by Alex MacLean
Audra said, “Bullying has always been around. But it’s different nowadays. Not like when we were kids.”
Mooney continued to write. “It’s no longer confined to the schoolyard,” she said. “The Internet has changed the playing field. Made the world a smaller place. Bullies can reach other kids right in their homes and on their cell phones.”
“I know.”
Mooney closed the folder, dropped the pen on top. “I hear Daphne is communicating better.”
Audra nodded. “She’s starting to form words now. Only monosyllables. She struggles to get them out. Stutters. Gets her words mixed up sometimes. She’ll need speech therapy.”
“Can she write?”
“Yes. She understands what you say to her, she just has trouble talking back. She has to think her way through everything. The doctor doubts she’ll be able to multitask for some time. I’m just happy she’s showing signs of improvement.”
Mooney gave her a compassionate smile. “That’s very good news. Is there paper in her room?”
“Yes.”
“Has she mentioned...um...the suicide attempt?”
“I don’t think she remembers.”
“No?”
Audra shook her head. “The other day she thought it was still March. She couldn’t understand how the snow disappeared so fast.”
“Did you tell her what month it was?”
“I did.”
“How’d she react?”
“She cried.”
Mooney propped her elbows on the desk, folded her hands together, and rested her chin on top of them. “Did you tell her what happened to her?”
“She never asked.”
Mooney fell quiet for a long moment. “I’ll see if she really has no memory. Teens aren’t always truthful. She might be faking amnesia. I’ve seen it before. I need to make sure she’s no longer a threat to herself or anyone else.”
Audra tilted her head. “You’re not going to bring up the attempted suicide, are you?”
“No, no. If she doesn’t remember, it’s best if we just leave it alone.”
“Can I join you?”
“Yes,” Mooney said, lowering her hands. “I was going to ask you to sit in with us.”
She gathered up her folder, and Audra followed her out of the office. They took an elevator to the seventh floor. Yesterday, doctors had felt Daphne’s condition had improved to the point where she no longer needed to be in the PICU. They had transferred her to the pediatric medical unit.
Her room was cozy, with walls painted in a soft pastel shade of cinnamon. It had its own bathroom with a shower and a small guest bed so family members could stay overnight.
The upper portion of her bed was inclined, and she gazed out the window at the dark sky as Audra and Mooney walked into the room. To Audra, she seemed lonely sitting there. After working only one day in the past week, Daniel had grudgingly gone back.
When Daphne saw Audra, a big smile exploded on her face, and her eyes brightened.
“Muh...Mom.”
Audra leaned over the bed and kissed her forehead. “Hi, honey.”
Daphne turned an inquisitive stare on Mooney, giving her clothes a quick once-over. Audra watched her smile slowly drop away.
“This is Dr. Mooney,” she told her. “She just wants to talk to you for a bit. Okay?”
Daphne took a few seconds to respond. Her nod came as a small movement of the chin.
Mooney introduced herself, pulled up a chair, and sat down. She opened the folder on her legs.
“Bet you want to get out of here soon, huh?” she said in a calm voice.
Daphne stared at her, then frowned.
“Try using shorter sentences,” Audra said. “Sorry. I should’ve told you. She still has trouble understanding more than a few words at a time.”
Mooney tipped her head back. “Gotcha.” She tried again. “Going home soon?”
The corners of Daphne’s mouth curled up slightly. “Yeah.”
“Better at home. Right?”
Daphne nodded.
“I hear a few days.”
“G-g-good.”
Mooney gave her a warm smile. “Want to write? That easier?”
Daphne gave another nod. There was a pen and a small stack of paper on the bedside table. Audra gave it all to Daphne, then placed a hand on the head of the mattress.
“I just wanted to talk,” Mooney said. “About you. How you’re feeling. Stuff like that.”
Daphne bent to the paper, slowly scratching out the word okay. Her beautiful cursive writing had disappeared. The letters were now big and awkward, like the scrawl of a young child.
Mooney leaned over and looked at the paper. “Great,” she said.
She went on to discuss Daphne’s home life, her hopes and dreams for the future. What she wanted to be when she got older. If she had plans for marriage and children. Mooney never brought up the topic of suicide or depression. She stayed away from anything negative.
“How’s school?” she asked.
Audra watched Daphne’s face for an emotional response—a flinch, a blink, a swallow. Something that suggested Mooney had hit a live wire of hurt or painful memory. Nothing but a blank stare.
Daphne wrote, Good.
“Like school?”
Yes.
“Have good grades?”
Yes.
Mooney smiled at her. “Lots of friends?”
Daphne’s response was immediate, A few.
“Who’s your best friend?”
Tabby.
Daphne pointed to the window ledge, at the bouquet of flowers with the stuffed bumblebee inside it. Then she bent her head to the paper and scratched her pen across it.
She gave me that.
Audra felt her heart split in half when she saw those words. She wondered if Tabitha Landes would ever visit again.
Mooney said, “It doesn’t matter how many friends you have in life. You only need one good friend. Right?”
Daphne paused, and Audra could sense her struggling to string the words together in her mind.
Mooney put a hand to her chest. “I’m sorry. Too much?”
Daphne shook her head and smiled.
Mooney pointed to another bouquet. “Who gave you those?”
Daphne wrote on the paper, My teacher and classmates.
“Nice of them.” Mooney reached for Daphne’s hand, gave it a little squeeze. “You’re precious, you know. Get well soon. Okay?”
Mooney closed her folder and rose to her feet. As she started for the door, Audra told Daphne she’d be right back, then she followed Mooney out of the room. They walked up the corridor, stopping at the elevators.
“So what do you think?” Audra asked.
Mooney frowned. “I think she has partial amnesia.” She looked into Audra’s eyes, her own serious now. “That video on Daphne’s laptop. Delete it.”
“I will.”
Mooney pushed a button on the wall to summon an elevator.
“I’ll do a brief follow-up with her in the coming days,” she said. “Before she’s discharged, I’m going to give you a safety plan. It’ll have warning signs for suicidal behavior, phone numbers, etcetera.”
“Okay. Sure.”
A chime rang, and the elevator doors sighed open. Mooney stepped inside. She lifted her hand in a wave just as the doors shut.
Audra returned to Daphne’s room. As she approached the bed, she saw Daphne’s eyes were moist.
“Honey. What’s wrong?”
Daphne’s lips quivered. “What...hap.” She scowled and struck the mattress with a fist.
“Don’t get mad.” Audra brushed the hair away from her daughter’s face. “It’s frustrating. I know. Give it time. You’ll work through it.”
Daphne reached for the paper. Her hand shook as she scrawled out letters. She held out the piece of paper, drooping off the ends of her fingers.
Audra took it and read the words.
What happened to me?
>
The air in the room suddenly turned cold, and Audra felt her skin rise. She looked into Daphne’s sad, dark eyes, trying to shake those terrible images of Saturday morning and how close she’d come to losing her.
Audra sat on the edge of the bed, laid a hand on Daphne’s wrist.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I was out. Came home. Found you. Unconscious.”
Daphne continued to stare at her, then she lowered her head. Her eyes grew distant, wavering back and forth.
Jaw clenched tight, Audra watched her.
Mooney’s words echoed in her mind: I think she has partial amnesia.
Audra wondered how long the amnesia would last. What if a trigger unwound that memory reel of not only the suicide attempt but the bullying too?
What then?
How devastating would it be for Daphne?
For all of them?
52
Halifax, June 18
3:43 p.m.
When Seth saw the pimped-out Honda Accord, he knew Todd Dory had given him the right address again. The car sat in a paved lot on Charles Street beside a two-story, square box of a house with light blue siding, white shutters, and a bold red door.
Looking the place over, Seth figured it had been converted into two or four small apartments inside. Lee Higgins supposedly lived in number two.
Seth had no idea what the man even looked like. He only knew the chimp-brained cretin had murdered Camille and left Seth to die in his own bed. For that, the punishment needed to be brutal and painful and spectacular. Even more so than the other two. Maybe something involving gasoline and a match. Roast the son of a bitch alive. Each breath that man sucked into his lungs was a travesty to the beauty he took away from the world.
Seth drove a Mazda 2 he’d rented from Budget over in Dartmouth. As he coasted slowly past the building, he noticed an auto repair shop on the other side. Four bay doors were open, and mechanics worked away on vehicles hoisted above them.
Seth couldn’t get turned around; Charles Street went only one way. He drove down past Joseph Howe Elementary to Creighton Street, where he hung a right and found himself in a frustrating maze of other one-way streets just to make it back.
The leafy neighborhood had lots of cars parked at the curbs, making it easy to blend in. He tucked the Mazda in behind a blue sedan just up the street on the opposite side of Higgins’s address. He lowered his window and killed the engine. Sat back in the seat and watched for the bold, red door to open. Then he could finally see the face behind the scarecrow mask.
Around him came a mélange of sounds: voices talking and laughing, distant thumping music, city buses squeaking and squealing, engines revving and slowing.
At four thirty, a navy-blue Impala rolled by and pulled up to the curb in front of Higgins’s building. Seth watched a middle-aged man step out. He wore black pants and a white shirt under a khaki sport coat with the lower button fastened. His eyes looked tired and sad, his face chiseled with lines. Gray patches dabbed his hair at the temples.
Seth slid his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose, squinting over the top. He recognized the man. He was the cop who had visited him in the hospital. A decent man, loyal to his job. What was his name? Seth couldn’t remember.
The cop reached into his car and brought out a brown paper bag. He shut the car door, heading toward the building.
As Seth watched him disappear inside, he fished his wallet from a back pocket and rifled through the few business cards he had inside. He found the one the cop had given him.
Detective Allan Stanton, it read. Homicide.
53
Halifax, June 18
4:32 p.m.
Lee Higgins wore a black tank top and black jeans when he answered the door. His entire right arm bore a tattoo of a grim reaper holding a sickle in one hand and resting the other on a gravestone. Skulls littered the ground at his feet. Angels, candles, and pocket watches inked a full sleeve on his other arm.
Without preface, he said, “What the fuck you want, Stanton?”
Allan reached into the paper bag and lifted out the bagged devil’s mask.
“This,” he said. “Ever see it before?”
Higgins tilted his chin up, flexing the thick cords in his neck and narrowing his eyes on the mask. His Adam’s apple bobbed once. The prolonged stare, the sudden stillness of his body, told Allan he knew something.
“No,” Higgins said. “Should I?”
“You tell me.”
“Why’s the bag say evidence? Evidence of what?”
“I found this in Blake’s apartment,” Allan said. “It seems Todd ordered three masks last October, along with some of those...um, colored contacts you wear to make your eyes look scary. Or to disguise their true color.”
Higgins’s jaw muscles bunched up, and some fight crept into his gaze.
He said, “So? What’re you getting at?”
“What’d you guys use them for?”
“You guys?”
Allan nodded. “Well, the three of you were pretty tight. I’m thinking one mask went to Todd. This one went to Blake. The third went to you.”
“Uh, I stopped going out for candy when I was twelve. So fuck off, Stanton. Go sniff around someone else’s door.”
Allan gave him a faint smile. “The scarecrow.”
Higgins frowned. “Say what?”
“The mask. That’s the one you had, right? Todd had the zombie one. You had the scarecrow.”
Higgins didn’t say anything. He held Allan with his dead eyes, and Allan could sense the gears grinding away inside his brain.
He stuffed the mask into the paper bag. “I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Bottom of what?”
“The killer.” Allan held up the bag. “There’s a connection here.”
Higgins rolled his gaze to the bag, then back to Allan’s face. He opened his mouth to speak and closed it up again.
Allan nodded. “Yeah. I really said too much.”
He turned and walked away. Behind him, Higgins slammed the door shut. Allan knew he’d gambled by bringing the mask here, but he’d gotten the reaction he’d hoped for. He also stirred the pot.
He went outside and jumped in his car. Through the windshield, he spotted the unmarked Expedition across the street from Joseph Howe School. It wasn’t the best place to station yourself, but in an area packed with one-way streets, your options were limited.
Allan pulled his car up alongside the vehicle and rolled down the passenger window. Constable Weisberg leaned his head out.
“How’s it going?” Allan asked.
“All quiet, Detective. Haven’t seen anyone hanging around.”
“Did Higgins go anywhere today?”
Weisberg gave a nod. “Went to Bruno’s Fitness after lunch. Stayed for about ninety minutes and came home. Been in there ever since.”
“Okay,” Allan said. “Good. Whatever you do, don’t lose him.”
“I won’t, Detective.”
Allan gave him a thumbs-up. “Take care.”
He grabbed a coffee and sandwich at a bistro downtown called the Wired Monk, then he headed back to his office.
For several hours, he pored over burglary and robbery reports from the previous October into early November; reviewed the Dory and Kaufman case files again; picked through crime scene photos; reread witness statements; and watched some security footage from the toll bridges the night Kaufman was murdered.
Allan sat back with a weary yawn. He stretched his arms over his head, lacing his fingers behind his neck.
There were a lot of questions but not many answers.
He agreed with Audra’s initial theory—the murder of Todd Dory had been personal, fueled by a high degree of rage and revenge. So was Kaufman’s murder. The two of them—probably even Higgins too—had provoked this bloodshed. But what had they done? It had to have been something bad.
The masks, Allan decided, provided the answer to the entire investigation. He had little d
oubt about it. Going back to his computer, he printed off the pictures of the masks and contact lenses Todd Dory had purchased. Then he arranged them on his desk.
He picked up the photo of the white contacts and stared at them.
White eyes. White eyes.
They had bothered him when he read about them in Audra’s files, and they still bothered him. He held the picture next to the one with the scarecrow mask and shook his head. Then he moved it next to the zombie mask and kept it there for a minute, his gaze bouncing back and forth between them.
No breath stirred his body.
White eyes. A white-eyed zombie.
Whoa. Allan perked up. That was it. He cursed himself for not realizing it sooner. He’d been too focused on cases in October, specifically around Halloween. This had happened in late November, a month before Christmas. Allan had been the lead investigator, but the case quickly fizzled out on him.
A brutal home invasion.
Murder.
Three suspects in masks.
The family had been attacked while they slept in their beds. The wife had been pronounced dead at the scene. The husband had barely survived. It had taken Allan three days before he could get in to see the man because doctors had him in an induced coma to try to save his life.
Allan went downstairs and dug out the boxes containing the files. Lugging them back up to his office, he picked out the folder with the husband’s statements inside.
“One suspect is six feet, possibly a little taller. Approximately two hundred pounds.”
The physical description fit Todd Dory to the letter.
“Suspect wore black clothing. Disguised himself with a full-head mask of a zombie or corpse. He possibly wore colored contact lenses. Victim describes the suspect as having white irises. Small black holes at the pupils.”
Allan glanced at the photo of the white contacts. Small holes were punched out in the center of them to allow the wearer to see.
“Victim has trouble describing the suspect who attacked him. Claims he was bigger than the one in the hallway. He also disguised himself in a mask with no ears.”