The Boy

by Tami Hoag

“How can I say? I can’t even tell what color the hair is!” she snapped. “There were hundreds of people here for the search earlier. It could be one of them. I came here looking for Dean Florette. I didn’t find him. Jaime says she saw Cameron Spicer earlier. I don’t know where he is now. And I sure as hell don’t understand why anyone would do this! Why would anyone do this?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”

  “I don’t know if I want to find out what’s in the head of a person who could do that.”

  There would be a reason, Nick knew. When they finally caught the person responsible, there would be a reason and a logic system that had arrived at that terrible choice, and it would make perfect, terrible sense. But in this moment, it made no sense to anyone. Least of all, he imagined, to the second-grade teacher sitting on a stump a few feet away.

  “Do you want to take Jaime home, or do you want to stay?”

  Annie took another deep breath and blew it out, putting her game face back on. “I’m staying.”

  “Good.”

  He gave her shoulder a squeeze and then turned to the teacher and knelt in front of her.

  “Jaime, I’m gonna have a deputy take you home, all right?”

  “Thank you,” she managed, sniffling.

  “Do you think is Reg home yet?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so.”

  “I’ll have the deputy stay with you until he gets there,” Nick said, patting her hand. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Jaime.”

  “I don’t understand people anymore,” she said, tears welling anew. “What kind of monster does that?”

  “Leave it to us to figure that out,” Nick said, offering her a hand and drawing her to her feet as he rose. “You go home and hug your children.”

  As several more deputies arrived, he tagged one to see Jaime Blynn home. Annie tasked the others with finishing securing the perimeter and keeping the reporters at bay.

  The media hounds were baying for information. The illumination provided by their light stands was harsh and glaring. He had to squint hard, looking at them while it was growing darker by the minute under the cover of the trees. He contemplated commandeering their lights for his own purposes around the crime scene.

  As he thought it, a siren whoop-whooped and the crime scene van pulled into view, followed by Dutrow’s Suburban.

  Dutrow was mobbed as he tried to leave his vehicle. He stood on the running board, holding onto the door like a shield as he called for deputies to clear his way through the crowd as the reporters shouted questions at him.

  No one bothered Kemp. He cut straight for the crime scene, leaving his underlings to pull equipment off the van. Nick marched toward the barrier to head him off.

  “What are you doing here, Fourcade?” Kemp asked, making a face as if he’d just bitten into something sour. “Shouldn’t you be home filling out your paperwork for unemployment benefits?”

  “We need lights,” Nick said. “How many have you got in that toy truck?”

  “I don’t take orders from you.”

  “Fine. I’ll get them myself. Stay away from my crime scene.” He turned to the two nearest deputies and called out, “Wilson! Rodrigue! I need standing lights back here! And hurry up! There’s rain coming! Let’s get a pop-up tent back here, too. Check the crime scene van.”

  “Stay the hell out of my van!” Kemp barked.

  Nick sidestepped him and kept walking. Thunder had begun to rumble in the distance. If the wind came up, they stood the chance of losing trace evidence that might have been left on or around the body. If it started to rain, they were in for a miserable evening.

  From the corner of his eye he could see they had caught Dutrow’s attention, and the sheriff was coming toward them now, his face set in an iron scowl.

  Reporters called out to him.

  “Sheriff! Sheriff!”

  “Is the body Nora Florette?”

  “Is it the missing girl?”

  “Is Fourcade still on the case?”

  Here we go, Nick thought, stopping a dozen feet short of the barrier tape as Dutrow ducked under it.

  “Fourcade, what are you doing here?” he demanded, his voice tight and low, his back to the crowd.

  “My job,” Nick answered calmly, refusing to back up as the sheriff advanced.

  Kemp jumped in from the side, furious. “You told me he was gone!”

  “Keep your voice down!” Dutrow warned.

  “Here’s your audience, Sheriff,” Nick said, gesturing toward the crowd like a game show host. “You can fire me right here in front of them, and I will walk straight to Kimberly Karstares and tell her the reason you fired me is that I can connect Keith Kemp, your number one crime scene investigator, to Genevieve Gauthier in Houma when you were both in uniforms.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Kemp wheeled on him. “I told you I don’t know that woman!”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You’re calling me a liar?”

  Nick shrugged. “You are what you are. It makes no matter. Lie all you want. Me, I have the truth in my pocket.”

  As Kemp went to lunge at him, Dutrow put himself between them, grabbing hold of Keith Kemp with both hands, pushing him a step backward. Behind them, the television cameras and still cameras were jockeying for position, and the reporters were shouting questions like a pack of barking dogs.

  “Go back to the van!” Dutrow ordered, his face inches from Kemp’s.

  Kemp’s eyes bugged out. “You’re gonna let him get away with this? What the fuck—?”

  “Let it go!” Dutrow growled, driving him backward.

  Kemp leaned around him, jabbing a finger at Nick like a spear. “Fuck you, Fourcade! You don’t threaten me and get away with it!”

  Nick followed them step by step, ever just barely out of reach of Keith Kemp. “If the truth is a threat to you, Keith, you’re in the wrong line of work. But then I don’t suppose either of you want the general public knowing that the reason Mr. Kemp here no longer carries a badge is that he was trading criminal charges for sex back then.”

  “That’s a damn lie, you coonass son of a bitch!” Kemp shouted, trying to jump around Dutrow to get at Nick.

  Nick arched a brow. “Really? Chief Irvin is a liar? I’m sure he’ll be disappointed to hear that you said so, Keith.”

  Kemp tried one last time to lunge around Dutrow. The sheriff, a bigger, stronger man, wrapped his arms around Kemp and shoved him backward like a tackling dummy, toward the barrier tape and the mob beyond. “Get in the goddamn van and keep your mouth shut!”

  As Dutrow let go, Kemp stumbled and fell under the tape. He came back up to his feet on the other side, livid and red-faced, shouting without a care for the reporters recording the spectacle.

  “Fuck this shit!” he shouted, backing toward the van. “You’re gonna pay, Fourcade!”

  As he reached the vehicle, he turned around and walked right past it, and kept on walking.

  Nick watched him dispassionately, thinking about the amount of rage contained in Keith Kemp, wondering just how far that rage might push him. The police chief in Houma had confessed to Gus Noblier that there had been some rumors at the time. An accusation had been made. Kemp had resigned not long after he had written up Genevieve Gauthier for a DUI, and possession charges against her had mysteriously disappeared.

  “That was a mistake,” Genevieve had told Nick. Nine months later she had given birth to a baby boy.

  “Your career is over, Fourcade,” Dutrow said. He stood so close Nick could smell his mouthwash. He could see where he had nicked his chin shaving and tried to hide the cut with makeup.

  “I think not,” Nick said quietly. “There’s no way you didn’t know about Kemp, yet you brought him here, just the same. Now a woman he had a history with is attacked, her little boy is
killed, and you send him to the crime scene to collect the evidence? That is not gonna look good on your résumé, Kelvin.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, taking a step back. “I have a homicide to deal with.”

  * * *

  * * *

  SHARON’S HEART WAS racing as she drove up over the curb and into Lafayette Park, her car bucking like a horse. There were vehicles everywhere, parked haphazardly and abandoned. She could see the harsh glow of artificial lights off to one side of the walking path fifty yards ahead. She could see the gathered crowd of people swarming like insects around the light.

  A deputy appeared in front of her, waving his arms, yelling at her to stop.

  She hit the brakes, slammed the car into Park, and fell out of the vehicle onto her hands and knees on the grass. Her injured arm buckled beneath her, the pain shooting through her like white-hot electricity.

  “Ma’am! We don’t need any more people down there,” the deputy said, coming toward her. “We’re trying to contain the scene.”

  Sobbing, her left arm held tight against her body, Sharon scrambled to her feet. The deputy was still talking. She couldn’t hear him over the pulse roaring in her ears, and she didn’t care. He reached for her as she tried to hurry past him, grabbing her by the shoulder. She cried out and wrenched herself from his grasp, trying to run, stumbling, and somehow getting her feet back under her.

  “Cameron! Cameron!” she screamed, running toward the crowd.

  She couldn’t find her son.

  A body had been found in the park he walked through every day.

  Panic rose with bile in her throat.

  I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE.

  What if he had killed himself? What if that was what he had meant—that he didn’t want to be here, in this life?

  She thought of him standing in the rain at the edge of the swimming pool in the middle of the night.

  What if he had meant to step into the pool and drown?

  She thought of him standing in the kitchen this morning, sobbing.

  She had promised to make everything all right.

  There was a dead body in the park.

  He had left the front door open . . .

  “Cameron! Cameron!”

  People on the fringe of the crowd were turning to look at her as if she were a crazy person. She didn’t care.

  Kelvin’s vehicle was parked just behind the mob. If she could get to him, she could get an answer. He would be in charge. He would know what to do.

  “Cameron! Cameron!”

  She pushed her way through the crowd, not caring about manners, not worrying what anyone would think. She felt just this side of wild, acting on instinct. As she wedged her way through the people, she caught a glimpse of Kelvin on the other side of the crime scene tape, the picture of authority as he gave orders to one of his people.

  “Kelvin!” she called, pushing her way to the front of the crowd.

  He looked right at her, his expression a mix of shock and annoyance.

  “Kelvin!” she sobbed. “Kelvin, help! I can’t find Cameron! I can’t find him!”

  He came toward her, scowling, ignoring the garbled cacophony of questions being shouted by the reporters.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, taking hold of her upper arm and drawing her with him, under the crime scene tape, away from the mob. Beyond him she could see deputies and other people milling around an area set off by several bright, freestanding lights.

  “I can’t find Cameron!” she cried, stumbling as she tried to keep up with his long strides. “I’m afraid! I saw the news on TV—about a body in the park. Is it him? Is he dead?” she asked as the hysteria rose within. “Oh, my God, is it him?”

  Kelvin leaned in close, his grip tightening on her arm. “Stop it!” he snapped, close to her ear. “Get hold of yourself, for God’s sake!”

  “Tell me!” she demanded, the fear reaching around her throat like a hand, choking her. Pressure built in her head until she thought it would explode.

  Kelvin looked down at her with disdain and disgust, this man who was supposed to love her and care about her.

  “Tell me!” she shouted.

  “I don’t know!”

  “You don’t care!” she said. “You wanted him gone anyway!”

  She looked toward the deputies and saw Detective Broussard. They were gathered around the body.

  Sharon thought she might vomit at the idea that this could be her son on the ground, dead. She should never have left Cameron alone. She should never have told him she was sending him away. What kind of mother sent her child away because of a man?

  “I have to see him,” she said, trying to pull free.

  “Sharon, no!” Kelvin said, holding on to her.

  Detective Broussard was coming toward them, looking concerned.

  “I have to see him!” Sharon said again, trying to pull back out of his grip.

  “No!” Kelvin grabbed her by both shoulders so hard she thought her bones might snap. “I can’t let you!”

  “Let me go!” She looked to Detective Broussard. “Is it Cameron? I have to see him!”

  “We don’t know who it is,” she said.

  “It’s not Cameron?”

  The look on her face made a chill go through Sharon—carefully arranged neutrality meant not to give away bad news. But she could see in Broussard’s eyes the truth was something terrible, something hideous.

  “We can’t tell who it is,” she said carefully.

  “I know my own child!” Sharon shouted. “Let me see him!”

  “Sharon, no!” Kelvin snapped. “Stop this right now!”

  She turned back on him, her face twisting at the bitterness of the truth. “This is your fault! If it’s Cameron, this is your fault! You never wanted him!”

  Furious, he turned so his back was to the crowd and she was hidden from their view. They couldn’t see the vicious look on his face or see the hysterical woman who was embarrassing him.

  “Let go of her!” Detective Broussard ordered as she tried to wedge herself between them. “I’ll take care of her.”

  As Kelvin let go, Sharon fell into the detective, who embraced her and walked her away from Kelvin’s anger and away from the bright lights and the onlookers.

  She felt limp, spent, her body just a sack of bones and tears.

  “Here, sit,” the detective told her, helping her ease down onto a tree stump.

  “Sharon, why do you think this might be Cameron?” the detective asked her, kneeling down in front of her.

  Sharon looked at her, at her swollen lip, remembering their encounter that morning like a strange bad dream. If she said nothing about it, maybe it wouldn’t be true.

  “Have you checked with Cameron’s friends to make sure he isn’t with any of them?”

  “He doesn’t have any friends,” she murmured.

  She should have tried to help him with that, she thought. She should have enrolled him in some activities where he might have better fit in instead of giving in to Kelvin’s insistence that he play football. None of this would be happening if she had done that.

  In an instant, every mistake she had ever made ran through her mind like a movie on fast-forward. She hadn’t done enough to protect Cameron. Even in her effort to save him from a father who didn’t love him, she had saved herself first. And in her effort to get him a better man for a role model, she had thought first of herself and what she thought she wanted, and what she wanted people who didn’t matter to think of her. Now she had lost everything, and Cameron had lost everything.

  “Please let me see him,” she begged, hanging onto the detective’s arm.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t,” Detective Broussard said. “I can’t tell you it’s Cameron, and I can’t tell you it’s not, and I can’t let you loo
k, Sharon. I’m really sorry.”

  “What color is his hair? I would know by his hair.”

  “It’s . . . It’s too dark to tell.”

  “You’re lying,” Sharon said. She could feel it, just like she could feel the dread certainty that her son was gone. “Did he kill himself? Is that why you’re not telling me?”

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because he didn’t want to be here,” she murmured as she started to cry. “He didn’t want to be here, and now he’s gone.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  He watched from a distance, up in the branches of an oak tree, hidden from view and sheltered from the weather as the rain began to fall in big, fat drops. He watched the people below with a sense of unreality, like he was watching a movie from across the street.

  At first there had been just the body, hidden from view. Then the body and the two women. Then the body and the two women and a sheriff’s deputy. Then the others began to arrive in cars and on foot, all in a hurry. The crowd swelled, people put up lights around the body, and then a white pop-up tent over the body. Then the rain had begun to fall, and the crowd got smaller, and the cars left. A hearse carted the body away.

  And then there was no one, and no lights, and he was alone, floating in space, feeling numb and empty. He didn’t think about how good it had felt to pound that rock over and over and over. He didn’t think about stupid Nora or Vanessa Theriot, or anything else he had done. None of that seemed any more real than photographs in a magazine or pages in a storybook. It was all just a bad dream.

  The storm was coming harder as he dropped out of the tree. Thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, the wind came up. He walked out of the woods and stood on the path and let the rain flow over him and wash away the blood.

  After a while, drenched to the bone, he started walking.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Genevieve stood at the back of the TV room, clinging to the doorframe, watching the news coverage. A body had been found in the park near the schools. She wondered if it was Nora. She wondered how long the body had been there. Days had gone by since anyone had seen her, not that anyone in the Florette household would have noticed or cared.