by Joey Ruff
Ape and I sat in silence, but we weren’t left for long as both our host and his portly wife entered the room and occupied the two armchairs.
Mrs. Easter, I noticed, would have been a knock-out fifteen years and fifty pounds ago. As it stood, it appeared she’d eaten most of the cookies baked in their kitchen and given up exercise for other, less physical activities, like pudding diving. I didn’t picture her as the type to starve herself with her grief and, no doubt, worrying about her daughter didn’t do much to suppress her appetite.
Slowly, carefully, Mr. Easter looked at us and said, “So you have news about our Julie?”
Ape looked at me with a gleam in his eye that seemed to implore I let him do all the talking. So I turned back to them and smiled weakly. I nodded.
“The man that took Julie didn’t make it easy for us to find him, but we did.”
Mrs. Easter’s eyes widened hopefully.
“From what we could tell,” he said, “He was a homeless man. We found him squatting in an old, abandoned house.” He nodded to me, and I set the teddy on the coffee table. “We found this.”
Mr. Easter stared at it blankly, but his wife gasped audibly and said, “That was her bear.”
“You’re sure?” Ape said.
“Of course.”
“I’ve never seen that bear before in my life,” her husband said.
She didn’t look at him, but her eyes filled with tears as she said, “She hadn’t had it long. She said it was a gift from her friend, Pierce. Of course, I never found out where she really got it. I assumed she found it at school or something, but I never knew…”
“I thought you said her friend Pierce gave it to her?” Ape asked, a bit confused.
I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I almost said the words for her. “Pierce wasn’t real,” she told Ape. “He was her…imaginary friend.”
My whole body began to tingle. Maybe she had mentioned this Pierce when she hired me, but it hadn’t registered as being that important if she had. Now, given the Gables’ case, there was a whole new light shining on things. And something that had just occurred to me, I had a clue that I’d been overlooking: that stupid bear. If Pierce had given it to her, the bear should remember him. And I’d get to see how make-believe he really was.
“You said imaginary?” Ape asked, confused and surprised. He didn’t know about Adam Gables’. “But what if…”
“How long had she known Pierce?” I asked, blatantly cutting through Ape’s words. I didn’t look at him; I didn’t care if I hurt his feelings. I could explain it later, but not in front of these two.
She thought for a moment and said, “About three, maybe four, weeks.”
“And she went missing on Monday, correct?”
Her reply was hesitant. “Yes.”
I nodded. Caught Ape in my peripheral as he studied me for a moment.
“Excuse me,” said Mr. Easter. “You said you found the bear in that old house. I’m assuming this man was there. Did you find my daughter? Maybe some evidence he was keeping her somewhere else?” There was a forced hope in his eyes, his tone, I could tell he didn’t really believe any of it as he said it. He knew the truth, but he was a fighter, this bloke, and he needed someone to spell it out for him.
“Mr. Easter,” Ape began, “what we found inside that house indicates…”
“We found pieces of her,” I said. I saw the horrified looks that all three of them gave me, the instinctive shrill cry of horror, the gasp of swift pain, that ushered from Mrs. Easter, but I had other things on my mind in that moment, and I needed it to be over. “The man that took her was depraved, and when I found him, he was squatting atop the remains of your daughter, picking her flesh clean with his teeth. He attacked me, and I took his fucking head off.” And then for good measure, I added, “I’m so very sorry. I just thought you should know.” No doubt it sounded real, sincere.
With that, I pulled the envelope out of my jacket pocket and slid it across the coffee table toward Mr. Easter. “There’s still the small matter of my fees.”
In pain and uncertainty, Mr. Easter looked at me and said, “Is this some kind of joke?!”
When I said nothing, the man’s face grew red. He began to shake, and veins in the side of his face began to bulge. He stood, and I didn’t even wait for the command before I stood as well, grabbed the bear from the table and took it with me. I was halfway to the door as he bellowed, “How dare you speak to us that way! I don’t know who you think you are, sir, but you get the Hell out of my house this instant! You don’t have an ounce of tact!”
Mrs. Easter was in tears, and Ape hurried to offer sincere condolences, apologizing furiously for having me as a partner and the shameful way I presented myself. There was something said by someone present about the ambiguity of my mental state, but I didn’t pay it any mind.
I reached for the door knob, froze. Turned back to the room at large and said, “Look, I’m getting out of here, okay, but I want to say this first.” I don’t know how I did it, but the room got quiet, and everyone looked at me. I squared off against Mr. Easter and said, “I’ve lost a daughter. It fucking sucks. But there’s no point in pretenses, mate. I’ve been stabbed, shot, shredded, runthrough, bitten, flogged, filleted and left for dead. I was in a coma for three months. But the one wound that has never healed, not by time, love or tenderness, is losing my Anna.
“I wake every sodding day and have to force myself to look in the mirror. I have to fake a smile and walk around and make myself talk to people like I bloody give a shit, when nothing really matters because the only thing that gave me any sodding joy has been ripped from my arms. You can act all high and mighty like you’re so much better than me, like it’s my words that make everything real for you and fill your life with so much fucking pain that you can’t look me in the eyes, but fuck that shit. Because as soon as the police get a positive ID on the body, they’ll be calling you or possibly coming to visit and telling you the same thing I just told you, and maybe they’ll do it with a little more tact, but they won’t fucking know the tear that it rends in your soul like I do. You can hate me, you can tell me to get the bloody fuck out of your house, but I feel your pain every single day and I have for the last twenty years. I am sorry, sir. I am so…fucking…sorry for your loss that it makes me want to vomit.”
I stopped, took a deep breath. My hands quivered. Then I turned to Ape and said, “I need your phone, mate.” He nodded, slipped it from his pocket, and tossed it to me. I caught it, said, “You finish up here, I’ll wait outside.” And turned and walked through the front door.
It was cooler outdoors and felt divine. I sat on the step, my body still shaking a little, and looked across at the hockey kids in the street. A few of them stopped and turned to me, stared absently. I dialed Anderson’s office.
After a few rings, he answered. “Detective Anderson.”
“It’s Swyftt.”
“Swyftt, you old goat, did you get that list of names I had faxed over?”
I’d forgotten about that. “No. I haven’t been by the office this morning.”
“Oh,” he said. Clearly, that was the topic of conversation he’d been expecting. “Well, I had it faxed last night, so it should be waiting for you when you get in. What can I do ya for this morning?”
“Well.” I talked slowly, not sure how much to give away, not sure how much he’d even believe. “I’ve just run across some new evidence in the Gables’ case that might link Adam’s disappearance to Julie Easter and that house yesterday.”
There was a pregnant silence. Then he said something to someone that wasn’t me, someone in his office. After another moment, he said, “How do you know the name Julie Easter?”
“I was hired to find her. Didn’t I mention that house? I thought at least Stone would’ve said something.”
“Well, boy….” Boy, that killed me. He was younger than me. “I think we both know those Feds play their hands close to their bellies. What they don’t share
with me would fill a library.”
“Understood,” I said. “Listen, the reason I’m calling, Detective, is I was wondering if your boys had identified the bones in that house?”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, son.”
“If I can be frank, Detective, we both know there were at least three bodies found in that bedroom. Plus, the messy one downstairs belonging to Julie Easter.”
“Well, if what you say is true,” the Detective continued, “I wouldn’t be able to share information on an active case with a civilian, professional courtesies aside.”
“I see.”
“Now, I suspect you’re wanting to know because of this new information you say you’ve found on the Gables boy. I can confirm to you that I have not received any new information on that case, especially the kind that would, say, place the boy in said location.” He may have sounded like a dumb hick, but he wasn’t stupid.
As an afterthought, I asked, “I assume your boys found the other bedroom. What do you make of that?”
There was a sigh. “That’s a real puzzlement, Mr. Swyftt. I can’t say’s I’ve ever seen anything like that before. Your thoughts and opinions are probably more informed than mine at present.”
I thought about that for a second and decided he was probably right. As bizarre as that shit was, I’d seen weirder. The general public was typically ignorant of such things, thanks to people like me.
“Thank you. You’ve been helpful.”
“Glad to be of service,” he said. Then I hung up the phone.
Anderson had said Adam’s body wasn’t in that house. I had another lead as to where he might be.
I took a few deep breaths, removed my glove, and grabbed the bear by the neck, stared willfully into those reflective glass eyes. Of course, what I saw was not unexpected. Little blonde Julie Easter, the lamp, the bedroom: the scene that played out when I first touched the bear. Second verse same as the first.
Somehow, I was only getting one memory, and one fairly recent, as well, from what I could gather. Mrs. Easter said she’d only had the bear maybe a month, and she went missing a week ago. Which means that what I was seeing wasn’t even the most recent memory. Somebody had to have taken the bear from Julie and placed it in the closet. But who? The bum? Pierce?
I tried again, feeling the electric buzz of static sweep across my body, and then I was back in the blackness, the faint humming coming from somewhere nearby. Then the little pink lamp clicked on, the little girl’s musical voice came closer. The bear was lifted into the air and squeezed in a savage vice-hold while a tone of innocence proclaimed, “Muffins!”
Julie held the bear out at arm’s length, watching with those blue eyes and curly blonde hair, a smile spread from ear to ear on those rosy cheeks. Then she flashed her teeth, said, “I know what we can do today. A tea party!” Then she giggled.
I felt a tugging then, as the memory began to pull away from me, fading, but I held on, pressed into it. There was a haze, a lot of dark grey images, and from what seemed like a great distance, I could feel my head begin to throb. I heard a voice say, “Where are you?” and realized faintly that it was my voice.
Then I was back in Julie’s room. She had set the bear down at a table and she was pretending to pour from a pink, flowered, ceramic tea pot into a cup and saucer set before “Muffins.” She continued to hum as she poured the pretend tea into three other teacups, and I noticed three dolls, one a Raggedy Anne, all sitting around the table together.
There was a strange muffling noise then, low, strained, and garbled. Julie put the teapot down on the edge of the table and looked up, a big smile sweeping across her features, and she said, “Pierce! You came after all.”
More deep, distorted tones, and Julie stood, moving out of my line of vision. I heard her giggle sweetly, and then everything began to fade again. The scene changed and I saw the charnel house, but from inside the closet, looking out. I saw the skulls on the table and a lit candlestick, the little flame flickering, casting dancing shadows on the wall behind it. Grunting and heavy breathing accompanied the plodding of dull footfalls. And while the sounds were close, I couldn’t see anyone or anything.
Then I saw it: a shape, indistinct, like a water-colored blob, grey and moving slowly, featureless. Like a cloud of gas passing from one side of the room to the other where the candle flame was snuffed. In the blackness, the grey form was lost. The breathing grew heavier, louder, and then began to retreat.
Loud, piercing static hissed and was followed by a long, droning foghorn. I could feel my body shaking as the vision began to fade again, but I steeled my will. Held on tighter, pushed harder, for a moment felt a pain like the rending of a chainsaw against my brain. There was something warm and wet on my face, but I pushed it all away and the unbearably vivid honking of the foghorn became gradually dimmer before it faded altogether.
The static began to focus, and I was in a different room, darker, stranger. It was a bedroom at night. The moonlight spilt in between the curtain of the window nearby, cast skeletal shadows of tree limbs on the lightcolored bedspread.
From where I sat, I could see the footboard of the bed, a small desk in the corner and a model of a flying saucer dangling by a thin wire above it. Posters of Spiderman and Aquaman hung on the wall along with hand-drawn pictures depicting little green men and a man in a cape, all crayon and colored-pencils.
I didn’t realize anyone was in the bed until they grabbed the bear, squeezed, and rolled over with it. I saw the face of a boy, a face I knew, and I about shit myself. Toby Emmerich.
The surprise was enough to distract me, break my focus, and yank me backward suddenly. The darkness of the bedroom swirled and faded as if being sucked down a drain, being replaced by the cold blackness that was the small glass eyes of Muffins the bear.
My head hurt like I’d been run over. Then I was overwhelmed by dizziness and dropped the bear, spinning a little where I sat on the stairs. I had to stabilize myself. I heard, “Jono,” and felt a pair of hands on my shoulders.
Ape put an arm around me, helped me stand, walked me down the stairs to the sidewalk. He’d taken the bear from my feet and was half-walking, half-carrying me toward the Lamborghini. He sat me down in the passenger seat, buckled me in, and shut my door.
A moment later, he was in the driver’s seat and pulling away from the curb. “Are you okay?” he asked. It took a minute, but my head finally stopped spinning.
He handed me a tissue and said, “Your nose is bleeding. What happened to you?”
“Fuck, Ape….”
“What happened?”
“I got a reading from the bear.”
“Another one? And that’s what kicked your ass sideways?”
I had to close my eyes. The light was too bright, the car was too fast, the world outside flew by at dizzying, incredible speeds. “It was like it fought against me. I had to push it further than I’ve had to in…well, ever. I’m getting too old for this shit.” It was true the older I seemed to get, the harder it was to get a decent reading.
“What did you see?”
“Toby Emmerich.”
“The runaway?”
“The sodding runaway.”
“Guess he didn’t really run…”
I fished in my pocket for a minute and pulled out his mobile phone. I dialed the house and waited until Nadia answered. “It’s me,” I said. “Are you dressed?”
“Yeah. What happened? You sound terrible.”
I ignored her. “We’re on our way back. I need you to get my car ready and come with me.”
“Okay, what’s going on?”
“Remember that letter you read this morning? The lady who wants to sue me cuz her kid ran away.”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe he didn’t run away.”
She was quiet for a second. “Jono? I…”
“I’ll explain everything later.” I looked at the clock, it was 10:30. “You’ll have to take me by the school firs
t. I’ve got a prior appointment, but then we need to go by the Emmerich boy’s house.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“That’s why you’re coming with me.” I told her my idea. “On second thought, you’d better wear a suit.”
“But…”
“See you in a few minutes.” I hung up the phone.
I dialed Anderson’s office again, and while I waited, Ape said, “What is going on?”
“I thought you didn’t want to know about my case.”
Then Anderson answered his phone and said, “That you again, Swyftt?”
“Hey, yeah. Sorry to bother you again. I was just wondering if you had an ID on the bum.”
“The headless guy?”
“That’s the one. Anything?”
“Still working on it. His fingers looked like they had been filed or sharpened or something, so there were no prints to run. We didn’t get a match on the dental records either, but I think it might be because he was missing so many teeth, and the ones he still had looked filed as well, pointy like shark teeth.”
“Is there any way you can fax a name over to me when you get that?”
“I don’t know about that, son.”
“Anderson, I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important. Don’t do it for me, do it for Adam Gables.”
There was a heavy sigh, and he said, “With the feds looking over my shoulder, it’ll be tricky. But I’ll do what I can.”
“Cheers.” I hung up on him and turned to Ape. “How did it go with the folks?”
He shook his head. “Didn’t I ask you to let me do the talking? Isn’t that why you took me along in the first place?”
“I’m not going to apologize, Ape. How did it go?”
He glanced over at me, gave me a malicious look, and then turned back to the road. He handed me an envelope, which I took and opened. There was a check inside. “You got him to pay?”