The Best American Mystery Stories 2017

by John Sandford

  She stared at him, mouth opening and closing in a perfect purple O, and then she stood, catching him across the cheek with her knuckles. The punch sat him down on his ass, the shock reverberating up his spine to ring against his head like he’d stuck it inside the church bells.

  “You little shit. I may have taken that from your daddy, but I’ll be damned if I let a little runt like you hit me.” She ran a hand through her hair, spikes popping right back into place, and glanced around as she tugged at the hem of her shirt. Bending, she hauled him up by the lapels of his daddy’s coat and leaned close, her hot breath stinking of cigarettes and mint. “Keep that up and maybe I’ll look real hard, make sure you end up with your daddy, you understand?”

  He still couldn’t think, the world gone plastic and shiny around him. Shoving her off, he left his bag on the porch and stumbled up to his room. He wiped at the warm trickle from his nose and stared at the red smear across his fingers. It looked like they’d both learned something from his dad.

  That night he couldn’t sleep, his chest tight and aching as he thought about his dad tangled in the murky current of the Mississippi. The swollen side of his face throbbed with every beat of his heart, a constant echo of Vickie’s knuckles across his face.

  He’d climbed into bed in his school uniform and now his pants were twisted around his legs, his shoes dirtying the sheet. Across the room his Iron Man action figure threw its shadow at the wall, the outside light catching the childhood guilty pleasure. The house was silent in a way it never was when Vickie was there. Even at night she left the TV or radio on, as if she was afraid of what she’d hear in the quiet.

  Maybe I’ll look real hard, make sure you end up with your daddy, you understand?

  Sitting up in bed, he shoved the covers off and pulled on his dad’s jacket, the nylon slick in his hands. The house was cold against his belly, the brick scraping his shirt up as he lowered himself from the window. The world was lit by scattered streetlights, their jaundiced light spreading along the sidewalk like watercolor. The low hum of conversation floated down the street from Seamus McDaniel’s, sprinkled with the rise and fall of laughter that colored his idea of adulthood.

  Ian started down Tamm, away from the noise and laughter, past the empty lot with its foundation rising from the ground, lost and haunted. Wind blew down the street, trapped from spreading by the buildings along either side, rattling the broken fence with its overgrown lot and crooked BEWARE OF DOG sign. Pausing, he turned and looked back, expecting to see Vickie standing in the door, laughing as she locked him out, but the small brick house was still and dark, empty.

  The barking of the big red mutt down the street pulled him forward toward the swings, the miserable squeak of the chain floating over the neighborhood. Cutting across the street, he stopped in the shadows by the house on the corner of Graham and watched the woman as she arced out over the highway. The light caught her hair at the apogee, shining blue-black and unmoved as she hung suspended above the river of lights along the freeway. Vickie crested again, legs out as if she would fly off the swing right into the traffic along 64.

  Up the street, people spilled out of Pat’s Bar and Grill onto the sidewalk, heading toward their cars. A man broke off from the crowd and started down Oakland toward Vickie, passing the silent stone turtles, their shapes rising from the playground like burial mounds.

  Shifting closer, Ian tried to catch a glimpse of his face, wondering if it was the man in his dad’s bed. Vickie started across the avenue, away from the light. She was so close Ian could hear the click of her mint against her teeth. The man looked both ways and crossed, the light catching him full in the face. He had long stringy hair, the brown shot through with silver, his tall, lanky frame stretched too thin.

  Tucked in the shadows, Ian held his breath as they passed, studying the man’s doughy face. When they were a good ten feet past, he turned and followed, staying along the edges of the light.

  He didn’t remember his mother much, just the fuzzy picture his dad kept in his wallet. Her name had been Barbara, and Valentine used to say she was an angel. Ian wondered if his mom had made his dad happy, though. She’d been blond and fair, and in that faded picture she’d laughed with her mouth open and eyes crinkled. Sometimes he liked to pretend he could hear that laugh. He bet it was a good one, high and wild, and not at all like Vickie. Vickie was lucky if she could wash the stink of brimstone off in the morning.

  When Vickie and the man reached the corner they turned away from the house, toward Hampton and the abandoned Forest Park Hospital. Ian stopped in the last of the shadows and watched as they paused between the hospital and the empty parking garage. The man swung his doughy face about, looking around before he pulled the fence back, letting Vickie climb through and following after.

  He could feel his heartbeat through his teeth. They’d come here sometimes after school, smoke cigarettes and dare each other to go inside while they remained safely on the opposite side of the street. They’d tell each other stories about the horrible disfigurements and deaths, about the ghosts that wandered the halls and the gray lady who Stevie swore he’d seen in the tower.

  No one ever took the dare. They would tease and taunt, but nobody was stupid enough to go inside.

  Ian sank to the concrete and watched as they walked along the other side of the fence. His bed was calling, safe and warm, even if his life had turned upside down. It would smell like him, and the blanket would scratch just as it did every night. He wanted to turn back, bandage the crack in his world, but he had to know what Vickie was up to, if she really knew where his dad was.

  He slipped in after them, something catching him by his jacket, biting into his skin. He froze, a terrible pressure squeezing his heart and filling his head until he couldn’t hear past the trembling rush of his blood. Jerking forward, he ripped the collar of his dad’s jacket, sharp pain filling his mouth as he bit his tongue. Gravel gouged into his hands as he sprawled across the pavement, head turned back to stare at the jagged edge of the metal fence. The emptiness of the night behind him left him shaking and he collapsed forward, taking deep, aching breaths.

  Remembering Vickie, he craned his head up, staring at the hospital rising in front of him, jutting out in odd, painful angles, the tower pointing to a black sky. A shiver gripped him, cold settling into his insides like ice had frozen over his bones, locking him in place. He stared at that building with its brick the color of skin and waited to hear it breathe, the lumbering beast to move, to pulse, creaking on its misshapen joints.

  Vickie and the man had disappeared into an alcove on the south side, fading into the dark. Making himself move, Ian followed, head down so he didn’t have to see the building. He reached the corner just as they climbed through a broken window into the black behind the brick. Waiting until the flare from their flashlight faded, he boosted himself through the window, stopping just inside. The room reeked of rotting blood and old disinfectant, fetid and sour.

  Little light trickled through the window behind him, the dark in front deep and alive. Somewhere ahead he caught the ineffectual sweep of a flashlight and pushed forward. He tried to breathe through his mouth, but the taste of stale sickness settled on his tongue. Starting through the debris, his foot caught, hand bracing against something warm and soft. He jerked back and stumbled forward into the hall. Outside light spilled through the windows and into the empty rooms, creating islands of safety in the hungry dark. Ian knelt behind an old bed, watching as something blacker than the rest moved at the end of the hall.

  “Damn it, Vickie.”

  There was a meaty smack and then silence.

  He licked the dust off his lips and watched as they disappeared through a door, the metal clang reverberating through the hall. He hadn’t realized how noisy they’d been until they were gone. Now it was quiet, and the light spilling into the hall didn’t seem so bright, the silence thickening the shadows. Starting down the hall, he passed room after room, not wanting to look but unable to tu
rn away. He catalogued the oddities: the dark rusty stains pooled in one room, tiles from the ceiling missing and broken, a giant light hanging like something from a space movie, a pile of phones, cords twisted and grimy, and in one what looked like the hips of a man. Ian froze, staring as he tried to make sense of it. It was chopped off at the knees and just above the stomach. There was no blood, no bone, just rubber and plastic, and the taste of his pulse on his tongue.

  Turning from the sight, he ran, ears straining for the quiet whisper of pursuit.

  The door at the end of the hall was heavy, his breath loud in his ears as he leaned against it, easing it shut. Stairs stretched before him, light flickering through the metal grating like hellfire below. Their voices rose, cadences sharp and brutal. Everything he’d learned in chapel escaped him, leaving him stuck with the beginning of an Our Father and the end of a Hail Mary.

  Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Blessed art Thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Pray for us sinners.

  Pray for us.

  Their voices bounced off the metal pipes and tanks, spreading and overlapping until it was like listening to the crazy people at his Aunt Marsh’s church as they knelt at the pulpit. The bottom of the stairs spread out before him, filled with tile and plastic ghosts, the showers ragged with their curtains partially ripped from their rings. Squatting next to a bank of metal lockers, he stared at the poster fixed to one of the doors, the woman’s legs spread, her fingers opening her pussy as he listened to the voices around the corner.

  “Tell me where you hid the money, brother.”

  The man’s voice was deeper than he thought it’d be, bouncing off the tile. It was followed by another one of those meaty thuds. The rapid beating of Ian’s heart stilled as he stared at the blonde on the poster and listened to his dad grunt through the half light.

  “Val, don’t be a fool. Tell us where you hid the money and we’ll leave you alone. We’ll even call the cops when we get out of the city, tell them you’re here. You can go back to Ian.” Vickie’s voice wavered like the dying battery in their flashlight.

  Ian closed his eyes, listening to his dad’s thin laugh. “Vickie, sweetheart”—he paused for air—“I tell you and Brady Miller’ll be after me. Between the two of ya, I’ll take my chances with you and Spastic Shortcake over here.”

  His dad screamed. He screamed until his voice broke, freezing Ian’s insides as it repeated over and over, caught against the tile. The cold locker pressed against his cheek as he watched the man cut off his father’s pinkie with a pair of shears. Vickie kept her back turned, like she couldn’t bear to watch.

  The man leaned close, his mongrel face pressed against his dad’s. “You’ll tell me, or I’ll bring your little runt down here and gut him in front of you. Shit, brother, I’ll hoist him up right overhead and let his insides rest against the top of your head while he screams your name.”

  There was blood on his dad’s chin, painting it red like he’d been eating strawberry pie. His dad closed his eyes and let his head fall forward, a thin line of drool stretching from chin to chest. “It’s in the basement coal chute,” Valentine said.

  Ian huddled in his corner, watching as the flashlight trembled in Vickie’s hand, throwing shadows around the walls with their grungy caulking and bloody tile. His father’s skin was gray, hair matted dark. He didn’t look like Valentine anymore. His father was big and strong, and when he walked into a room you knew it, felt it, because he brought life with him. The man in the chair was hollow, broken. Ian shoved his fingers into his mouth, biting as the world went soft and watery.

  He couldn’t hear; everything echoed in his head like he’d been stuffed into a drum. He sat there, watching the man beat his father while Vickie trembled on the sidelines. He sat there, tucked safe in his corner, his insides shaking and trembling, the world far away as he watched the man put away his shears and pull out his knife. He sat there, piss warming the crotch of his pants, the world roaring around him as the man slid that knife over his father’s throat, unzipping his neck.

  The skin gaped on either side of that opening, giving his dad a second smile.

  He tried to make himself crawl forward, to press his hands against that hot grin, but he couldn’t. He tried, but he’d lost his sense of direction, crawling the other way and tucking himself into one of the showers, face pressed against the tile, cooling his heated cheek. The iron-rich scent of blood and the darker scent of mold touched his nose: death and hunger. The world devoured them.

  After a while the tile was no longer cold under his cheek, the world gone dark, as if it had started with its tail and just kept swallowing, a giant ouroboros. The seat of his pants was cold and wet, the denim rough against his legs. His body ached as he crawled forward, head loose on his shoulders. The metal of the stairs felt distant under his numb fingers while he crawled out of the hospital.

  Outside it had grown cooler, as quiet and dark as that basement. It was as empty as he was, an abandoned place. Nothing worked right. He wasn’t sure he was feeling the ground under his feet, the asphalt giving with every step. He walked up the middle of Graham, passing in and out of the pooled streetlight until he overshot Berthold and had to turn back down Clayton toward his house. He could still hear his father scream.

  It sounded like the swings down at the park. (It sounded like the squeak of his dad’s bed.)

  Slipping into his open window, he stood in the middle of the room, listening to the squeak of the bed next door. Ian pulled off his jacket and folded it on the bed, running his hand along the too-long sleeves. Moving down the hall, down the stairs, down to the basement, he found his dad’s ball-peen hammer and hefted it a couple times, the wooden handle cold in his hand. He dragged his feet back up the stairs until he stood on the other side of his dad’s door, listening to that monotonous squeak, a machine that needed oiling. He pushed open the door, the light streaming through the window highlighting the man’s back as he rutted into Vickie. Ian stood there, watching the grunting flesh, the man’s shaggy head lowered so he couldn’t see his face.

  He didn’t time it, but each step he took coincided with a squeak from the bedsprings, adding to the rubbery feeling in his knees.

  The man’s head gave with a dry crack, like breaking Easter eggs.

  He was thrusting into Vickie when the rounded side of the hammer sank into his skull, causing him to collapse. At first everything was still, and then he moved, shoulders rising and falling, a marionette with tangled strings. Ian pulled the hammer loose and brought it down again, the crack a little wetter this time, as if that egg hadn’t been completely boiled.

  The man stopped moving, and a thin, pale arm snuck out from under him to grope up his back. “Bruce?” Vickie’s hand continued up his neck to the back of his head. “Bruce, what’s—” Ian watched as her finger sank into the hole in his head like a thumb into a pie.

  She shoved, her voice cracking like his dad’s had. Squirming, she wriggled out from under him enough to meet his eyes and stilled, the mascara trailing down her face like clown makeup. Ian raised the hammer, ready to bring it down against her forehead, and Vickie closed her eyes, hunching in on herself.

  He paused, watching as she waited for the hammer to fall. She was as evil as the man on top of her, but more than that, she was pathetic. He could see it in her eyes, the same nightmares in his. She would continue to see the smile in his dad’s neck and taste the copper on the air. They’d never be rid of that.

  She reached for him, nails ragged and spiked hair tangled against the top of her head. “Ian . . .” Whatever she was about to say died on her lips, eyes closing as more mascara ran down her cheeks. “Kill me.” He didn’t answer, and she opened her eyes, shoving at the dead weight on top of her.

  He dropped the hammer and walked away, abandoning that place.

  TRINA COREY

  Flight

  FROM Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

  Birds. They come in like birds th
rough a door left ajar, a window opened.

  Stand for a moment, head tilted to one side, beads for eyes. Peck, peck, peck at us. Then leave.

  Some flutter and coo. Flap around the room. I know they feel trapped. But they have no idea. Because they get out.

  We stay. We stay until we die.

  Thursday

  “Wake up, my dear.”

  His fingers slide across my hand. Cold and dry as snakes.

  “It’s time for one of our little chats.”

  My right hand is cramped shut. He pries my fingers open. It hurts.

  “I know you’re awake.”

  He reaches over the railing of my bed, turns my head so that I face him, not that I can see anything in this darkness. Useless, useless, can’t even pull away.

  “I have something new to tell you.”

  Clattering. I can close my eyes, but I can’t block out the sounds. Breakfast on six-foot-tall steel carts banging along the hall, wheels rattling, plates and trays bouncing on the shelves. Jim Landeman two doors down howling at the morning. I tell myself, Really it’s no different than when the alarm clock shrilled before you leaned over to slap it quiet. I tell myself a lot of lies to get through each day.

  “And how are we all doing?”

  Ida lets me blink and yawn before she cranks up the bed, pushes her hands in my armpits to slide me half upright. Her dyed black hair smells of coconut and her breath smells of coffee.

  Sam’s hand on my shoulder, me turning to him, wrapping my legs around him.

  Paper bib crinkling, tied around my neck.

  “Jenny’s helping you with breakfast today. Helping you and Noni both. You girls be nice to her, all right?”