graham. There’s no need to–”
“I insist. It’s the least we can do.”
“Okay. What time would you like me to be there?”
“Can you come over right away?” She asked in a soft pleading tone. “I know you’re probably busy but—”
“It’s okay. Just give me your address.”
He retrieved a pen and pad from the kitchen and scribbled down The Grahams’ address. He thanked her, killed the call and stuffed the cell phone back into his right pocket. He stuffed the note with The Grahams’ address into his left pocket, shut the laptop down, drew the curtains shut and left the pages scattered across the tabletop.
He could use a home-cooked meal for once. He wasn’t getting any younger by eating all of the fast food he’d consumed the past forty-eight hours.
He snatched his keys off the hook beside the front door and locked the front door on his way out. The mid-afternoon breeze stirred the treetops and grazed his skin with feathery-cold fingers; the sun beamed like a lighthouse beacon. He climbed into his Toyota, his sweaty calloused hands gripping the steering wheel, and backed out of the drive.
Mrs. Langston was standing next to a tall svelte looking woman in a white blouse and brown slacks with sharp-edged creases. The woman’s black hair was molded into a thick dark bee-hive that rose three inches off the top of her head and she wore too much red lipstick; the frames of her horn-rimmed glasses glinted in the sunlight when they spotted him. Kevin watched Mrs. Langston whisper something to her friend and then glance suspiciously at the back of his car.
He hadn’t thought about how he was going to tell Lacey Graham about his newfound evidence because the last thing he wanted was to make her feel uncomfortable. He took the side streets to avoid the infuriating rush of afternoon traffic and followed a hulking red Hummer with a ribbed tailgate almost six blocks before it turned right onto a side street.
He cruised through large sections of modest-looking stucco and clapboard homes that sat on knee-high neatly-trimmed lawns adorned with comical yard ornaments and black-iron numbers fixed to the front doors. Tree shadows rippled across the bright-yellow curbs, pooled along the streets and sidewalks; the wind sighed through the treetops, spilling its most erotic secrets to anyone willing to listen.
He followed the main road out of town and drove past a small white brick building with a lopsided tiled roof and boarded up windows sitting on a patch of knee-high weeds, looking as dark and ominous as a child’s nightmare. A few miles later, he past a gas station/mini-mart with a large white banner strung above its front door announcing DEALS OF THE DAY in large black font.
Two miles later, he spotted a giant white sign squeezed into a U-shaped cup of burnt red brick sitting on the opposite end of the road. TRINITY ESTATES was scrawled across the front in bright blue cursive font below a small neatly-painted strip of tiny homes glowing under a large yellow light; there was a sappy inspirational quote scrawled along the bottom of the sign he couldn’t see too good. He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, waited for a blue SUV to pass him in the opposite lane and turned left onto a wide concrete drive.
The road rose upward, cleaving a wide trail through a wide grassy meadow backdropped by a tall screen of leafy oak trees. He stopped at the top of the hill, checked his directions again and drove through a wide expanse of elegant brick and clapboard houses sitting on picture-perfect lawns that probably cost more than he made in six months. A high concrete wall bordered the massive housing community like the wall of a maximum-security prison in an old John Carpenter movie.
The mingled sounds of dogs barking at imaginary things, childish laughter and chirping birds echoed against the clear blue sky. He enjoyed the sweet scent of barbecued food wafting up his nose and tried his best not to salivate too much.
He obeyed the fifteen-mile-an-hour speed limit posted on the signs along the curbs and followed the main road toward the far-right corner of the housing development. He parked behind a green Ford Taurus sitting along the curb in front of a one-story brown stucco house with a green shingled roof and a large wooden deck in the back. He killed the engine, tucked the note with the directions into his left pocket and checked the time on his radio.
He took a few deep breaths, climbed out of his car and followed a bluestone path lined with thick evergreen bushes toward the front porch. An old park bench sat under the roof on the right side of the porch soaked in a yin-yang of sunlight and shadow, flakes of rusted-green paint scattered below. The flowerbed running along the left side of the porch was nothing more than an open casket of cracked dirt and a tangle of wilted-brown weeds.
Sighing, he approached the front door, his sneakers making tiny whispers across the dusty concrete porch and pressed the tiny pearl-colored doorbell. He tapped his fingers against his thighs, keeping with the familiar tune playing inside of his head and waited. He scanned the rest of the cozy-looking houses sitting back from the curb and waited for Lacey Graham to wave him inside with a sincere smile on her face and a barbecue grill roaring in the back yard.
He heard the front door give a knuckle-crackling click and felt a wave of relief wash over him. In a breezy floral print dress, Lacey Graham peered at him through the half-open door; her short blonde hair, light beige skin and sea-blue eyes gave off an elegant glow. He waited for her to welcome him in but her hand froze around the cold brass doorknob, her right foot was planted across the threshold as if to block him from going any further.
“Hello, Misses Graham.” He smiled.
> “Do I know you?”
The hesitant tone in her voice puzzled him.
“You called me and told me to come over and—”
“Oh, I did.” She blinked twice. “I’m sorry. It hasn’t been a good day for me.”
“I’m kind of glad you called because I have something to—
He heard a shuffling noise from behind him and watched something like fear tug against the worry lines on across Lacey Graham’s face. His body froze under a mixture of fear and surprise, pinning his feet to the porch and raised the hairs on the backs of his arms; his heart thumped as his lung spasmed.
He saw movement in the corner of his left eye and caught a thin lanky shadow emerging from behind him, nearly eclipsing the patch of bright afternoon sunlight flooding the front porch. He caught his breath and spun around to confront the stranger when something hard struck him across the face. His head whirled back around before it could make a complete turn, wrenching his neck; arcs of white light snapped across his vision like a slave trader’s whip.
His left temple pressing against his skull, he tried to shake it off with no luck. Waves of pain flooded through his brain, burst across his upper body, coiled around his spine and sent him kneeling onto the porch. Hot lucid tears flooded his vision as his eyelids drooped shut, dropping him into a deep bottomless void whose obsidian black folds hugged him with wide open arms.
11
WHEN he regained consciousness, Kevin viewed the world through narrow, heavy-lidded eyes. He could barely make out the trio of shadows rising through the blanket of fog obscuring his vision and winced at the light surrounding them. He felt so dizzy his neck began to roll back and forth as if it were too weak to support his head.
Dark Avenues Page 28