Sweat now mixed with rain and fell into his eyes, stinging them. His back screamed in protest, yet still he drove on. He could barely see into the hole, but the faster he went the more progress he could actually see. He was clearing out more water than was going in, and if he could maintain this pace he might actually see what, if anything, was down there.
Go, Tommy. Keep going. You came all the way out here, so you have to see what’s down there. You can’t give up now, because giving up was what got you here in the first place. You gave up thirty years ago when you were too afraid to tell anyone what had happened. Too scared the Watcher would come back. Too worried no one would believe your story, that they would think instead the three of you boys had done the deed. Elizabeth had disappeared, after all, so wasn’t it reasonable to assume no one would believe you?
No, Tommy told himself.
You and Mark and Jason could have told the police. Told your parents. Told anyone. You could have led them back to the woods. To the body. And what then?
Tommy shouted at the collapsing ground as he kept digging, working with the frantic energy of a man scooping water out of his sinking lifeboat.
‘I don’t know!’
Of course you do, Tommy. Of course you know. If you had said something back then, then Rade could have been her first and only victim. She could have been locked away. No one else would have died. You would have been a hero, but instead you said nothing. You did exactly as she told you.
‘Fuck you,’ Tommy grunted. ‘Fuck you.’
Yes, Tommy. You thought you were brave for not letting her fuck you, didn’t you? Yeah, you sure stood up to her. You thought that was being brave enough, but it wasn’t. Not by a long shot, Tommy. Not by a country mile. You just fed her will, and look where it’s led you. You’re losing your mind, Tommy, don’t you know that? Look at you. You haven’t slept a full night in days. You’re barely eating. Writing like a maniac, pushing your brain into some realm it’s not used to. Hallucinating. And now. Covered in mud, digging for something you know is no longer there. You do know that, right? You do know she’s already moved the body, right? Why else would she put that rock there? She wants you to know she was here. She wants you to see that, no matter what you do, she’s smarter than you. You have to be different this time, Tommy. You have to think like her. It’s the only way, Tommy. The only way you can win.
The pain overwhelmed him and Tommy let the shovel fall to the ground, then he raised his face to the blackened sky and wanted to scream, scream to release it all. But he couldn’t. He didn’t want to risk the noise, and the incompleteness of the act made him feel plastic. So he just stared at the sky and hoped for a lightning bolt. The rain went on, but Tommy could no longer.
He looked down at the hole in the ground, which was quickly being overtaken by water now that his digging had stopped.
There was something there. Something floating to the surface.
Tommy bent down and stared at it.
What was that?
It dipped below the surface. Tommy wanted to reach in, but he recoiled at the idea of what he might grab if he stuck his hand into the brackish water.
Or what might grab him.
Then it popped up again. This time it pointed at him.
Tommy was staring at a small hand.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Tommy wiped the raindrops from his face, which were immediately replaced with new ones. The floor of the woods seemed to darken by the minute, but nothing was blacker than the water-filled grave at his feet. Which made the sight of the little white hand so goddamn unnerving.
He bent forward and stared at the tips of the fingers, three of which poked just above the surface of the water, floating like a fishing bobber. The fingertips were an unnatural white, and no longer seemed to have any nails on them. If they were thinner, Tommy would have guessed them mere bones, but they were thicker and had more shape than that. He knew that a body could last for years in the ground before decaying to bone, but thirty years? No way. Not in these woods.
Something wasn’t right.
Tommy took a deep breath and plunged the shovel one more time into the hole, driving it as deep as he could, well beneath where the little arm floated near the surface. This time, as he heaved up, he brought with the mud and the muck something else.
It was the rest of the body the arm was attached to. But it was not Rade’s body. In fact, it really wasn’t a body at all.
It was a doll. A Pinocchio doll. A large one, nearly two feet long, and dressed in his telltale red and yellow costume, with a mud-stained yellow peaked cap adorning his head. Half of the yellow hat seemed to be missing, but Tommy then noticed it wasn’t just the hat. The top of Pinocchio’s head was caved in, as if it had been smashed with a rock.
Tommy looked down at the wooden doll as it dangled over the side of the shovel’s blade. Its limbs had many joints, its legs and arms articulated like those of a skeleton. Pinocchio stared up at the trees, his little black eyes dead to the world, his stained wooden face repelling every raindrop landing on it.
Then Tommy noticed the nose. This Pinocchio doll did not have the standard-size nose, the one Pinocchio earned whenever he was truthful. This doll had the other nose. The long, pointed one, the one that told the world he was a liar. This nose, streaked with blackness, pointed directly at Tommy.
Of course, he thought. It wasn’t enough to move the body, she had to replace it with something else. Something that sent a message to me. She’s telling me I’m Pinocchio, and I’m the one lying to the world.
Tommy lowered the doll to the ground, not letting it fall but instead gently letting it slide off the shovel blade and on to the mud, face up. She has the real body, he thought.
Tommy then crouched over the hole and reached into the dark water with both hands, feeling. He moved slowly, not wanting to stab himself if the knife was still there, but he knew it wouldn’t be. Tommy felt nothing but the cold of the water and the slime of the wet earth. He pulled his hands back, knowing the doll was the only thing left in the decades-old grave. She has the evidence of the crime, he thought, including the knife with all our blood on it.
A voice boomed from behind him. A man’s voice.
‘What are you doing?’
Tommy spun around and saw the police officer approaching through the sheets of rain.
Tommy dropped the shovel to the ground.
TWENTY-NINE
The cop seemed to float toward him, boots absorbed by the water and the muck, his black utility slicker puffing out from him, rendering him almost formless. But there was no question the man was a cop. The hat he wore outright declared it.
‘I asked what you’re doing.’
Tommy was grateful not to be holding human remains at the moment.
‘Research,’ he said.
The cop finally drew close. He was a hulking, overweight man who at one time had probably been an impressive figure. Tommy guessed him to be in his mid-sixties.
‘Research? What the hell kind of research?’
Tommy drew up straight. Don’t act guilty.
‘I’m sorry, officer, am I doing anything wrong?’
The cop squinted and his eyes seemed to disappear into the fleshy mass that was his face.
‘Well, sir, I figure I’ll tell you if you’re doing anything wrong after you tell me what exactly it is you’re doing.’ He nodded at Tommy’s shovel. ‘Strikes me as odd to be out here in the middle of a rainstorm, digging in the woods.’ His gaze went to the doll on the ground. ‘Is that Pinocchio?’
‘It is.’
The cop kept looking at him, waiting for an explanation.
‘I’m a writer,’ Tommy said. ‘I’m doing some research for my next book, which entails … digging.’
‘That so?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You writing a book about mud and holes and Pinocchio dolls? Sounds like a real page turner.’
The rain had eased from a downpour to a cold annoyance.
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‘Look, officer, I’m sorry if I’m not supposed to be digging on public land. I just figured that—’
‘I need to see your ID.’
It was the second time in a week a cop had asked for his ID.
Tommy fished out the wallet from his back pocket and handed him his license. The cop studied it as raindrops spilled down its laminated surface.
‘No shit? Tommy Devereaux?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Fuck. It was exactly what Tommy wanted to avoid, having his steps retraced, especially first-hand by the police. He was naive to think this plan would ever even work.
The cop handed him back his license. ‘You’re a bit of a celebrity around here. I remember you when you were a kid. Alan Stykes?’
The name flashed in Tommy’s mind, followed by an image. The image of a younger and stronger face, peering at him.
Seen anyone strange around here lately?
Alan Stykes was the cop who had questioned Tommy the day after Rade’s disappearance. Tommy had stared at his shoes and covered the fresh wound in his forearm with his hand as Officer Stykes asked him the last time he had seen Rade.
Tommy stuck out his hand as his stomach muscles tightened into a knot. ‘Sure, I remember you.’
Stykes took the hand. His grip was firm despite the rain.
‘I talked to you about the Baristow boy. Back in eighty-one. Remember that?’
Tommy felt his eyes being drawn toward the ground but he forced himself to make eye contact as he sucked in a deep breath. ‘Sure I do.’ He paused. ‘Ever solve that?’
‘No, sir. That and a few others over the years.’
‘Others?’
‘Three more. Then the disappearances stopped. All of ’em kids. Never found a one of them.’
The rain slashed at Tommy. Three kids? he thought. How had he never heard about this? Tommy had researched the killing of Rade as best he could in the months and years that followed, but it remained an unsolved disappearance and that garnered little attention from the media. Once Tommy realized nothing new would be written about the Baristow disappearance, he had simply stopped researching it. Three other kids had disappeared in Lind Falls? Hadn’t Elizabeth left town?
‘So you’ve come back, have you?’
Tommy nodded. ‘For a couple of days.’
‘You here alone?’
Tommy wanted to lie, but saw no point to it.
‘I am.’
‘Well, Tommy, big shot writer or not, gotta say you look pretty damn stupid out here covered in mud and holding a doll. What say you go get cleaned up now?’
Tommy nodded. He would have agreed to anything as long as he could just leave those woods without handcuffs on him.
‘Then you’re coming over to my house for dinner tonight,’ Stykes said.
The words stopped Tommy. ‘Oh, well, Alan … I really need to work on my—’
‘I insist. Otherwise I’m writing you up for vandalism.’
‘Seriously?’
Stykes burst out laughing, which soon turned into the hacking cough of a smoker who had finally reached the point of no return. ‘Hell, son, I got you good. But you are coming over for dinner. You’re a goddamn celebrity.’
Tommy acquiesced, mostly because he couldn’t think of any easy way out of it. Besides, he wasn’t caught with a body, so he figured one lousy dinner wasn’t too steep a price to pay for fate cutting him a break.
‘C’mon back to the squad car and I’ll give you my address.’
Tommy grabbed the shovel and the doll and put them in the duffel bag. Then he trudged behind Stykes, who seemed not only comfortable, but even happy to be sloughing through the mud.
As they eventually emerged from the woods and back into the comfort of suburbia, a thought occurred to Tommy.
‘How did you even know I was out there?’
Stykes grumbled a deep chuckle, as if the answer was self-evident.
‘Well, that’s just the thing, Tommy. There isn’t anything in Lind Falls I don’t know about.’
THIRTY
Night came early to Lind Falls, swept in on the back of thunderheads, which hovered and menaced like massive alien ships. Tommy’s exhaustion was nearly complete and probably needed only a drink or two to land the final punch.
He pulled up to Stykes’s house just after seven, a half-hour later than he was expected. Fresh clothes had replaced the mud-caked ones from earlier, and a long hot shower had restored Tommy to something resembling his normal self. He had called home, feeling anxious and guilty about talking to his family while pretending to be in South Carolina. Again, he debated telling Becky everything, wondering how bad things would have to get before he finally admitted he could no longer do this without help; but he had to push through the guilt. This would end, he kept telling himself. He could deal with this. He would shelter his children from a darkness they didn’t deserve to know about, and he would make things right with Becky. Things would be normal again. Just a little longer.
Tommy nestled his rental car against the curb in front of Stykes’s house, which was only four blocks away from where Tommy himself had lived. Tommy knew this block well; he had passed by it on a daily basis walking to school.
A dying bulb spat bursts of light on to Stykes’s porch, from which old paint peeled skyward. The lawn, brown for the dormant season, looked as if someone once tried to care for it but then found something better to do. Like most houses in this section of Lind Falls, Stykes’s was small and simple. It was likely built in the 1950s, when the lumber industry first began attracting people to the area. In the ensuing decades, the owners of these houses either renovated and upgraded their simple homes or just seemed to let them run their course. Stykes’s situation was the latter.
Alan Stykes opened the door before Tommy could ring the bell, impressive considering both his hands were full. In his left hand was a Budweiser. In his right hand was a dog collar, which was attached to a snarling Rottweiler.
‘Saw your headlights,’ Stykes said, pushing open the screen door with his elbow. ‘If you’da rung the bell she’d have gone crazy, and we don’t need all that barking.’
The dog had not yet barked, but dogs like that didn’t need to. The Rottweiler looked at Tommy as if he could be some kind of fun toy to play with before snapping his neck.
‘That’s a hell of a dog,’ Tommy said. He held a bottle of red wine in his right hand, which he now thought of more as a potential weapon to use.
‘Aw, she’s all right. Name’s Panzer. She just needs to sniff ya a bit before you come in.’
Tommy walked up the porch and hesitantly reached his hand out, wondering why people so implicitly trusted crazy dog owners when they said their dogs were harmless. For all Tommy knew, this would be the last time he saw the fingers on his left hand. And he needed those fingers to type, goddamnit.
Panzer sniffed and pushed against his hand, transferring a dollop of viscous drool in the process. But she didn’t remove his fingers, and Tommy even thought he saw a change in her expression, one that said Tommy wasn’t a threat. Like a nightclub bouncer, Panzer backed up a bit and let him in.
‘Welcome,’ Stykes said.
Tommy stepped into the house and immediately knew he didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want to have dinner with some old cop from the town, talking about some endless bullshit for God knew how long. Tommy’s life was too complicated for such things at the moment. The question was how to extract himself as early as possible without upsetting the man.
‘You live here alone, Alan?’
‘Yup. Carol died coming on twenty years now. Cancer. Which is why I invited you over. Don’t get much chance to cook for anyone these days.’ He glanced toward the kitchen and then back to Tommy. ‘Real special to have a guest.’
Tommy looked around and wondered if Carol would’ve allowed for a messy house when a dinner guest was coming over. He also wondered if Carol let Alan smoke in the house, for surely he did now, as stale cigarette smoke hung in the air,
attaching itself to any other scent and beating it into submission. ‘Well, I thank you again for inviting me, Alan. Just have to warn you, Alan, I’m not feeling one hundred percent.’ Tommy patted his belly. ‘Not sure what it is.’
Stykes beamed, as if Potential Vomiting and Diarrhea was a comedy duo. ‘Well, now, suppose that’s what you get for traipsing around in the mud and rain. Maybe picked up a bug.’
‘Maybe. Just hope I can stay for dinner.’
‘Oh, you have to stay for dinner, friend. I cooked up a stew that’ll set you right.’
Tommy forced a smile. ‘Sounds great.’ Stew sounded awful.
‘And I want to be able to say I cooked dinner for a famous author, so I gotta admit there’s a bit of a selfish side about me wanting you over here tonight.’
Tommy walked further into the house and stuck his hands into his pockets, as if by doing so he wasn’t fully committing himself to actually being here. The hardwood floor creaked as he walked and there were several deep grooves next to the door, evidence of Panzer’s enthusiasm to rip apart someone ringing the doorbell. Or attempts to escape.
‘Come in, come in,’ Stykes said. ‘Can I get you a beer?’
‘Sure, Alan. Beer sounds great.’ Tommy set the bottle of wine he brought on a small table holding unopened mail and a pack of cigarettes.
Stykes disappeared into the kitchen and Tommy looked around the room, noting the complete lack of anything on the walls. No art, no photos, nothing. In fact, the only photos he saw anywhere were contained in a metal collage frame that was sitting on top of a weathered and ring-stained end table next to the couch. Tommy leaned over and looked at the frame, counting five photos within it.
Stuffed animals.
They were old Polaroids – the shape and white border of the prints unmistakable. Each photo showed a collection of stuffed animals, all arranged neatly and facing the camera, as if waiting for something exciting to happen. A chill ran through Tommy, the kind of chill a clown gives when he smiles just a little too much.
The Boy in the Woods Page 15