Whittaker 02 The One We Love

by Donna White Glaser

  I slowed on the gravel driveway, not wanting to ping rocks off my car. Someone was keeping up with the maintenance on it, though. It looked recently graded, and I wasn’t scared of dropping into a crater hole. The driveway was at least a quarter mile, but it was hard to estimate the length because it curved around the side of a hill, causing the house to be nestled in a nice windbreak. A big, old wooden barn stood a short distance away from the house, outbuildings and pole sheds scattered around it like satellites. An elaborate wooden swing set off to the side indicated the presence of children.

  I’d expected an old-fashioned, two-story farmhouse but found a tidy little ranch, almost a clone of Mitch and Karissa’s, instead. My heart skipped a beat when I sighted the Wrangler parked out front. I pulled in and parked next to it.

  “Think anyone’s home?” Paul asked.

  It was quiet. Nobody came to the door or window to see who had pulled in. It felt like somebody was home, though, and I could only hope that the somebody wasn’t currently loading the “Welcome, strangers!” shotgun.

  Paul and I got out and he followed me to the front door. “Don’t look so scared,” I said, voice trembling.

  “I’m not,” he whispered.

  I knocked. We waited. Knocked again. Still nothing. Gesturing to Paul to stay put, I walked back out to stand on the sidewalk in front of the windows.

  “Karissa?” I called. “We’re not here to hurt you. I know what happened. I just want to make sure you’re safe.” I kept my hands out a little from my side, palms open, standing in full view. “Karissa?” I tried again. “I know what happened to Regina. I know that you know what happened and that’s why you’re scared and running. Mitch is helping you, too, isn’t he? I’m sorry if I scared him yesterday. I was just … just trying to help.”

  The door flew open so fast I thought it was going to knock Paul off the stoop. Without the wedges, Karissa looked like a pixie. A thin, haunted pixie with circles under her eyes so dark they looked like bruises. I double-checked to make sure they weren’t.

  “That was you?” she said.

  “Yeah. It was. I’m not here to hurt you, I promise. I think I know what’s going on.”

  “Oh, now you think you know what’s going on, huh? A minute ago, you knew.”

  I swallowed. Possibly because I’d just noticed the fillet knife she held at her side. I had history with knives, and it wasn’t good. “I know Regina was killed. It wasn’t an accident. She was pushed, wasn’t she? Did you see it?”

  Her face paled. “No. I didn’t.”

  At first, I thought she was denying the whole thing, but then I realized she was just being literal.

  “I’ve got Mo-mo,” I said. “I should have brought him.” A seemingly stupid non sequitur, but she understood and nodded. Neither of us wanted to say it out loud. She hadn’t seen Regina killed. Mikey had.

  “How is he doing?” I asked. Paul stood next to me, a bewildered look on his face, but he had enough sense to stay quiet. Maybe he’d seen the knife, too.

  She stood silent, eyes boring into my own. Reflecting the horror and futile anger of a helpless mother. Helpless, because she couldn’t change the past. Couldn’t go back and erase it from her child’s mind.

  She opened the door wide, motioning us in.

  CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

  She stopped off in the living room to pluck her fourteen-month-old out of an old-fashioned wooden playpen. The new-and-improved Elmo lay on its side in a corner. Mikey had, indeed, moved on.

  Karissa led us to the kitchen. After dropping the knife in the sink, she settled the baby in a high chair and scattered a handful of cereal on the tray for Myka to pick at. The rest of us sat at the table, hands wrapped around cups of hot coffee trying to find solace in the warmth.

  “He’s having nightmares about it. At least, I think so.”

  “What do you mean ‘think so’?” I asked.

  “He won’t tell me about them. He wakes up crying, though. And he’s wet the bed twice. He stopped doing that years ago.”

  “Have you asked him if he saw anything?”

  She looked uncomfortable. “I’m afraid to. I didn’t want to make it worse, you know? I figure he’ll forget about it a lot quicker if we just leave it alone. That’s why I brought him here. He knows he’s safe here.”

  The house was quiet. Grammy didn’t seem to be around and Mikey had yet to make an appearance either. “Where is he now?”

  “He’s got a fort up in the barn loft that he plays in. He likes to pet the horses, too. I took him out of school for a few days.”

  I licked my lips. “Is it just the nightmares that he won’t talk about? Has he said anything at all? That night, maybe? Or the next day?”

  She just shook her head, looking away, out the window to the barn. If she didn’t ask Mikey what he’d seen that night, then maybe it wouldn’t be true. Maybe there wasn’t a murder. Maybe they weren’t hiding from the killer.

  “Do you know who it was?” I asked.

  Again, Karissa shook her head. “I was afraid to ask. I still am.” She started to cry. Denial can only carry you so far, and then you have to face the truth. Unless you’re an alcoholic—then it’ll last as long as the booze does.

  Myka studied her solemnly, then his face crumpled and he started to whimper. He had stray cereal O’s stuck all over his face and body. One dotted his cheek, like a grainy teardrop.

  Paul walked over to the drainer and poured a drink of water. He brought it to Karissa, then stood next to her, resting his hand on her shoulder. He didn’t pat. He didn’t fidget. I was proud of him.

  Karissa took a deep, shuddery breath, drank the water off in one gulp, and pulled herself together. She smiled at Myka and gave him some more cereal. Thankfully, the baby calmed as soon as his mother did. Paul sat back down.

  “You’re a shrink, right?” she asked. “Can you talk to him?”

  “I can, but the important thing is to make sure he’s safe. You need to go to the police, Karissa. He has to tell them what he saw, who he saw.”

  I felt her retreat emotionally. I understood; I’d been indoctrinated in an avoid-the-police-at-all-costs mentality myself.

  “I don’t like the police. What if they take him away?” Her voice cracked on the last sentence.

  “Why would they?” I asked.

  She met my eyes. “Because I didn’t keep him safe,” she whispered.

  “That’s not your fault,” Paul said. “You can’t help it if someone at the shelter is bad. And you are keeping him safe. You got him away.”

  “But there was that thing with Mitch. You know … going to the shelter in the first place and all that. That was all my fault.”

  Paul and I both frowned at the classic victim mantra.

  “No, really,” she said. “I mean, he pushed me, yeah, but he was pushing me away. We were arguing about the bills again and the baby started crying. I was so mad I went after Mitch. I didn’t see him pick the baby up or I wouldn’t have… Anyway, he just stuck his arm out to fend me off, kinda.” She paused as though there was something more she wanted to say. Her face registered guilt.

  I waited, but when it seemed like she wasn’t able to go on, I asked, “Were those your meds at the trailer?”

  “What were you doing in there?”

  Whoops. I reverted to honesty again. It was getting to be a habit. “Looking for you. And cleaning. Tallie needs to rent it out. You guys left a lot of your stuff behind.”

  “Grammy did. All those dolls.” She shuddered. “Can’t say I’m sorry to see those go.”

  I made one of those therapist “mm hmm” sounds designed to acknowledge a comment without judging. Handy things, those. Without it, I might have whooped in agreement.

  “I wanted to send Mitch over to get our stuff, but we were afraid someone would see him and realize he still had contact with us. How did you figure out where we were, anyway?” Her face grew tight again. Apparently, reminders of my snooping were not confidence builders. />
  Again, with the honesty. “Through Tyler’s phone number on the side of Mitch’s truck and, um, we followed him on Sunday. Only to the Cornell exit. Not all the way here.” As if only partially stalking wasn’t creepy at all. I left out the part about nearly running out of gas. Maybe if she believed we had second thoughts, she’d ignore the utter disregard for her and her family’s privacy. For good reason, though. Time to remind her of that.

  “Who scared you off, Karissa? Tallie said a social worker came to your grandmother’s house. You took off right after.”

  “Tallie’s got a big mouth.” After a short pause, she said, “It was Clotilde. She said she was just following up. Checking on us since we left under such ‘tragic circumstances.’” Her fingers wiggled quote marks over the last two words.

  “Did she ask you to come back to the shelter?” Paul asked.

  “She tried, but Grammy ran her off.” We smiled in mutual Grammy-appreciation. “I knew something was wrong. I even knew it the night it happened, but I didn’t know exactly what. Mikey had been off playing. He can kee”p himself busy, not like some of those kids with their noses stuck to the TV. When I found him, he was hiding in our bedroom and had peed hisself. He wouldn’t talk to me. Not at all. I thought he was upset that he’d had an accident, so I just got him changed and made him go to bed.

  “The next morning … That’s when I figured out that he’d seen it. But I didn’t think it was … I mean, I just thought he’d gotten scared at seeing her fall. I pulled him in the bathroom and asked him did he see her fall, but he still wouldn’t say anything. And then I got afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Afraid because he wouldn’t say what happened. I thought, maybe …” Karissa’s face convulsed, tears and snot streaming. She put a shaking hand over her mouth, unable or unwilling to speak her greatest fear out loud. Just like her son.

  “You thought maybe Mikey did it?”

  She covered her face and sobbed. And sobbed. Paul went for more water and I started a search for tissue. Not finding any, I located the bathroom and appropriated a roll of toilet paper.

  Several moments later, as Karissa came up for air, I noticed her son crossing the lawn in front of the barn. Karissa saw him coming, too.

  “Oh, crap. You guys have to go.”

  “Karissa, you have to let us help you. If we found you, so can they.”

  “I don’t want him to see you. You need to leave.” She began herding us out of the kitchen, shooing us ahead of her like errant chickens fleeing the coop.

  It wasn’t really fair to press the point, but this was about a child’s life. She was under so much pressure, operating on instinct alone, and she was getting stubborn in her fear. I stopped in the middle of the hall, refusing to budge. “The police can keep him safe, Karissa. You can’t take the chance.”

  “I’m not going to the cops. What if you’re wrong about this? What if Mikey was just freaked out because he saw her fall? Or saw her body? That would scare a kid, too. Or what if they blame him? They can twist things, and Mikey gets confused easy.”

  I’d been raised by a woman who would have sung the Halleluiah Chorus to that speech. And raised by a man who’d died while under police “care.” But I also knew some cops—two, in particular—that I felt I could trust.

  I told this to Karissa and practically begged her to let me talk to one of them. Mikey was coming in the door, his shoes rasping across the porch outside the kitchen door as he took them off.

  “Fine! Whatever. Just go.” She shoved me out the door, closing it with a snap.

  CHAPTER FIFTY NINE

  Paul chattered nonstop for the first three miles. I only half listened, my mind going back over everything we’d just learned. Mikey was in danger. I was sure of it. He’d seen or heard something. Something that had scared him so badly that he couldn’t even tell his mother about it. And it was Clotilde who’d visited them after I did, inciting their retreat to the farm. As much as I disliked her, it didn’t fit with my suspicions, but maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe it was money that was the driving force of the murders.

  “It’s a good thing she agreed to let you talk to the police.” Paul’s voice broke into my reverie. “Are you going to talk to Pete?” Paul knew Durrant from AA too. Pete was one of the few men who willingly hung out with Paul. His awkward neediness scared most off.

  I answered the first part of his comment. “Paul, she agreed because she’s not going to be there when we get back. She’s taking off again. She’s a runner and she’s scared.”

  “What?” He swung around in the seat, looking back through the rear window. “If she leaves, we might never find her again. We have to go back. We’ve got to keep talking to her. Doesn’t she—”

  “No. We have to get to Durrant and get him out there before she can take off. I’m guessing Mitch will go with them this time. And you’re right, there’s no telling where they’ll go so we have to hurry.”

  I was doing 78 mph, bracing on the curves and hugging the center line to keep clear away from the soft gravel edge that would suck me down into the ditch if I wavered too far over. Paul clung gamely to the grab bar over the door and didn’t complain. I was reluctant to take Hwy.53 back to town. At the speed I was going, I was sure to attract the attention of a fine officer of the law. I wasn’t worried about the ticket, but I didn’t want to lose the time.

  Problem was, I didn’t know the area very well. As tempting as taking a back road short cut might be, too often they’d take you miles out of nowhere. They enticed unwary drivers. They seemed to lead in the right direction, looking invitingly straightforward. A clear shot from here to there. But often, after several miles of confident I-found-a-short-cut joy, the road would take a sharp left (or right, depending on which would be most inconvenient). More times than I cared to count, I’d find myself winding my way around farms and creek beds only to have the road suddenly peter out into a cow path, or turn to gravel, or dead end into a corn field.

  I took the highway.

  We made good time, hitting Chippewa Falls in just under twenty-five minutes. I tossed my purse into Paul’s lap. “Find my phone, okay? I don’t have Durrant’s number but—”

  He held the purse away like it’d been dipped in cow shit, horror slicking over his face. “I can’t look in there. That’s … Geez!”

  “Paul, it’s not kryptonite.” And you’re not Superman. Didn’t say it. “Just find it so I can call Sue and get Pete’s number.”

  He peered into its depths warily. Dipping a tentative hand in, he brought out my wallet. Another dip: my makeup case. If he looked inside that he might find my spare tampon. It would kill him.

  Grabbing my purse back, I started rummaging around the bottom. Like most purses these days, it had come with a nice organizer pocket for a cell phone but, for some unknown reason, my phone usually slipped out. Digging deeper, I brought out a pack of gum, a grungy lip balm, and a rectangular, turquoise bit of plastic that I didn’t recognize. It looked like a memory drive, but I didn’t have a turquoise one.

  “Shouldn’t you be looking at the road?” Paul asked.

  I pulled over abruptly, slamming the car into park.

  “Letty? What is that?” He started to reach for the devise, but I pulled it away as dread rose like bile in my throat. “Letty?” Paul tried again.

  “It’s a Buddy tracker,” I said.

  Going back, I buried the speedometer. Paul made little squeaky sounds. I think he was praying. Someone needed to. For once I was hoping I would pick up a police escort. I planned to enter the farm’s driveway with a string of cop cars behind me like a parade.

  No such luck.

  We’d been gone less than an hour, but a different car was parked next to the Wrangler when I skidded up to the house. It looked familiar, like maybe one I’d seen at the shelter, but I wasn’t a car person, and wasn’t certain. Just seeing it made my heart thud against my ribs.

  Nobody answered my knock. I didn’t try a second time. The
door was locked and I went in, Paul following at my heels.

  We found Karissa on the floor, the steak knife next to her. Red splotches of blood spattered across the counter and walls—an impressionistic interpretation of horror—and her head lay in a pool of it. Her breathing was thin and raspy. The baby wailed from somewhere deeper in the house. Grabbing a kitchen towel from the counter, I threw it at Paul. “Help her!” I took off at a run for the back rooms.

  Myka was in his crib, red-faced and screaming full throttle. He was safe. I left him there. A quick run through the house told me we were the only ones there. When I made it back to the kitchen, I found Paul kneeling next to Karissa, heedless of the blood, holding the towel to her head. His cell phone was open on the floor next to him and a woman’s tiny voice issued from it, giving first aid instructions.

  His face had gone ashen and he was shaking so hard that his glasses shook on his nose as he looked up at me. But he held the compress tightly.

  “The baby’s okay. I’ve gotta find Mikey.” My heart was beating so hard I could barely hear myself talk. Paul nodded and turned back to his charge.

  I ran for the barn.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Somebody had slid one of the big, wooden doors slightly open on its track. I could slip in quietly. The problem with that was I didn’t know what—or who—lay beyond. I’d be following directly on the heels of the killer.

  I preferred coming at things from another direction.

  I skirted the barn looking for a side entrance. I didn’t want to face her head on. I had one advantage—I was pretty sure I knew where Mikey was—and I didn’t want to lose it. The weeds were fierce along the side, but a tractor trail made me think I’d find what I was looking for.

  And I did. A regular, people-sized door had been placed midway down the east side. I gripped the metal, D-shaped latch, praying it wouldn’t squeak. The metal was warm from the sun, another factor that worried me. I’d be blinded as soon as I entered the dark interior. Whoever was in there would have me at an advantage so I took the time to close my eyes, cupping my hand over them, willing my eyes to dilate. It gave me time to listen, but if anybody was moving around inside, I couldn’t hear them.