Messages, a Psychological Thriller

  Blue and red lights revolved on the walls, and they realized the police had been called.

  Again.

  Henry remembers that night in particular among the many, many nights of conflict, the dozens of times police knocked on the front door, because he remembers telling Arch the Troll story. Trying to help the kid. He’d been trying to do a nice thing and had been burned by that little fuck. Badly burned.

  A realization moves through Henry that of course it wasn’t Arch’s fault. Arch hadn’t had anything to do with how Chuck acted–it wasn’t Arch’s fault his dad was a dick. It wasn’t Arch’s fault that his dad had liked Henry at least a little bit and then, when Arch had come along, Chuck hadn’t liked Henry at all anymore.

  He looks at Arch now, sitting on the shitty back porch couch, tough-guy punk clothes, a mad-scared look on his face. And Henry is instantly reminded of himself at that age. And then he wonders: does that make me Chuck? The question disturbs him. Mightily.

  “Okay, well, I’m outta here,” he says.

  Arch nods, not looking up. Henry hesitates. Then he thinks of the only thing he has to offer.

  “Hey, you need any money or anything? I got paid today.”

  Arch looks up, surprise washing thirteen years from his face, and he is four again; baby Arch, wanting so much for cool, tough Henry to like him. Just like him.

  “Uh…yeah, I guess I could use some money. I owe Stang for gas,” Arch says.

  Henry unzips the front of his coverall and fishes his wallet from his back pocket. (Contrary to James’ thought, Henry doesn’t keep his wallet on a chain–although he knows lots of guys who do.) He pulls a twenty from the wallet and hands it to Arch. At the amazed gratitude on Arch’s face, Henry feels a small swell of what? Gratitude? That doesn’t make any sense. But it is gratitude he feels, nevertheless. And amazingly, it doesn’t make him mad.

  “Thanks, I…thanks!” Arch says.

  “Yeah, sure. No problem,” Henry says, tucking the wallet back into his pocket and zipping up. “Okay, well, I’ll see you around, I guess.” He tosses Mary Ellen’s keys in the air and catches them.

  “Okay, see you,” Arch says to Henry’s back as he goes out the door.

  Arch sits a minute more, almost in shock, unable to believe what just happened. It makes him feel good. Relieved. And now he for sure doesn’t need Mr. Simonelli’s money. He heads into the house. He wants to grab something to eat before he heads over to the Simonellis’.

  Chapter 16

  Chief of Police Robert Anderson looks at the folder of papers on his desk and then back up to Sergeant Reardon.

  “He’s in interrogation?”

  Sgt. Reardon nods.

  “What’s your gut?” the chief asks. He knows Reardon has a good rapport with kids, a good understanding of them. He handles of lot of the D.A.R.E. stuff. It puts him in both of the local schools. Essex is not a huge town, with just over six thousand residents. Most of the kids go to the Community School kindergarten through eighth and then attend Essex High School. The ones that don’t go through the public school system go to the Catholic middle and high school a few towns over in Cherry Hill.

  “His half-brother has been in trouble a time or two, and we’ve been out to their house more than a handful of times, but it’s always for the parents. This kid, Arch, has never been in any kind of trouble that we know of.” Sgt. Reardon clasps his hands behind his back and shakes his head. “I don’t think he had anything to do with it. I think he really liked those folks. He’s bawling his eyes out.”

  “Could be guilt?” Chief Anderson asks and suggests at the same time, raising his eyebrows.

  Reardon shakes his head. “Doesn’t look like guilt or remorse. He placed the 911, you know. Listen to that tape. Kid sounds shocky, ready to pass out.”

  Chief Anderson nods. It had been a horrific scene, from what his officers have told him. The chief has been with the department for thirty-two years, and nothing like this has happened before, nothing this random. They’ve seen more than their share of homicides, but those were almost always domestics or gang crap, drug crap. This was arbitrary, uber-violent. Not even a robbery as far as anyone can tell.

  “These folks, the Simonellis…they’ve got a lot of kids, did you know that?” Chief Anderson says to Reardon. Chief Anderson knows it because he thinks he’s spoken to every one of them by now. Twice. And some of the grandkids. He wonders if the great-grandkids will be crawling in next, diapers full, to tell him how it feels to lose their great-grandparents and ask what the hell he is doing about it.

  “Well, we’ll be turning the whole thing over to the Staties, anyway, something this violent. Then they can stand in line over there, waiting for an ear to bend,” the chief says.

  Sergeant Reardon knows the chief isn’t as unsympathetic as he sounds; it’s the stress. The stress is for the Simonellis’ family but also for the town, too, and his own family and for his officers. This kind of crime…it shakes you. And just like his officers, the chief makes his home in Essex. No one wants to think some nut job is running around butchering old folks for fun.

  Reardon nods. “I’m gonna send him home with his mom–she brought him in. I guess we’ll wait and see what the Staties do.” He shrugs.

  Chief Anderson closes the file and hands it to Reardon. “We’ll keep an eye out, too. We’re the ones who live around here, not the Staties.”

  Chapter 17

  James thinks he probably shouldn’t go near that neighborhood for a while. He doesn’t know if anyone will remember seeing him around, but it’s better not to take the chance; smarter, safer.

  Yes, he will definitely not go there.

  As he thinks this, he pulls from Mossy onto Oak.

  He just wants to take one more look and see if the kid is around. It is a compulsion he can’t understand and, therefore, doesn’t name. Doesn’t even acknowledge. He pulls to the curb and stops.

  From the street, he can see past 18 Oak Ave back to the Simonellis’ house. He knows their names now. First and last. He’d read it in the paper he’d gotten from WaWa. There is yellow police tape fluttering in the breeze, tied to trees and parts of the fence.

  There is heat in his right front pants pocket, warming his thigh. He digs his hand into the pocket. He pulls his hand out, closed around the object. The heat feels good, gentle but also slightly electric, exciting.

  This is what he found in the garage. The lost thing. The found thing. The thing he was meant to have.

  He opens his hand.

  The object spins slowly, clockwise, and canted at a slight angle. It drifts slightly upwards, about an inch from his palm and hovers, shining mildly. The heat from it radiates in gentle waves over his hand, over his arm. He leans over, closing his eyes, and feels the heat on his face, on his neck.

  James blots his forehead with the back of his wrist, where blood trickles out from under the bandage. But he isn’t really aware that he is bleeding any more than he is aware that he is right now parked in the neighborhood where he killed two people.

  He watches the object spin in its corona of warm, soothing light. It was all worth it. Everything that led him to this…all worth it.

  Movement catches his eye, and he turns his head. Just outside the driver’s side window stands a police officer. He is staring in amazement at the object spinning above James’ hand.

  Chapter 18

  Arch sits on the aisle, hands clutching each other in his lap. His mom sits next to him in the pew. Chuck couldn’t make it to the funeral; he’s still on night shift. Arch thinks he should have come anyway.

  The church is filled to capacity.

  “The Simonellis sure knew a lot of people,” his mom says. Her tone is surprised, like she can’t believe how many people are here. Can’t understand why. And Arch also hears the jealousy in her voice.

  He feels lost, anonymous. He wants to cry, but there are so many people who aren’t crying. He’s afraid he’ll look like some kind of fake. A phony. Especially wi
th his mom next to him, her face swiveling around like a fucking bobblehead on a dashboard.

  He can see the caskets way up front. They are side by side and open, surrounded by more flowers than he’s ever seen outside of a movie. His stomach turns over. He has a flash of how they looked when he found them. Hot bile rises in his throat. He can’t believe this is real, that the Simonellis are dead.

  A hand taps his shoulder tentatively from the aisle. He turns, and it is Mrs. Simonelli’s face but smoothed out and on a middle-aged lady. She is medium height, overweight, and packed into a shiny black dress. She looks stiff and uncomfortable, but her eyes are just as warm as Mrs. Simonelli’s, and she is smiling.

  “Archer?” she says, and he nods. “I’m Amy, William and Antoinetta’s daughter.”

  He nods again, not knowing what to say. Her hand is still on his arm, and he stands awkwardly in the pew, hunched half over and twisted sideways. “I’m sorry, I…” It is all he can manage before his throat closes. She pulls him toward her, and he goes easily, putting his head on her shoulder, and hot tears leak like something molten from his eyes. He feels a tremble run through her and realizes she is crying, too. He closes his eyes and tightens his arms, feeling the warmth of her solid bulk, and he feels anchored, soothed.

  Then there is a heavy hand on his back, and he turns to a middle-aged man with tears in his eyes, a handkerchief held absently by his side. “Archer?” he says, but he says it to Amy, and she nods, smiling and kind of half pushes Arch forward, as if presenting him. Presenting the treasure she has found.

  “We were looking for you,” the man says, stuffing the handkerchief into his pocket and taking Arch’s hands unselfconsciously in his own. He has Mr. Simonelli’s eyes, and he is staring at Arch intently. He swallows hard and takes a breath. “I’m Bill, William and Antoinetta’s oldest son. I wanted to tell you that Mom and Dad talked about you all the time. They really loved you and…” It is all he can manage before the tears roll freely down his cheeks, and he draws Arch to him. He feels Amy’s arms go around them both, and he is sandwiched between these warm, loving people. And he thinks about the times he spent watching them all together at the Simonellis’ house and in the yard as they roughhoused, manhandling each other, and he thinks so this is what it feels like.

  It’s better than he could have imagined.

  Bill pulls back, laughing a little. “Come on, Amy, let him go, he’s gonna think we’re crazy.”

  Amy laughs too, wiping her eyes. She is smiling at Arch with so much affection that he suddenly becomes embarrassed and looks down. She doesn’t seem offended, just grabs his arm and presses it firmly to her side. “Come up front with us,” she says, pulling him a few steps down the aisle.

  Arch thinks he should say something to indicate his mom, bring her forward to meet Amy and Bill. But then he sees Amy glance back to where his mom sits with her false-looking, tentative smile and edge-of-the-seat posture, hovering, preparing to stand. He realizes that Amy has seen her, does recognize her, but has deliberately singled him out.

  Arch is only seventeen, but he has a very adult insight: Amy doesn’t like Arch’s mom. She has probably never met her, but of course she would know everything about Arch and Arch’s family that Mr. and Mrs. Simonelli knew. Having been backyard neighbors for years, they’d heard and seen a lot.

  Arch turns away from his mom, letting Amy pull him forward. Bill is behind him, and Arch feels surrounded, as if by security or an honor guard. And he does feel secure. And honored.

  The first three pews on both sides are taken up with family members, and Arch is passed hand-to-hand like a party guest everyone has been waiting for. They each want to meet him, thank him, and tell him how much the Simonellis loved and appreciated him.

  Finally, Bill is at his side again, his hand on Arch’s back.

  “Are you ready to go up?” he asks.

  Arch is not sure what Bill means at first but realizes quickly: he is asking if he is ready to go see the Simonellis. While Arch had been meeting everyone, he’d deliberately kept his back to the caskets, terrified of what he’d see, terrified because of the last time he’d seen them.

  He had jumped the back fence that Monday after school, the twenty dollars from Henry sitting like a miracle in his pocket. He’d been feeling really good and was humming, and he’d gone around the side yard to the front of the Simonelli’s. He had been expecting to see Mr. Simonelli sitting in the mouth of the garage, waiting for him so they could get going with the new project. But the garage door was closed.

  Mr. Simonelli’s Impala was in the driveway, so Arch knew that he hadn’t gone anywhere. Besides, Monday was not Mr. Simonelli’s ‘outside the house’ errand day. He was probably inside ‘tinkering around’, as he always called it.

  Arch hopped up onto the porch and pushed the doorbell. He knew Mrs. Simonelli preferred the doorbell to a knock–knocking scared her. It was too harsh. The doorbell was a series of mellow chimes that played the opening of her favorite hymn, ‘Shall We Gather at the River’. He had pushed the button and listened. He heard the distant, somehow sad, ringing and waited. It never took her long to get to the door; she was always in the kitchen.

  Arch waited for a full minute and then pushed the bell again, this time humming absently along with it. He was starting to feel uneasy, and it occurred to him how old they are. How really, really old. And fragile.

  He cupped his hand around his face and pressed it to the glass pane of the door. It was beveled or frosted or something, but he could still see a distorted bit of the hallway leading to the kitchen and the green-carpeted stairs leading to the second floor. He’d been half afraid he’d see them both crumbled at the bottom of the stairs. He wasn’t sure why he thought they might both be there; it didn’t make much sense, really. He just had the general idea that old people fall. A lot.

  His initial relief at not seeing them at the bottom of the stairs began to recede as he noticed the kitchen light on, and there was a flickering from his right, just out of his sightline. The television in the front room must be on. It sure looked like they should be home.

  He rang the bell again, mostly just for something to do as he thought. Before the ringing stopped, he jumped down, bypassing the two concrete steps. He went back to the garage door and knocked on the rough wood. “Mister Simonelli?” he called out. “You in there?”

  He jumped, trying to see into the top row of windows, but though the house was lit up, the garage was not. He jumped again, enough to see a long crack of light on the far side of the garage–the side door must be open. That’s weird, he thought. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that door open. I must have walked right past it.

  He trotted to that side and opened the waist-high, metal gate. There were tall evergreens that blocked this door from the road and partially from the yard; that’s why he hadn’t noticed it being open. Mr. Simonelli had told Arch that he used to keep his trash can on this side of the garage, back when his kids were still at home, but then raccoons got into it one night and made an unholy mess. He’d kept the garbage can in the garage ever since.

  The side door was open about three inches. Arch put his hand on the knob and pushed it open a few more inches, saying “Mister Simonelli? You in here?”

  The garage was dim without the overhead lights, but Arch could see the tools lined up on the pegboard. His eyes skated over the empty shovel hook to the weed-whacker, and then he pushed the door open even further and saw Mr. Simonelli’s legs splayed out near the workbench. A jolt of panic ran through him…holy shit, he did fall…and he pushed the door the rest of the way open. Now he saw Mrs. Simonelli, too, spread-eagled on her stomach by the stairs, her legs propped up behind her, one foot bare.

  His eyes bounced back to Mr. Simonelli, and his eyes were getting used to the dark, and he saw that Mr. Simonelli’s head was canted at an odd angle, sitting almost ninety degrees to his shoulder. A spray of something ringed Mr. Simonelli’s head. A nonsense thought went through Arch’s mind that Mr.
Simonelli must have thrown up, but then he saw that it wasn’t vomit, it was parts of Mr. Simonelli’s neck and throat. Not just blood, but skin and clots of something a darker red than blood, and strings of something. Then his eyes registered the knob of bone, the glinting flash of it, deep in the mess of what was left of Mr. Simonelli’s neck.

  Reflexively, Arch dug the phone from his pocket, stepping back and colliding with the open door. A gray fog moved in at the periphery of his vision. The scene before him vibrated slightly and then vibrated again. He realized it was in time with his heart. His eyes have bulged so far from his head that they were shaking to the pressure of his heartbeats. He kept the phone firmly to his ear. He turned away from the bodies. The phone rang once and then was picked up on the second ring.

  “911, what is your emergency?”

  Bill’s hand circles Arch’s arm above the elbow. He sees the terror in the kid’s eyes and knows instantly what he’s thinking. He squeezes Arch’s arm. “It’s okay,” he says quietly. “They don’t look…they look okay. They look good. You don’t have to be worried about…about what you saw.”

  Arch’s chin quivers, and he clenches his teeth, trying to stop it. He doesn’t want to cry again in front of this big man. His throat is tight. “I…I’m scared…” he says, his voice breaking as though he’d just turned thirteen, and then the tears are flowing again. He brushes them away, blinking.

  Bill merely nods, never taking his hand from Arch’s arm. “This will help. You won’t have to remember them that way. Trust me. Okay, son?”

  Mr. Simonelli used to call him ‘son’, too. Arch always liked it. Liked pretending Mr. Simonelli was his real dad. Now he looks at Bill, and Bill’s eyes are sad, deep with the tears he will shed today and for the days to come, but they are also calm and sure. Bill walks with Arch to the caskets. They are head-to-head at the corner and canted outward, forming an inverted V. He and Bill stand between the caskets and Arch looks first at Mrs. Simonelli. Her face is tiny against the creamy satin; her hands folded peacefully on her chest. There is a slight bulge on her forehead where the split must have been, but it is covered amazingly well. If Arch didn’t know about it ahead of time, he’d never have noticed. A picture of Mrs. Simonelli upside down and surrounded by blood flashes into his mind, and he jerks, turning away. Bill’s hand goes from his arm to his back, firm and reassuring. Out of the corner of his eye, Arch sees him nod. The nod says ‘it’s okay, son, I’m with you’.