The Thirteenth Child

by David Dean

  Smiling, the younger man began unlocking the cell door, replying as he did, “No sir, to your first question. As to the second and third, I’ll let the chief explain about all that.” He held out a hand, but Preston shrugged it off. “Will you come with me, Professor Howard?”

  The officer’s respectful address caught Preston off guard as he struggled to his feet. “Do I know you?” Preston asked. The officer was tall and slender, with sandy colored hair worn just long enough to comb, his eyes a washed-out blue. Preston thought he was pleasant looking enough without being in the least remarkable.

  “I doubt that you’d remember me,” the officer replied, leading Preston into the corridor and out into the hallway, “but many years ago I was in one of your English Lit classes. I didn’t do very well, but I did manage to pass… just barely—you gave me a ‘D’.”

  “Did I?” Preston replied, while holding up his pants with one hand. “Well, no doubt you deserved it… I was probably being too kind at that.”

  “Probably,” the policeman agreed, chuckling.

  “And you ended up here,” Preston observed, as if this was the inevitable outcome of stunted academic prowess.

  “I did,” he agreed, “… as did you.” He grinned at Preston without the least malice, ushering him into the same cramped room he had been interviewed in just days before. He pointed to a chair, but as the other was occupied by the chief himself, it was an unnecessary courtesy. “Anything, Chief?” he asked as he was backing out the door.

  Nick held up a hand. “Why don’t you sit in on this, Beckam?”

  The younger officer, smiling once more, replied, “Sure, Chief, I’d like to. Thanks.” He wedged himself back into the tight room, easing the door closed behind him.

  Preston took the proffered chair in the suddenly crowded room, eyeing the cardboard cups of coffee that sat before the chief of police.

  “Would you care for one?” Nick asked, “How about you, Beck?”

  Beckam leaned into his corner, shaking his head. “No thanks, Chief. I’m a green tea man myself.”

  “Are you now?” Nick slid a cup over to Preston. “It’s still hot. I thought you might need it after some time in that cell—it gets cold back there.”

  Flipping the top off, Preston attempted to raise the steaming cup to his lips, but his hands were shaking so much that he set it back down. After a few moments, he brought his mouth down to the cup and slurped as quietly as he could. He would not look up to see if he was being watched, but flushed with embarrassment even so.

  “Cream… sugar?” Nick asked.

  Raising his face from the comforting steam, Preston simply shook his head. Already the caffeine was entering his system, rejuvenating his brain cells. “Would it be possible for me to have some aspirin?”

  “We’re not allowed to give…” Nick hesitated over his choice of words, “… those in custody any medication unless it has been prescribed by a doctor.”

  Preston’s mouth turned down in disapproval. “I see, interrogation tactics at their finest—no shoes, no shirt, no food, no aspirin, no sleep—old school deprivation.”

  Nick refused to rise to the bait. “Professor, I’m going to be taping this interview.” Flicking a switch on the wall behind him, a red light glowed into life on the camera perched above his shoulder. “For the record,” he began without further preamble, “I am Chief Nick Catesby. Officer Timothy Beckam and I are interviewing Professor Preston Howard in reference to the disappearances of Megan Guthrie, Jared Case, and Connor Lacey, all of Wessex Township.”

  Preston felt a jolt go through his body at the mention of the children and the memory of the previous evening came rushing back to him with nightmarish urgency. The thought of the limp, dying children turned his bowels to water even as the vampire’s words came back to him with sinister force, “Betray me, old man, and your own child shall surely die.”

  “Please read along with me, Professor, as I read your Miranda Warning aloud for the record.” Chief Catesby’s words interrupted Preston’s reverie and looking down he found a printed card in his hand informing him of his rights. He listened in a kind of dull wonder to Nick’s droning recitation, even as he began to understand at last why Gabriel had chosen him—people no longer believed in the walking dead of vampire lore, but they did very much believe in the pedophiliac monsters that stole and murdered their children. They saw proof of their depredations in the news every day—they would believe it was Preston… easily.

  When Nick was done, he asked, “If you’ve understood these rights and wish to answer my questions without benefit of a lawyer being present, please say so for the recording and sign the card in your hand.” He shoved a pen in Preston’s direction.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong…”

  “Then you should have no problem answering my questions,” Nick replied.

  “Only you wouldn’t believe my answers—I tried to tell you about the boy in the woods… Gabriel. You didn’t listen. Now it’s too late… I can’t help you. I have to think of my own daughter now.”

  “What are you talking about, Professor Howard? What has she got to do with any of this?”

  “I should be released… I should be with her. You have no evidence against me. You couldn’t, and I want my clothes back now.”

  “That’s not possible.” Nick did not attempt to soften the blow, “Your shirt appeared to have a quantity of blood on it, and your parka was found with a child’s shoe. These items are going to be examined by the state lab, Preston, as soon as we can get them there.” He nodded at Officer Beckam, “When we are done here, this officer is going to drive them up there as fast as he can. I’ve asked them to prioritize this case and they’ve agreed.”

  Preston remembered the warm liquid spilling onto his chest as he was losing consciousness in the cemetery, Gabriel’s inhuman eyes boring into his own. “I will require another before I sleep again, and when that time is nigh, I will come to you. Until then, remember your own daughter… as I certainly shall.”

  He had never felt so trapped and useless. Even if he was free to tell Catesby about Gabriel, he would never believe it. Without actually seeing him, who could? Remembering the fragile, drained children in the graveyard he lowered his head into his shaking hands and began to weep.

  “What’s wrong,” Nick asked none too gently. “Why are you crying?”

  Without raising his face, Preston answered, “Because I am such a fool… I have always been a fool.”

  The camera continued recording.

  ?

  As Nick was passing dispatch, Diana caught his eye and beckoned him with a crooked finger. “Chief,” she whispered as he stuck his head in the doorway, “there’s a Ms. Howard here to see you. I told her you were tied up in an interview, but she said she’d just wait. I told her I didn’t know how long you’d be…”

  “All right,” Nick cut her off, “it’s all right, D. I’ll just walk her in.” He could see Fanny through the smoked glass behind which the dispatchers monitored the lobby. She was slumped in one of the molded plastic chairs and looked frail in the unhealthy fluorescent glow. Noticing that she was clutching a brown paper sack from which clothing protruded, he guessed that these were for her father.

  He threw open the door and she turned at the sound. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long?” he asked in a more formal tone than he felt. He could feel Diana’s eager eyes on him and his female visitor.

  “No,” Fanny replied with a weak smile, “not very long.” She rose to her feet and appeared to totter. Nick took a step toward her. “I’ve brought some clothes for dad, Nick. I thought he might need them.”

  Casting a nervous glance at the smoked glass, Nick couldn’t make out the dispatcher’s expression. He had no doubt, though, that she would have keyed on the casual use of his name and he could already imagine the gossip that would shortly spread through the department. In for a penny, he thought… “Fanny, why don’t you come up to my office? I’ll have an officer take
his clothes back to him while we talk. Beckam’s picking him up some lunch now. You can talk to him afterwards.” He reached across and took the sack from her, grasping her arm all in the same moment. “Come on through,” he murmured as they were buzzed in by the ever-avid Diana.

  He hurried her along the corridor, only stopping to drop off the sack with Diana, instructing her to have an officer deliver it to Preston. Diana assured him that she would, then asked archly if he would like one of his “urgent” phone calls from dispatch in fifteen minutes or so—these were prearranged calls that Nick often employed to extricate himself from the perennial complainers and crashing bores.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he assured her.

  “I see,” she replied.

  “I doubt it,” he said over his shoulder, catching just the ghost of a smile on her lips. He returned to Fanny waiting in the hall.

  Once they were safely behind the closed door of his office he kissed her gently. Fanny pulled away, saying, “Not here, Nick. I feel so frightened for dad. I know this is your world, but try and understand this is all very new to me, and I’m so worried about what might happen.”

  “Of course,” he said. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I…” he let his words trail off. What was the point? His feelings were not what were important to Fanny at this moment and he understood that. Ushering her into a comfortable chair, he sat across from her holding her hands in his own. “You want to know about your dad?”

  Fanny nodded, her eyes dark, trembling pools.

  Nick took a deep breath and said, “The interview didn’t exonerate him, Fanny. I wish I could say that it did.

  “He chose not to cooperate… he mentioned that boy in the woods again and then wouldn’t speak any more. The first time he told me about him I thought he might be talking about Seth Busby—the truth is, I thought he might have been involved in that boy’s disappearance and that this was his crazy way of telling me that. The clothes he described him as wearing were the same as Seth was last seen in. Now, he’s been found with what appears to be Megan Guthrie’s sneaker.”

  Fanny’s head snapped up.

  Nick continued, wanting to get it over with, “After her mother identifies it, the shoe will be sent, along with the bloody shirt your dad was found in, to the state lab for DNA screening.”

  “Oh my god… !” she whispered.

  After the search of Preston’s room had revealed nothing incriminating, he knew Fanny’s hopes had been raised… now this. “I’m sorry, Fanny.” Squeezing her hand, Nick asked, “He seemed worried about you… do you know what that’s about? Is there anything you can tell me about all this?”

  Fanny nodded, avoiding Nick’s eyes. “Just a few days ago, he came to me with this story of his encounter with this… boy… this creature, he calls Gabriel. He was so excited. I haven’t seen dad like this since… well, it’s been a very long time. At first, I thought he might be having delirium tremens or possibly some kind of nervous breakdown, but he sounded so coherent when he spoke about these encounters… he had so many details.”

  “You didn’t believe him…?” Nick asked.

  “No, not at first, I didn’t.” Fanny looked down at their intertwined fingers in embarrassment. “But then, he asked me to do some research for him on earlier cases of missing children… historical cases. It seemed so important to him that I did.”

  Nick was intrigued in spite of himself, “And…?”

  Fanny glanced up at him before continuing, “So much of what he was saying was supported by historical accounts, archived stories that went back hundreds of years. I know it seems incredible… and it can’t possibly be true, I know that, but Nick there have been children going missing in South Jersey since colonial times, and possibly before, and there are mentions of a boy sometimes seen in the vicinity of these disappearances.” Taking a breath, she filled him in on the legend of the “snow boy,” and the tales of the phantom child of the Pine Barrens.

  When she was done, she added, “I know that it’s impossible that these cases and this ‘boy’ could be connected and real, yet… how would dad have gotten onto this? He hasn’t had the slightest interest in anything beyond English literature and the bottle in decades, he hardly even notices that other people exist, and that goes double for children.”

  Nick stood, releasing Fanny’s hands and walking to the windows that faced the library where he watched her ascend the steps each day that he could. “I’ve got to admit it makes a pretty good story.” He turned back to face her.

  “The problem is… it’s just that… a story. Even if I were to believe something so incredible, how would I go about proving it? The sad fact of the matter is that when all’s said and done, everything your dad has told you could just as easily be attributed to a guilty conscience… an alcohol-addled mind.” He looked down at his shoes. “I can’t let him go, Fanny, I’m sorry. Because in the end he’s all I’ve got that makes any sense.”

  Head bowed, Fanny spoke after a long silence, “Nick, I think I may have seen this boy, too… this Gabriel… following me last night. It was as if he wanted me to know that he was there… watching. He didn’t look right, somehow… I… I can’t explain exactly.”

  A memory flickered briefly through Nick’s mind… a barefoot boy in the mist. Shrugging it off, he said, “Fanny, it was just a coincidence… some neighborhood boy trying to scare you—it had to be. It is almost Halloween, you know. He probably thought it was funny.”

  There was a knock on his office door.

  Opening it, he found Weller. Shad peered beyond Nick to his visitor who remained in her chair, her face averted from scrutiny.

  With a lazy insouciance, he returned his gaze to his superior. “Got a minute?” he asked.

  “A minute,” Nick replied, stepping out into the hallway and pulling the door closed behind him. “Shoot.”

  “You were breaking the news to her?” Weller asked with a small grin.

  “What news?” Nick asked.

  “… about her old man—that you’re charging him with the murder of those kids.”

  Shaking his head, Nick said, “No, Shad, I’m not. Firstly, I’m gonna wait for the lab results. Secondly, we don’t know for a fact the kids are dead.”

  “I understand,” he replied equably enough, “you want to break it to her gently, she being your… well, friend and all. It must be tough on you,” he concluded with a glance at the closed door.

  “Actually, what’s tough on me right now, Shad, is trying to keep up with where you’re going with all this.” Turning his back on his second-in-command, he gripped the door handle. Weller’s voice froze him.

  “You mean to tell me that you’re going to let him go?” The venom of his tone electrified the air in the narrow hallway.

  Nick spun around, firing back, “I didn’t say that, Shad. I intend to hang on to Professor Howard while we continue our investigation and await the lab results… I’d also like another stab at an interview with him. At the very least, he may be a valuable witness, if he’s not our kidnapper.”

  “Witness,” Weller hissed. Nick saw the vein in his temple pulsing, his droopy eyes grow dark with suffused blood. “You’re droppin’ the ball here, Chief, and I’m just tryin’ to save your ass. It’s all over the department about your visits to the library—about you bangin’ the pretty librarian.” He nodded at Nick’s office, shaking his head as if in bewilderment. “You must think we’re idiots over here, Nick. I suspect most of the town is—or will be—talkin’ about it, and soon.”

  Slapping Nick on the shoulder, he managed a sickly smile. “Hell, there’s no one here that blames you of course, after all you’ve been through. No man should have to put up with a wife that humps every guy that looks her way… hell, she even gave me a shot at it!” He patted Nick’s shoulder gently now.

  “But don’t let that blind you here, Boss. Don’t drop the ball on this like you did in the Busby case. Hell, Nick, if you don’t want to screw things up with the sexy libra
rian in there, just give the nod and I’ll charge the sonofabitch! That’ll get you off the hook and you can blame me.”

  Nick didn’t know where to begin. He actually felt dizzy with all of Weller’s words, innuendos, and revelations, but even as he reeled under the verbal assault, a white-hot flame shot upward into his consciousness, burning away the poisonous fog that threatened to engulf his thinking and paralyze him. In a single motion he seized Weller’s wrist and swept it off his shoulder.

  “Don’t ever touch me again, you back-stabbing bastard, or I’ll stuff that hand so far up your ass that it’ll tickle your tonsils. Are we clear on that much, at least?”

  Weller recoiled like a struck dog, snarling, “You don’t know when someone’s trying to do you a favor.”

  “Favor,” Nick laughed. “You call screwing my wife a favor… spreading rumors about me, a favor? Well thanks a lot pal, but I can do without any more of your favors.

  “As to this case, let’s get one thing straight, little man… I’m in charge. For good or for bad, I’m calling the shots. As for you, Captain, you are to have nothing further to do with it and that’s an order. Understood?”

  Nick felt himself shaking with emotion. It was all he could do to keep from beating Weller to a pulp. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Janis from Records peeking out of her office. Had he been shouting? She scurried back in when she caught his glance.

  “You saw,” Weller shouted after her, “you heard! I’ll be calling on you as a witness,” he promised the frightened clerk. Skulking backwards, and out of Nick’s long reach, the fabric of his jacket made a hissing noise sliding along the wall. “This is the last straw,” he promised Nick. “I’ve stood by long enough and watched you run this department into the ground… no more. I’m taking this to the prosecutor and telling him everything. Just what do you think he’s gonna do when he finds out about you having a relationship with the daughter of a prime suspect in three cases?”