Gabriel: A thriller (Standalone within the Divinus Pueri series)

by Tracie Podger

  “How has she been?” Mom asked.

  “Okay, sort of, this week. She only had a couple of nightmares. I think I did wrong staying in the house. I’m wondering if it’s time to pack up and move.”

  “Where will you go? Are you thinking of leaving town?” I detected a slight panic in her voice.

  “No, she’s settled here. I just don’t know if I want to stay in that house anymore. Maybe we should come here for a couple of weeks over school break, see how we feel after.”

  “You are always welcome, Gabe. I can have another room spruced up in no time.”

  I placed an arm around my mother’s shoulder and we walked back into the house.

  I spent the weekend fixing fences and barns, generally helping around the ranch. I loved being back home. I loved being outdoors, getting tanned and working out. I’d always been fit but not into gyms, I preferred to keep toned by doing something more useful than a run on a treadmill.

  Dad and I decided on a break, it was midday and the sun beat down on us. My body was covered in a sheen of sweat. We’d been moving hay bales, bringing them into the barn.

  “Daddy, what is that?” Taylor said.

  We sat on a picnic blanket having lunch.

  “A heart, baby girl.”

  In the center of my chest I had a tattoo of a heart, an anatomically correct heart. I’d had it done when I’d first met Sierra. I wanted her to see that my heart beat only for her.

  “Why is it there?”

  “So you can see it, and you know I love you with all my heart,” I said.

  She’d seen my tattoo many times, and she always asked the same question because she wanted to hear that stock answer. She laughed as she placed her hand over it.

  “I can feel it beating, Daddy,” she said.

  “It’s telling you how much I love you,” I said, as I scooped her up into my lap.

  She placed an ear to the tattoo and listened.

  “I want one when I grow up,” she said.

  “I think that’s something you might want to reconsider,” Dad said as he chuckled at the thought.

  “You can do whatever you want, when you grow up,” I said.

  “When will I grow up?”

  “Not for many years yet. Now, finish your lunch, we have work to do.”

  She scuttled off my lap and set about to sweep up the barn. All she managed to do was to brush dust and hay over our lunch.

  Taylor didn’t experience any nightmares when she was at my parents’, another reason I felt so selfish in keeping her at home. I had settled her in bed, read a story, and stroked her hair until her eyes closed and her breathing deepened. When I was sure she had dropped off to sleep, I crept from the room, being careful of the old floorboards creaking as I did.

  “She asleep?” Mom asked as I made my way out onto the porch.

  “Sure is, today has worn her out.”

  I took the cold bottle of beer my dad was holding out and sat on the swing seat next to him.

  “She said something strange the other day.”

  I told my parents about the brown-haired woman Taylor believed had called at the house, and about the fact that she thought Sierra had been upset.

  “And you’ve no idea who that was?” Mom asked.

  “No, she thought she saw the woman outside the school, too. I’ve asked around, no one seems to have noticed a stranger in town.”

  “Mmm, maybe she’s just remembering something from a long time ago,” Mom said.

  “Maybe. It just seemed odd, that’s all.”

  I took a sip of my beer and welcomed the cold fizz as it traveled down my throat.

  “If it’s okay with you, she’s on school break soon. I thought it might do her good to stay here a whole week instead of just a couple of days.”

  My parents often offered to have Taylor stay over. She was their only grandchild, and as it was, there wasn’t the possibility of any more.

  “We’d love that, wouldn’t we?” Mom said, looking over at my dad.

  “Sure would,” he replied.

  “I can get the realtor to come on over and look at the house, see what they think it’s worth. I don’t want to do that with Taylor around.”

  My daughter became very anxious when someone she didn’t really know came to the house. I’d never pushed her to tell me what she saw that day, that was for the therapist to slowly work from her. In the beginning, I’d itched to question her but she hadn’t spoken for weeks after the event. She was too traumatized. All we had were snippets of information that didn’t make sense.

  Taylor had told the therapist that a man dressed in black pants and a black shirt had come to the house, he’d made her mommy cry. That was as much information as we’d been able to get. She had been locked in the bathroom when I’d arrived home from work. I’d found her curled up in a ball, trying to wedge herself between the toilet and bath, with her hands over her ears. Her whole body had been shaking, and her mouth opened and closed, but she didn’t make a sound.

  I shuddered at the memory. We didn’t think she had witnessed the murder but she would have been aware of the screams. That’s one of the things that baffled me. Why did no one hear something? Why did no one see anything?

  “Gabe?”

  My mother’s voice brought me out of my thoughts.

  “Sorry, miles away there. What did you say?”

  “I said, was there any more news?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing. I saw Thomas recently. They have no leads, nothing to go on. I can’t believe not one person heard her, saw something. It was the fucking middle of the afternoon.”

  My parents were as frustrated as I was. “We could hire a private investigator,” Dad said.

  “I can’t afford that. And to be honest, I don’t want whoever did this to be handed over to the police.”

  “I can and they don’t have to be.”

  “Martin, we’ll not be having that kind of talk. Gabe, I can’t have you acting out some form of revenge. You have a daughter to care for, you need to remember that,” Mom said.

  I’d stayed out of jail in my early years by the skin of my teeth. I fought a lot, I had anger issues or perhaps it was just boredom. I got paid to fight in car lots and I earned well. I traveled around for a while, doing the underground circuit, much to my parents’ disgust. It was at a fight that I’d met Sierra. I closed my eyes and rested my head back on the swing seat as I thought of her.

  A mutual friend had brought her to a fight. She was totally out of place and huddled in a corner, looking scared. When the police had arrived to break it up, she didn’t run. She had no idea of what to do. I remembered grabbing her arm and dragging her toward my car. She hadn’t said a word as we drove away until eventually she’d started to cry. I’d taken her to a diner, where she’d questioned me, and my choices. Her fiery blue eyes challenged me and I fell in love.

  “I think I might head on up,” I said as I sighed.

  “Okay, Son. We’ll see you in the morning,” Dad said, as I rose from the swing seat.

  I kissed my mom on top of her head as I passed and crept up to the room my daughter was sleeping in. I stripped off my jeans and t-shirt and stretched out on the second single bed beside hers. I watched her. She was the spitting image of her mother. They had the same blonde hair, the same deep blue eyes that would darken with anger. Both had just the one dimple on the left cheek when they smiled. Some days it was painful to look at my daughter and see her mother. Other days it was the most comforting thing in the world.

  It was Sierra’s face I had on my mind as I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  We had been back home no more than a few days when Taylor’s nightmares started once again. They began with her whimpering and I’d sit beside her, trying to soothe her. I was reluctant to wake her initially, in case she settled quickly. They would then escalate to full-scale screams and incoherent words. At that point, I’d pick her up from the bed, wake her, and try to talk her down. Usually it took
an hour or so before her sobbing would subside, and I was able to put her to bed again.

  I rarely got enough sleep. I’d sit in the leather armchair in the corner of her room and doze until sunlight. She never remembered her nightmares; there were times when she hadn’t remembered waking at all. But every cry from her little body would be like a thousand needles piercing my soul. It bled for her. It made my resolve to avenge her mother stronger with every tear she shed.

  “Mom, I’m going to take Taylor out of school, there’s only a few days until summer break. Can I bring her over later?”

  I had to do something and being at my parents’ was the only place where Taylor seemed to gain any comfort. It had become noticeable at school, she was tired and the previous day had fallen asleep in class.

  “Of course, you bring her as soon as you can. I’ll get onto sorting those rooms out.”

  “No need for me at the moment. I have to stay here for a couple of days.”

  It had been during the early hours of the morning that I thought back on the supposed burglary. They, or he, were after something that was in my house. I wanted to know what it was. I would tear the place apart, brick by brick, if I had to.

  Taylor was a little distressed at not going to school; she thought she might be in trouble if we skipped.

  “Pack your teddy, baby girl,” I said as I folded clothes into a suitcase.

  “Are we coming back home though?”

  “Of course we will I thought you might like to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa.”

  Taylor took her time to collect her bears, her books, and some toys. She stuffed them in her backpack. We then made the half hour drive out of town.

  I left her with my parents, and a promise to call after dinner, before heading to the garage. Jake had fixed Mrs. Forrester’s car and was handing over the keys and a large invoice. I always felt guilty charging the old woman, but many hours and expensive parts were put into keeping her car on the road.

  “Jake, we’re closing early today and tomorrow. I’ve got things I need to do, so I’ll see you back here Monday, okay?”

  “Sure, you okay, Boss?”

  “I dropped Taylor off at the folks’, she’s not sleeping, and neither am I. I just can’t keep her at home right now.”

  “If there’s anything you need me to help out with, you just call,” he said.

  I locked up the garage, left a sign on the door, and headed home. I’d gone through the house after the burglary, but maybe not as thoroughly as I should have. Of course, the police had done a search, again, not as thoroughly as they should have, in my opinion. Nothing had been taken and nothing had been found.

  I started in the bedroom, a room I hadn’t slept in since that fateful day. I stood at the end of the bed and stared. No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop her image from flooding my mind. She was spread-eagle on the patchwork comforter she had proudly made. She was clothed, but her skirt was ruffled up around her waist. She had a large bruise to her temple, a punch probably. Her hands were grazed, she’d fought and fought hard by the broken nails and skin underneath: skin that didn’t seem to belong to any body on a database.

  But it was the stab wounds my internal vision centered on. Five, one fatal, marked her body. The police thought it was coincidence that three went down her body starting at the sternum, her stomach, and then her navel and two either side of the middle one. I’d seen the pictures, I’d insisted on it. It looked to me to be the sign of the cross. I’d voiced that, but it had been brushed aside.

  “Talk to me, baby,” I whispered.

  I tried to conjure up her voice in my head. She had a New York accent, although diluted after many years of being away. She wasn’t talking that day. I upended the bed, shifted the mattress from the base, and checked underneath. I pulled the frame away from the wall and checked for anything hidden behind. I dragged the rug from the floor, the wardrobe away from the wall, and the sideboard from under the window, until they were piled in the center of the room. I checked every crack and crevice for something that would give me a clue.

  I went through every item of her clothing, checking pockets, shoes, and handbags. I found receipts, wrappers, gum, tampons, and the usual debris women carried around with them, but nothing that I thought was significant.

  After two hours, I slid down the wall and cradled my head in my hands. I wept.

  The room looked like a tornado had blown through it. Bedclothes were in a tangled heap, pillows were scattered around the room, and I was no closer to finding out why. I started the arduous task of righting the room. All the time, I kept one thing running through my mind—If I wanted to hide something, where would I hide it?

  As I put each piece of furniture back in place, I checked the floorboards it would cover for scratch marks or loose planks. At one point, I was on my hands and knees testing each individual one to see if there was a hiding place underneath. I found nothing.

  When the room was back to normal, or as normal as it was ever going to be, I quietly shut the door behind me and stood on the landing. I decided on the smallest room, the bathroom, next. I opened every pot and jar, emptying contents into the sink or swiping my finger around inside. I checked the toilet tank. I took off the bath panel and the skirting around the shower. I pulled out every towel from the cupboard and shook them out. Still nothing.

  I was beginning to get frustrated. I wouldn’t entertain the idea that whoever had done this had already found what they were looking for. I couldn’t. If I did, then I’d have to give up. Instead, I focused on the rooms they had overlooked.

  The only other room upstairs was Taylor’s. It was a small room, at the back of the house, with a window that overlooked the yard. I stood in the middle but a pang of guilt hit my stomach. I felt like I was about to violate her space. I flicked on the light switch as the sun had started to lower, leaving a gloom over the room.

  I was more careful, methodical. I took out each drawer of her dresser and gently lifted clothes, leaving them neatly folded in a pile beside me. I checked the drawer, inside and out. I repeated the process until I could rule out the unit. I slid it from the wall and checked behind. That small room took twice as long because I was more careful with my daughter’s belongings. The last thing to check was her toy box.

  I propped open the lid of the pine chest and removed the contents. I opened the lids of board games, even checking under the playing board. Eventually, I picked up a battered doll in a flowing dress. It looked old and wasn’t something that I recognized as belonging to Taylor. I held it up and studied it. As I did I heard a rustle. It was the sound paper made when screwed into a ball. I lifted the doll’s skirt and saw a zipper. I then understood what the doll was. It was supposed to house her pajamas and sit on the bed.

  I slowly lowered the zipper and retrieved a single sheet of paper. All that piece of paper contained was a name and a telephone number. I held it up to the light, in case I could see anything imprinted, perhaps another word that had been erased. I placed the paper in my jean pocket and replaced all the toys.

  When I got back downstairs, I sat at the kitchen table, which once had been the place of fun and joy, now was the place of anguish and tears. Every decision had been made around that table. It had been used to eat at, draw and paint, it had been used to plan futures, and just sit and hold hands across. I laid out the piece of paper and used my hand to smooth it flat.

  Sister Anna

  Underneath was a cell phone number.

  “Sister Anna,” I said aloud.

  I fished my cell from my pocket and dialed. The phone rang until a generic voicemail kicked in.

  “Hi, my name is Gabriel. I, err, I found your number, and this is going to sound strange, but I think you may have known my wife, Sierra Malone. Can you call me back?” I rattled off my cell number.

  I placed the cell on the table next to the piece of paper. It may have meant nothing, but I wasn’t passing the opportunity to find out. I could have called Thomas, bu
t then what would I have said? I found this old doll, it doesn’t belong to Taylor and it has a number in it.

  I could already imagine the list of responses. The piece of paper may contain the details for the original owner of the doll; it may have been a thrift shop find; it may have been brought home from school; or it may be a clue to who slaughtered my wife.

  I must have sat for over an hour, willing the phone to ring. It didn’t. My stomach grumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten dinner. I raided the fridge that was stocked thanks to Trina. I ate some cold pie and washed each mouthful down with a beer.

  I sat in the lounge and studied the piece of paper. “Who the fuck are you, Sister Anna?” I said.

  Before I’d finished the sentence a thought ran through my mind. Sierra had been brought up in the system; she’d never really spoken about her family. She obviously had a mother, and I racked my brain for any mention of her. Maybe this Sister Anna was someone involved in her care? I grabbed my laptop.

  Googling Sister Anna threw up millions of responses, from saints to bands and movie stars. A jolt of something shot through me. I leapt from the sofa, narrowly missing dropping the laptop on the floor, and grabbed a pad and pen. I then Googled convents in New York. That provoked a response a little more manageable. I made notes. Could Sierra have been brought up in a convent?

  I should have done the research months back, but then I wouldn’t have been in the right frame of mind. I’d wanted to break down, to sob night after night, but I couldn’t. I’d vowed that once I found the murderer, only then I would grieve.

  Maybe it was time to contact Zachary. My older brother had left home when I was young; he was fifteen years older than me and supposed to be the only child. Mom and Dad didn’t think they’d have another child, I was the surprise my middle-aged parents had been praying for. Zachary and I had never been close. I guess the age gap was just too large and we were poles apart in personality.