“When it hits, it’ll hit hard.”
“You got that right. Hopefully it’ll happen soon, and she won’t keep it pent up until she’s thirty. As for Nuddin, he’s playful and loves being with the other kids. He’s good for Kelly, watches over her. He likes television even though he doesn’t know what’s going on. If there’s a laugh track, he laughs along. Whenever the kids play ball, he sits on the sidelines and cheers.”
“No moodiness? Anger or resentment?”
“None. He doesn’t sleep well and sometimes I find him sitting alone in the dark or walking around in the kitchen. That’s normal enough. Despite having the mentality of a child, he is a grown man and probably doesn’t much like going to bed at nine o’clock. He sits a lot with my oldest kid, Trevor, and watches him play video games. Trevor, he’s sixteen, a juvie with both parents in prison for selling cocaine. He’s very responsible, helps out with the younger ones a lot. There’s abuse in his history and I think he’s picking up on Nuddin’s damage as well. He’s a little more taciturn than I expected, but not everyone takes to the mentally challenged, you know? Nuddin looks a little weird, it’s bound to strike a chord in some people, especially teens who think they look and feel a little peculiar themselves.”
“Is it going to be a problem?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Who watches him during the day, when the kids are at school?”
“Trevor dropped out. He got his GED and wants to go to college, but for the time being I pay him to watch over the others, and he takes online courses. It works to everyone’s benefit. Anyway, don’t you have enough troubles of your own without worrying about my house?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Can I see Kelly yet?”
“No,” Sierra told him, hitting him with that fed-up tone the way his mother used to do. “After she vents she’ll begin to heal. Sometime after that you can come around, although I don’t know why you would want to.”
“Yes, you do.”
She let out a raw sigh. “Yeah, I suppose I do. How are you holding up?”
“Fair,” he said.
He almost told her about Zero but couldn’t quite commit to doing so. She was already giving him enough attitude, he didn’t need more.
She said, “If I found out all this, about Bragg, then so did the cops. That Raidin is playing a loaded hand with you. Keeping you out on the street as bait. He should have you in protective custody.”
“It’s only a theory so far, and I’m still too iffy at this point. Raidin thinks I’m directly involved somehow and not telling him the whole truth.” The police car tailing him had moved around the corner and was parked on the opposite side of the street now. He could see the cops talking in a bored fashion. He imagined they were discussing whether they should run out and nab a slice of Ray’s pizza. “So they’re gonna keep watching me.”
“Your phone might be tapped then.”
“What do I care?”
Flynn scanned the surrounding rooftops and fire escapes, trying to catch a glimpse of Bragg up there with a high-powered rifle, maybe with a telescopic sight centered on Flynn’s right eye. What would be going through the mind of a man like that? Cancer destroying his mind black inch by black inch, hoping there was time enough for one final act of personal justice. A guy who imprisoned and tortured his own son for being imperfect. A husband who’d lost someone he loved to the doctors and machines, bone by bone. A man driven by some of the same horror that Flynn had endured. A soldier who learned to murder without any hate in his heart. A father with a drowned daughter who had taken her frenzy to the cold depths. A maniac whose great-great-grandfather had drunk water from a well filled with dead babies.
SIX
The Charger sat in the parking lot behind his apartment complex, near his front door, frozen cement solid. After examining it for evidence, the cops had towed it to his parking lot and plunked it down in the exact spot he’d always parked in, practically outside his patio. What the police expected to find in a car washed to the bottom of the Long Island Sound, he didn’t know, but they seemed to run in small circles with very little knowledge of why they were doing the things they did.
Flynn kept hearing Danny’s voice in his head, telling him not to give up on the car. He would start to answer aloud and stop himself in time. Of course he planned on repairing the Charger. It would take as much money as time, but he had no choice. Both he and his brother had died in it. He’d blow his savings to get it back up and running. The car had some kind of mystical resonance now. It connected him to himself more than ever. The car was packed full of ghosts, including his own.
He awoke in the middle of the night to find his mother standing over his bed, staring down with a brittle expression. It happened three nights in a row. They didn’t feel like dreams.
He was waiting for the next message.
The following morning he drove over to Sierra’s and parked down the block, watching her place hoping for a glimpse of Kelly and Nuddin. It was important to see the girl, to quell some of the fear about her welfare. He had to put it to rest and know she was all right. He kept his hands on the wheel of his rental, squeezing tightly and feeling none of the muscle or cool he would’ve gotten from the Charger.
Some of the older foster kids rushed out the front door, heading down the block toward the bus stop. He waited impatiently, feeling more and more awkward just sitting there parked with the engine running, wondering if anybody was going to call the cops and try to get him rapped as a pedo. His heart hammered, the anger rising because Sierra refused to let him see the girl when he needed to. She didn’t fully understand. She hadn’t been down in the basement or out there on the ice.
He watched Sierra step out the front door and walk the smaller kids to the bus stop, the way that Flynn’s mother used to take him by the hand every day and lead him up the sidewalk. Children hung on Sierra and she swung them along while they laughed, refusing to put their feet down. His mother had called him a little monkey and these kids were doing the same kind of thing. Sierra moved along, careful of the ice on the cement. The older children were firing snowballs all over the place.
A moment ago Flynn had been getting pissed but now he felt a sudden warmth for her, knowing how strong and loving she was, how hip and on the ball, especially given the life she’d had to lead.
Kelly trailed at the back of the line of children, walking easily, chin up, smiling even though no one was speaking to her. It made Flynn grin. She looked a little unhappy, but not gloomy or heavily pensive the way he had thought. Just seeing her shifted his whole mood. He felt the muscles in his back loosen. She was doing all right.
The bus swung past him, grinding down into second, then first, as it passed him and pulled over to the curb, blocking his view. He only had another moment to watch Kelly, an aching loss already building, and then he could only see the side of the bus and the blurred movements of children moving down the aisle. He waited for her face to appear in one of the windows closest to him, but she must’ve sat on the opposite side. The bus pulled off and he watched Sierra trundle back to her car, climb in and drive off to work.
He waited a little while longer and saw the teenager, Trevor, and Nuddin in the kitchen window, standing by the sink. They were washing dishes together. Trevor rinsing, Nuddin standing with a dishrag but unable to quite get the circular motion of drying down. He hoped Nuddin would lift his gaze and make eye contact, but he never did. Flynn put the rental car in gear and drove back to his apartment.
A pair of cops came around while Flynn was working on the Dodge. He’d started replacing parts and he liked working out in the cold. It reminded him of when Danny used to show him around an engine. Flynn, maybe ten years old, would climb up on the front grille and peer down into the machinery and try to make himself one with it. The thrum of the Charger would work into his chest until he felt like his heart might stop the moment the engine quit. Sometimes he’d get in the driver’s seat and his brother would shou
t for him to turn the wheel, or step on the gas, and he’d sit with a great sense of himself, as if he could will himself larger until he took his position on the road. Flynn would feel like a best friend as well as a baby brother, justified by trust. He still felt that way.
The cops didn’t bother introducing themselves. They were terse but polite. They wouldn’t explain anything except to say that Detective Raidin wanted to speak with him. Flynn went inside and washed his hands and hid the .38 in his closet while the cops waited in the living room.
He piled in back of the cruiser behind the cage and his stomach started to tighten as they headed in the opposite direction from the precinct. At least a dozen noir scenarios ran through his head, all of them ending with dirty cops laughing with blood on their fists and him lying in a ditch. Sometimes he regretted having so many movies so far inside his head.
The cops took him down to the south shore toward Bluepoint. They started arguing over directions and got turned around a couple of times. Flynn knew the area pretty well and wanted to ask if he could help, but figured he’d wait it out and see what happened.
Because they got so lost, Flynn didn’t start to recognize the neighborhood until they were almost to Grace Brooks’s house. The tightness grew worse and climbed up his chest. Out in the street were three cruisers, forensic vans and the M.E. The cops parked, let him out and walked him shoulder to shoulder inside.
On the living room floor, wearing a black mourning dress, covered in dried vomit, was Grace’s body. She hadn’t been dead long. He got a very strong sense that somebody had been just a little too late to save her.
The forensics guys were taking photos and bagging carpet and fibers and bits of her puke. Her stepfather, Harry Arnold, was dressed in a black suit, sobbing violently at the dining room table. They were asking him questions and he was answering in a voice full of blubber. Flynn didn’t even have to turn around to know Raidin was behind him, gauging his reaction.
Flynn got as close to Grace as he could, looking for blood. He didn’t see any. He didn’t spot a note anywhere. He stared at her face and thought she looked even prettier than the last time he’d seen her.
Her clothing was a mess. Her hair disheveled in a sexy, postcoital disarray. She wore no makeup. She did not appear to be at peace. Her brow was ridged. She seemed to be frowning. She looked angry with herself. The vomit blotted her chin and neck in a powdered, delicate pattern.
Flynn spun. Raidin said nothing, merely watched him. Flynn was tired of the tap dancing and said, “Grace Brooks. She was a case of mine.”
“When?”
Another question he already knew the answer to. “Four years ago.”
“Seen her since?”
Flynn did the math. “Twenty months ago. She was eighteen, and planned on heading out to L.A., she said. We had lunch and she talked about her plans.”
“What were they?”
“What else? She wanted into the movies. But she was smart, didn’t go on about trying to be a major star. She just cared about acting and wanted to be on a soap opera. She said it was a good training ground. She had the dream and the drive. I thought she had a chance.”
“Any letters or phone calls since then?”
“No. And don’t ask me if I’m sure.”
Flynn was piecing some of it together, but the sight of Grace on the floor, mobbed by so many men, kept distracting him. He had to fight the urge to pull a crocheted blanket from the corner of the sofa and drape it over her.
“Was there any note?” Flynn asked.
“No.”
“Was she shot?”
“No. Pills.”
“What kind of pills?”
“Percocet, Vicodin and Valium. Appears to be a suicide.”
“What’s she doing on the floor?”
“There’s traces of vomit on her bed. She threw up but not enough. Looks like she got to her feet and made her way downstairs, passed out in the center of the room. There’s a cell phone on the coffee table. It’s possible she changed her mind, tried to call for help, but couldn’t get to the phone.”
“Jesus Christ.” Flynn felt a rushing wave of grief rising up trying to swamp him. He wanted to go with it but had to keep clear a little while longer. “So it’s not connected to—”
“To you? To Angela Soto? What do you think?”
Raidin looked at him. The homicide dick was still feeling him out. This whole show was for his benefit to see how Flynn behaved. How he replied, rebutted, responded. To find out what might shake loose. Flynn didn’t blame him.
“Tell me about her,” Raidin said.
Flynn did. He explained how Grace’s mother was pathologically jealous of her daughter. She was physically and mentally abusive of her, started doing little things like shredding all of Grace’s clothes, slapping her around, calling neighborhood teen boys and telling them to stay away from her slut of a daughter. Did other funky stuff like chasing her up the street with a butcher knife. Took a girl with no self-esteem and burned her to the ground.
Grace OD’ed at school once and a gym teacher saved her. Flynn stepped in four years ago and had the mother put away at Pilgrim State for a period of observation. She went in to avoid charges. The shrinks confirmed she was a paranoid schiz and held on to her. Harry Arnold said he couldn’t handle the stress of caring for Grace and a sick wife. So Grace was shipped out to an aunt.
The mother was away six months, came back and her bad triggers were pulled again almost immediately. She went back into Pilgrim. Flynn had checked in on Grace until she’d turned eighteen. She was starting to get some work in magazine ads and even a couple of commercials. She planned on trying her hand at soap operas. She said the soaps were the best training an actor could have. Flynn knew she had the looks but thought she was still too fragile for cities like L.A. or New York. He tried to talk her out of it over lunch, but she seemed so intent he didn’t want to slap her down like her mother always did.
Now she was on the floor, wearing black. Harry, in black. The mother nowhere in sight. Flynn figured she was dead and today had been her funeral. He wondered if Grace had carried so much misplaced guilt that she’d come around to see the world through her mother’s eyes and found it too sick and too sad. He had a tough time buying it, but he hadn’t seen her for almost two years. L.A. could’ve followed suit and caved her in.
“The mother?” Flynn asked.
“She died three days ago. Committed suicide.”
“In Pilgrim?”
“No, she was here in the house. Pills in the bedroom. The same ones the daughter used. The viewing was this morning. There’s another one due for tonight. They came home, the father went out to get a pack of cigarettes, drove to the store, had a crying jag in the parking lot for a half hour. By the time he got himself together and came back, she was dead.”
Flynn looked over at Harry Arnold and snapped the pieces together as fast as he could. “Check her for rape.”
“It sounds like you’re giving me orders.”
“Yeah, it does sound like that,” Flynn said. “Have the M.E. check her for recent sexual activity.” He looked over at Grace, without makeup on, recently showered. “There might not be much to find. I think she cleaned herself up afterward.”
Raidin let the sharpness back into his attitude, got the knifelike edge back. “Simply because she had intercourse in the past forty-eight hours doesn’t mean rape. The M.E. does know his job.”
“Make sure he doesn’t slip up. Harry Arnold over there, he’s not her father. He’s the stepfather, married in eight or nine years ago. Always a lot of friction in the family. The mother was psychotically jealous of her daughter, but I don’t think it was Grace who set her off. It was Harry sniffing around Grace.”
“Did the girl tell you that?”
“No,” Flynn said. “She may not have recognized it. She was just a kid.”
“Then you have no real evidence. She was sixteen, you say?”
“Yeah.”
�
��That’s not much of a kid. You’re just obsessing on bad daddies.”
Flynn shook his head. “He sent her away after the mother was committed. I think he was fighting the urge. But it finally got ahold of him.” Flynn stared over at Harry, sitting there with his face screwed up, still sobbing, but no tears on his cheeks. “He caused it. Shake him up, he’ll spit it out in a minute. He wants to.”
“You’re not given to much doubt or reservation, are you? You have the dubious quality of making things sound true simply because you say them.”
“He drove Grace to it. She was a beautiful girl. He watched her grow from a gangly preteen into an attractive young woman. The mother was a battle-ax who just got worse as time went by. After she was dead, he couldn’t control himself anymore. They came back here after the viewing. He’s alone in the world, Grace’s back from L.A. It’s in his head, how it’s not illegal anymore, she’s not his daughter, he’s free. He put the moves on her, probably raped her.”
“There are no signs of that. No struggle, no ripped clothing.”
“She was probably showering. He couldn’t take the idea of her naked behind the door. Raped her at her mother’s own funeral. Probably blamed her for it, saying she drove him to it. That she’d ruined the family. That she’d caused her mother’s death. It was her weak point.”
“You know all of that after being here only ten minutes.”
“It’s what I do for a living. He said he went for cigarettes. Did he actually buy any? Get a receipt? Anybody see him in the store?”
“We’re checking.”
“You’re always checking on some goddamn thing or other. You know he did it. Brace him and he’ll crack. He wants to crack.”
“How do you know that?”
The Midnight Road Page 7