(2006) Pale Immortal

by Anne Frasier

He felt her recoil and immediately regretted his choice of words. And what was that? In her eyes?

  Fear and self-doubt.

  Chapter 20

  When no one answered the door, Seymour gave the signal for the accompanying officers to break into Evan Stroud's home.

  Inside they quickly searched the rooms, guns drawn, but the house was empty. The time between the call from the DNA lab and the warrant had been a little under three hours.

  "I didn't think he could go out during the day," one of the officers said. He was young and blond and so healthy he gave off a glow. A nice kid, Seymour had always thought.

  "Check the garage," Seymour said. One of the officers disappeared.

  "Are you sure he isn't sleeping in a coffin in the basement?" another officer asked with a laugh.

  They may have been joking around, but Seymour could tell they were spooked.

  It wasn't much past noon, but the house was dark as a tomb. Upton, the young blond officer, went around turning on lights but it didn't help much. The bulbs were weak.

  The officer who'd disappeared returned. "Car's in the garage," he said breathlessly. "Maybe he has a secret compartment." He started going around the room, knocking on walls. "You know, like in the wall or something. Or a space under the floor somewhere."

  Seymour frowned. What a dumb-ass idea.

  "Should we open the curtains?" Upton asked.

  Seymour nodded, then brought a fist to his mouth, stifling a cough. His hand automatically reached for his pack of smokes, but he stopped himself. Couldn't smoke here.

  He wanted to go out on the porch and light up, but he didn't want to leave these guys alone.

  Upton fumbled behind the heavy black drapes, looking for a cord. He finally gave up and tugged the dark fabric open by hand. All of them momentarily shielded their eyes as sunlight poured in the picture window.

  The intrusion of light robbed the room of mystery. Dust particles drifted in the shafts that cut sharply to the wooden floor and thick Oriental rug. The light invaded and exposed areas that had spent years hidden and unswept.

  Just a crazy bachelor's house.

  Seymour knew how easy it was to let things go when nobody stopped by. And if you couldn't even see the layers of dust... what did it really matter?

  He would have been content to wallow in his own filth if Rachel hadn't talked him into hiring someone to come in and stir up the dust once a week. And he had to admit that a fresh set of sheets was pretty damn nice. Since the weather had warmed up, Patricia had been hanging them outside.

  "Isn't that the woman who's been coming around the station?" Upton asked, looking out the window.

  Seymour followed the direction of his gaze.

  Lydia Yates stood just beyond the gate, talking on a cell phone and gesturing wildly. Another woman was with her, and Seymour seriously doubted they were calling for pizza delivery.

  Behind him, the dark-haired officer let out a shriek. That fit of girliness was followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the floor.

  The officer bent over and picked up a book bound in soft leather. "Listen to this." In his other hand he held a scrap of paper, which he now read. " 'This book cover was made from the skin of Father Francis Xavier after his beheading in 1743.'"

  "Then treat it with extreme care." Seymour moved toward the door. "I'm going out to see what our friend Ms. Yates is up to."

  It also gave him a chance to have a smoke.

  On the porch he parked himself in front of the picture window so the officers inside would know he was nearby and not be inclined to misbehave.

  The person with Lydia Yates was Bonnie Stark from the Tuonela Press. By tomorrow morning everybody in town would know about the DNA match and the warrant for Evan.

  Lydia closed the cell phone and passed it back to Bonnie, who tucked it in her pocket. "What's going on?" Lydia demanded.

  Oh, how Seymour did not want to discuss this here and now. He let out a heavy sigh. He'd hoped to keep it out of the papers for at least another day. "We have a warrant for the arrest of Evan Stroud on the suspicion of murder."

  Both women gasped.

  "Yeah, it surprises the hell out of me too."

  "So where is Stroud?" Bonnie asked.

  Seymour pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket, lit it with his silver Zippo, and slipped the lighter back in his pocket. "Well, he's not home."

  Bonnie pulled out a writing tablet and clicked her pen. "You mean he's run off?"

  "Don't go jumping to conclusions," Seymour said. "He's not home at this moment. That's all. Not home."

  Lydia held out her hand to Bonnie. "Can I borrow your phone again? I need to call the state attorney."

  Ah, yes. Graham. The time they'd bought him was gone. Wasn't a judge in the world who would turn the kid over to his father now.

  Chapter 21

  Things were going to be okay. That thought had been creeping into Graham's head lately.

  Isobel turned around in her desk and smiled at him over her shoulder. They were in American history, and the teacher was droning on about the Civil War. Even though his voice was a monotone, Graham got the idea he was excited about it.

  Kids were still giving Graham weird looks, and some even acted scared of him, but he didn't care.

  Things are going to be okay.

  He gave Isobel a little wave.

  They were both staying after school. The play was in a week, and Alba was pushing all the kids to get their lines memorized. And they'd hardly started on the stage set. This weekend he and Isobel were going to hit a few thrift shops to see if they could find some props. Later today he was meeting with Alba to work on the set design.

  Someone knocked lightly on the door; then Principal Bonner came in the room and whispered something to the instructor.

  "Graham Yates," the history teacher announced. "Please gather up all of your things and join Principal Bonner in the hallway."

  Graham's heart flip-flopped, but then he immediately thought that maybe it was good news. Maybe the judge—or whoever—reviewing his case wanted to talk to him about his mother.

  They were heading toward the office when the principal indicated they should turn down another hallway. "You need to empty out your locker."

  Graham stopped. "What?"

  "Get everything out of your locker."

  "What's going on? What's this about?"

  "Everything out."

  Okay, she wasn't going to tell him. But he knew the answer. He'd been here before.

  He spun the combination lock, then opened the locker. He shoved his jacket and knitting and notebooks in his backpack.

  "I'll take the books."

  He tried to read her as he placed them into her outstretched hands. She looked nervous. Suspicious. A little disappointed in him, but more than that— annoyed at being put in this position, especially when Graham had never really been one of them to begin with. He was an outsider she'd been forced to allow into her school. And for what? Hadn't it ended up just like she thought it would?

  He knew that look. He'd moved around enough, been to enough new schools to recognize it.

  He slammed the locker shut and they walked to the office, past the receptionist's desk, through the orange door that closed behind them.

  His mother sat in a chair, glaring at him.

  It was a long time before he noticed that someone else was also in the room. His old buddy Police Chief Burton.

  Burton was holding his hat. Graham didn't know what you called that kind of hat. It was like a cowboy hat, but not as big and not as Western. Whatever it was called, Burton was clinging to it with his old hands. The guy looked miserable, and for a second Graham felt sorry for him.

  Burton came over to Graham and placed a hand on his shoulder. Time got all weird, and the room started to shrink. Graham knew what Burton was going to say, and he wanted to run. Burton's lips began to move, but Graham couldn't hear anything past the shouting in his own head.

  No!
r />   It didn't matter what Burton was saying. Graham knew he was telling him he was sorry, and that Graham had to go back to his mother.

  Then the fear and terror fell away. Suddenly a warmth and a hollow numbness washed over him, and he felt safe.

  Nothing could touch him. Nothing could hurt him when he felt this way. It was that same state of total calm Graham had called upon when he'd pressed Evan's gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

  "That's okay, Officer Burton," he heard himself saying.

  He must have smiled, because Burton smiled back. But Graham could tell the old dude was ashamed of himself for letting Graham down.

  Suddenly he and his mother were leaving the room. She may have said something; he didn't know. By that time he'd shut himself down completely.

  A bell rang, but the sound was muffled, seeming to come from another dimension. The halls erupted. He thought someone shouted his name, so he slowly turned to see a girl with blond hair waving frantically to him. He didn't respond. Instead he followed his mother from the building.

  At the car he looked in the backseat and saw his big canvas travel backpack. She'd already picked up his stuff from Stroud's.

  With a familiar feeling of futility, he opened the creaky front door and slid into the passenger seat. She started the engine, threw the car into gear, and they were off.

  On a new and amazing adventure.

  She was talking, her words coming fast and angry. It took him a little while to realize Evan Stroud was the subject of her rant.

  "He murdered a girl," she said. "The girl they found in the park. Do you want to stay with somebody like that? A murderer?"

  A murderer or the woman beside him ... Hmmm. That may have seemed a tough one to anybody else, but to Graham the answer was easy: He'd take the murderer.

  They flew through town. The car was an extension of Lydia's anger, the way it turned too fast and stopped too fast. The way the tires spun when it took off.

  He was surprised she didn't get pulled over by a cop. But maybe they'd been warned about her. Maybe they'd been told to let her get the hell out of town.

  He thought about his Mends in Arizona. "Where are we going?"

  "Shut up!" She tried to slap him, but he leaned away. "Don't talk to me. Don't you ever, ever talk to me!"

  Graham didn't have many old memories of his mom. She'd just been this person who came and went, sometimes giddy, sometimes mad. Occasionally, when she was drunk, she would hug him and tell him how much she loved him.

  A steady stream of men moved like shadows through their lives. He finally figured out it was the strange men that kept her happy.

  When you were little, there was no confusion over how you felt about someone. Maybe the reason for that response was unclear, but the emotion itself was well-defined. You loved. You distrusted, you even disliked, but you never wondered if you liked a person or not.

  Maybe instincts were sharper in kids. Some kind of primitive survival thing.

  His life hadn't been bad, not really, until his grandmother died when he was in the third grade. She'd basically raised him, with Lydia hovering on the periphery. His grandmother had died of what was called a salon stroke. Something to do with the neck arteries and how a person's head was tipped back when the hair was being washed.

  It was her birthday, and she'd decided to treat herself. Graham had gone along. When she was fin- ished her hair had looked fake and alien, her face strange. At the register she dropped to the floor, and six hours later she was dead. Without his grandmother around to keep Lydia in check, his mother spiraled out of control.

  As the setting sun turned the sky a brilliant red, he thought about his grandmother. He thought about how much he'd loved her, and how much he missed her ....

  Graham realized it was getting dark. There wasn't much traffic on the road, although occasionally the headlights from a car behind them illuminated the interior.

  How long had they been driving? Time always got messed up when he shut himself down.

  At least she wasn't talking. Just sitting there in silence, staring straight ahead. He wanted to turn on the radio, but that would draw attention to him and jolt her out of her silence, so he remained very still.

  The car slowed and she leaned forward as if looking for something. Suddenly they veered to the right, shooting off the two-lane into a rest area.

  She pulled to a stop in front of a low brick building with a green metal roof. Weird blue lights flickered and buzzed. Moths circled, and hard-shelled beetles dive-bombed the cement sidewalk in confusion.

  "I have to pee," she announced, removing the keys from the ignition. They both got out of the car.

  "Lock your door."

  He pushed the button; then they walked toward the public restrooms.

  The site was deserted except for a couple of semis parked in the distance, their diesel engines rumbling softly, their yellow parking lights on as the drivers slept. Graham hardly noticed the car that pulled off the highway and parked at the opposite end of the lot.

  He and his mother split off into separate rest-rooms.

  He peed. When he was done and zipped, he looked at himself in the mirror above the sink. Under the fluorescent lights his skin was green and his veins were dark blue.

  Graham couldn't make himself leave.

  He glanced up at a block-glass window. Too small. The door was the only way out. How long could he stay here before she came looking for him? Before she came and dragged him to the car?

  From the women's room came a heavy, muffled noise followed by the slam of a door.

  She was done. She was waiting.

  He ran the water. He flushed the toilet so she would think he was busy. He ran the water again. Buying himself a few extra minutes in a public rest-room.

  He heard footsteps behind him. Ducking his head, he turned and shot for the exit. Someone grabbed his arm.

  "Dude."

  Graham looked up.

  Travis.

  "Come on," Travis whispered, tugging at him.

  Baffled, Graham followed. How could Travis be here? In this world? The world of his mother?

  Outside, Travis motioned for Graham to follow him under the cover of huge evergreens. Graham looked around, didn't see his mother in the car or outside the restroom. He took off after Travis. They both ran like hell, ducking under sprawling branches to arrive at the road where the semis were parked.

  Not far off was the little green car belonging to Travis's blond friend. Craig. And the other kid? Brandon. Graham had finally figured out his name was Brandon.

  Graham didn't have time to think about what had taken place last time he'd been in that car. He dove into the backseat. Doors slammed and tires squealed.

  Once they were on the two-lane heading back to Tuonela, they all let out a loud whoop. Brandon shoved a fifth of vodka into Graham's hand.

  "How did you find me?" Graham asked, his heart hammering, feeling something close to euphoria. He lifted the bottle to his mouth and took a swallow.

  "We saw you leaving school, dude," Travis explained, holding out his hand for the bottle. Graham passed it to him. "So we followed you."

  They all laughed.

  Graham looked over his shoulder at the road behind them. No lights yet. This was so fucked. So wonderfully fucked.

  Then he started thinking logically. "She'll find me. She always finds me." Maybe they should go back. "When she does, I'll be in so much trouble."

  "She won't find you, dude," Travis said. "We have the perfect place for you to hide. Nobody will find you there."

  The bottle of vodka was in his hand again. In the dark, he didn't question it's stickiness. "Cool." But Graham wasn't feeling overly confident. After all, this was the same guy who'd sent him to the perv.

  Chapter 22

  Rachel headed to the basement morgue with food and supplies. Halfway down the steps her cell phone rang and she paused to answer it.

  Her dad.

  Upon hearing his voice, her i
nclination was to blurt out what she'd done and tell him about Evan. She'd never kept anything from Seymour, and now she wanted his advice, his help. She felt physically sick. Her loyalty should be to her dad, not Evan.

  "Graham's been turned over to Lydia Yates," Seymour said. "There was nothing we could do about it."

  It took Rachel a moment to shift from her own guilt to what her dad was saying. "How did he take it?"

  "Fairly well, all things considered. Maybe his relationship with his mother isn't as bad as he's made it out to be. They left town this afternoon." Seymour let out a heavy sigh. "I suppose you've seen the news?"

  The news about Evan. It was everywhere. Tele- vision. Papers. Probably hitting the national press soon.

  Tell him. You have to tell him what you've done. "I've seen a little of it," she said.

  "People go nuts when this kind of thing happens."

  "Dad, I—"

  "I don't think we have enough manpower to protect Evan Stroud if he shows his face in this town. People want him dead."

  She'd almost told him. I'm sorry, Dad.

  They said good-bye and disconnected.

  A minute later she found Evan under the desk in her office, knees drawn up to his chest.

  "I brought you a sandwich and some of your tea."

  His face was ashen, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy.

  The few cases of porphyria she'd heard of had to do with skin sensitivity, which caused blisters, even cancer, if the skin was exposed to sunlight too often. Evan's case seemed to involve a full-body reaction on the cellular level, something that maybe even changed the composition of his blood.

  He closed his eyes and tipped back his head. "Just hafta wait," he whispered. "Ride it out."

  She spread a blanket over him. One tiny sliver of sunlight had done this. His present state underscored her reason for hiding him, but it did nothing to alleviate her guilt.

  With long, shaking fingers, he grasped an edge of the fabric and pulled it to his chin. "Thanks," he whispered. "W-where's Graham? D-did you pick him up from school?"

  "I have some bad news."

  Two dark pits stared out at her from a white face as he waited for her to continue.