Sarah dug into her pocket, pulled out a Marlboro Lights cigarette, and took a long drag after she lit up.
“My only vice these days. I quit booze and drugs a year ago. Believe it or not, it doesn’t matter. But I can’t give up the cigarettes, and I can’t smoke inside. It’s not the usual PC ‘secondhand smoke kills’ bullshit. Someone came up with the brilliant idea that if addicts or former addicts smoked, the smell alone would be so overpowering, everyone would be shooting up in the hallway within minutes of their first puff. Never your problem, though, Miss Squeaky Clean.”
Sarah propped herself up against the alleyway wall of the treatment center, took in another long drag, and looked at Julia with a cool shell of suspicion. “You got my attention, little sis. What do you want to know?”
Julia reached into her bag and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. “As long as you’re telling me the truth, I’ll pay you for information.”
Sarah thumped her hand with the cigarette against her chest in mock pain. “You think I’m still a whore for cash. That hurts. I don’t want your money. You want answers, I’ll tell you what I can.”
“I think Duke may have been involved in Ben’s kidnapping. Maybe not directly, but whatever he was up to, I think he might know who took Ben.”
“No shit,” Sarah said. “Duke was a player, but he was small-time.”
“Do you remember anything about Duke or our mom or anyone who might have come over to the house in Sparrow that made you think twice? Maybe someone said something, or Ben told you something?”
“Ben was your angel, not mine. We didn’t talk much. I wasn’t the best sister, even back then. Things were bad. It was every man for himself.”
“Did anything happen the night Ben was abducted that you didn’t tell the police?”
“I don’t know. It was a long time ago. I don’t think about when we were kids anymore,” Sarah said, her voice sounding hard like rough grit being run through a blender.
“I think you do. The addicts I meet on my beat, I always know that somewhere, deep down, there’s a memory of something good, something hopeful, that got lost or taken from them. They hit the bottle or take drugs to get a momentary reprieve from the memories, but what they long for, what hurts them the most, comes out even more crystal clear in the moments that they’re using. Remember our place in Sparrow, after Mom and Dad took off, and it was only us after Ben was taken? You let me sleep in your room because I was afraid. Our last food in the pantry . . .”
“A tin of Dinty Moore Beef Stew,” Sarah said. “That crap makes me want to puke if I see it in a store now.”
“You let me have it. It had been a month since our parents took off, and you tried to hold it together, convincing me they were coming back.”
Julia held Sarah’s gaze, but felt dirty for trying to play up to her sister. But, she realized she had no other choice.
“Life’s a bitch. We survived, though,” Sarah said. “But foster care wasn’t a good place to be if you were a pretty teenage girl. I got pregnant once from one of the foster fathers. I never told you that.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I sent you letters up until I went to college. You never responded.”
“I was still pissed at you. It’s a whole lot easier to blame other people for the shit storm you created for yourself. The foster dad, he had three biological kids and always acted like he was a saint around them and his wife. He drove me to an abortion clinic and left me there to take care of the ‘mistake.’ Gave me twenty dollars to take a cab home. I took care of it, and then ran away. Two stints in juvie later for stealing food and the rest is history. But I’m turning it around now. You end up where you end up. My actions were my fault for stealing from Aunt Carol. But you didn’t need to rat on me and tell her I stole money from her purse. Everything changed for me after that.”
“I was seven. I told our aunt because she thought I took the money, and I wanted to do the right thing. I would’ve never told her if I’d known she was going to kick you out. I get it. You don’t want my money, but you want me to feel bad. You want someone to blame for your mistakes. Well, meeting you here, this is one of mine.”
Julia started to walk down the alleyway toward the street, when Sarah called her back.
“The night Ben was taken, I heard something. Our parents’ room was on the other end of the house from yours and Ben’s. I don’t know if you remember.”
“I remember every inch of that place.”
“You and Ben probably didn’t hear, but since my room was right next to our parents’, I did. I heard something, quiet and low, like someone being slapped by something sharp like a belt, and then I heard crying, until it just stopped. Duke never hit our mom, but I figured it was the other way around, that she had gotten shit-faced and hauled off and punched Duke. I thought at the time she was pissed because he’d finally come home after being gone for so long. There was a bathroom that connected my room to theirs. I got out of bed and went in there. I hid behind the bathroom door and looked through the crack into their bedroom. And then I saw it all going down.”
“Goddamn it, Sarah, if you’re making something up . . .”
“I’m not. I saw Mom sitting in a chair. She was slumped over, and there was this giant man standing over her who had a long, black braid that went down to his waist. I knew Mom was drunk, and he kept hitting her across the face with his belt, like he was trying to get her to sober up. Then he shoved his hand over her mouth so if she cried, no one would hear her. I was scared out of my mind. I thought I was a tough kid, but it was like my legs turned to jelly. I ran into the backyard and hid behind a tree. I stayed there for a while.”
“I woke up that night in the closet in my bedroom. When I didn’t find Ben, I ran into your room and you were there in your bed, not outside. Your story isn’t lining up.”
“After an hour, I came back in the house. The man was gone, and Mom was passed out in bed. I didn’t go and check on you guys. I should have.”
“If this is true, why didn’t you tell the police?”
“I was scared. I figured it might have been a man Mom picked up in a bar. I saw her leave that night around nine. She took the remainder of the money Duke had wired, to buy booze, instead of food for us, and she was already half-cocked when she left. I didn’t know what to do.”
“What did this man say? Did you see his face?”
“I didn’t hear anything, and I only saw his back. He was huge, I remember that. And the braid. There was one other thing, though. He put something on the dresser next to Mom’s bed. It was a piece of paper, I think.”
Julia stared through Sarah and instead saw the police officer who had questioned her in the station the night Ben was taken.
“Do you think anyone had been in the room with your mom? Like a stranger she might have met while she was out?” the officer asked Julia.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone in her room after I woke up. I remember . . . Wait. There was something I saw on her nightstand. I don’t think I’d ever seen it before,” Julia said. “It was like a picture or something. Somebody drew it. It scared me.”
“Tell me what it was.”
“I didn’t like it. It was like a giant bird with wings, but it had legs like a man and red glowing eyes, but the eyes weren’t right. They weren’t in the bird’s head. They were drawn in where a person’s chest would be.”
“The man. Did he look like he was American Indian?” Julia asked. “The police found an Indian arrowhead under Ben’s bed.”
“I don’t know. Like I said, I never saw his face. So what’s your plan? Are you going to question every Native American male in the state? For all we know, the guy in the room was having rough sex with Mom. The guy was a freak and left behind some weird picture he drew of some Indian-bird thing.”
“The man and what you saw scared you so much, you ran outside and never told anyone about it, not even the police. If it’s true, you might have been able to save Ben.”
&nb
sp; “I know,” Sarah said. She stared down at the pavement and refused to meet Julia’s gaze.
Julia fought a primal urge to run up to Sarah and make her pay for what she didn’t do, but she coiled her right hand, instead, into a tight fist and kept it at her side.
“You have a chance to make it right now.”
“What do you want from me?” Sarah asked.
“Information. Did you ever try and find our parents?”
Sarah pulled out cigarette number three since they made their way into the alleyway, lit it, and closed her eyes as she inhaled deeply.
“You bet I did. I wasn’t looking for some kumbaya, let’s hold hands around the campfire moment. I wanted to track them down so they would pay for what they did to me.”
“That doesn’t sound very twelve-step.”
“This wasn’t during one of my wannabe sober periods. Anyway, I remembered a guy Duke brought over a couple of times to the apartment we used to live in above Lingo’s Market before we got evicted. Remember that dump? That was before we moved into the Sparrow house. There were more cockroaches than floor in that place.”
“Who’s the guy?”
“His name is Mike Ballentine. This was ten years ago, so I’m not sure if he’s even around anymore. Ballentine lived in a dumpy trailer in Metro Commons, off Van Born. He was good-looking for an older guy. So I get to his trailer and Ballentine starts telling me how Duke had gotten mixed up with some bad people who put a hit out on him. Ballentine was pretty sure Duke had screwed the people over in a business deal. He said Duke and Mom came over once, and Duke begged him for help, but Ballentine sent them away. Ballentine never saw Duke or Mom again. Then he tells me, he heard our parents were killed, so I washed my hands of it. I had sex with the guy before I left, and he gave me fifty bucks. Not one of my finer days. I figured he’d tell me more if I screwed him.”
“You got a number for Ballentine?”
“Are you kidding? This was ten years ago. With all the shit I used to do, you’re lucky I have any memories at all.”
“If you think of anything, let me know. Here’s my cell phone number,” Julia said, and handed Sarah one of her cards. “Why’d you come back to Detroit anyway?”
“I had nowhere else to go. I was down in Tampa with my boyfriend, when I had to look way up to see rock bottom.”
“Steve?”
“Steve Beckerus, the one and only. We made some good money together. I’d pick up a guy in a bar, the guy would take me home, and then Steve would show up like the jealous boyfriend, beat the shit out of the guy, and then take his money. Old tricks, they used to work for us. But down in Florida, Steve got heavy on the junk.”
“Heroin?”
“You got it. He got messy and went to jail again, ten years this time for robbery and aggravated assault. So I’m all alone. I wake up one morning, hungover to beat the band, and I realize I’m lying under a park bench with my panties at my ankles. My bag was gone, my money was gone. I was such a mess, I couldn’t even hustle anymore. I went to a treatment place down in Florida for a few weeks, swore I’d make it this time, but I fell off again. I took a bus back home. You were right about what you said before, about addicts going back to that one shining moment. Our past, it was a mess, though, right? But that time when we were all together in the early days, when I was growing up in Sparrow, that’s all I ever had. I felt like if I could just get it back for a minute, like if I could just reach out and touch it with my hand, a good memory, it would be all I needed to get clean. I’m doing okay now, though. Nine months and sixteen days clean and sober. That’s a record for me.”
“Congratulations,” Julia said, not believing it.
“It is. I’m a good group leader in there,” Sarah said, and thumbed her finger toward the center. “I’m not lying to you. I relate to addicts, and I know when they’re lying. Maybe that’s my only gift, knowing when people are feeding me a line of bull. That’s why I think you’re not telling me something. I know damn well you’d never show up here to talk to me unless you were desperate or you found out something new.”
“You’re wrong,” Julia answered, surprised over Sarah’s sober clarity and dead-on deduction. “I’m still trying to find out what happened to Ben. That will never stop. Do you need any money?”
“Nah,” Sarah said, and snuffed out the scant remains of her cigarette butt against the side of the building. “This is where I’m supposed to give you a hug, or invite you to get a coffee, and we say fake things about how we’re going to get together, but we both know it’ll never happen. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just pretend and be normal that way?”
Julia stared back at her sister, and the hard mask that Sarah had worn since Julia could remember seemed to slip just slightly, and Julia thought for a split second that Sarah was about to cry. Instead, Sarah twisted her mouth up in a jaded smile and gave Julia a reticent nod. “Just playing with you. We’re way, way past that, aren’t we?”
“You have my number if you remember anything else. Good luck, Sarah. I hope things come around for you this time.”
Julia made her way out of the alley to her car and was surprised when she realized she truly meant it.
CHAPTER 8
The big Indian, Ahote, wiped the mud off his boots that he had carefully placed beside the door of his work trailer. He rinsed his hands in the tiny kitchen’s rusty sink and went to his workplace. In the center of a small table was a cheap bowl from the Dollar Store filled with a few inches of water. In the center of the bowl was a large bullfrog. Its face was bright green, while the rest of its body looked more like brown-and-murky camouflage coating its pimply ridges.
Ahote raised both his hands up over his head, closed his eyes, and let out a deep shudder. When he had hunted with his grandfather and father in the same woods where he found the three-pound whopper of a bullfrog, the elder male Indian statesmen had told Ahote to respect all of nature and its occupants. If you didn’t, they warned, you would bring bad luck to yourself and to generations to come.
Ahote picked the remaining skin away from his raw thumb as he recalled how his father had made him stay alone in the woods for a day and a night when he was fifteen. That was his punishment after his father had caught him trying to light a stray dog on fire. His dad had discovered Ahote in the back of their property and set the terrified animal free. Animals, nature, and the world they lived in were all part of the earth and heaven, and each was equal to man and must be treated with reverence and respect, his father had reminded him in a shamed, disgusted tone.
Ahote wiped away the slick perspiration beginning to form on his brow as he recalled the fear that he was sure would paralyze him as he ran through the woods the night of his penance, all the while trying to evade the evil spirits in the woods that were rumored to hunt down lost souls and eat them.
Ahote dipped his mammoth hand into the bowl, causing the bullfrog to clumsily wobble backward in an attempt to evade its captor. Ahote smiled and stroked the bullfrog’s back in a slow movement, starting from its head and going down the length of its back. The frog closed its eyes, as if it enjoyed the unexpected affection.
Ahote then grabbed the frog out of the bowl, held it high over his head until the frog’s body skimmed the ceiling, and stared into the creature’s eyes. Ahote chanted his own made-up language, which he had created in the woods that night so long ago, one he hid from his family and one that only he understood. “Beh San! De Na Ma Ta Son!”
He stroked the frog one more time, and the big Indian was sure he saw the frog begin to smile. He moved one hand swiftly behind his back, pulled out a knife, and plunged the blade into the frog’s center mass, gutting it in a fast, straight slice. Ahote then expertly extracted its heart. He dropped the frog’s body back into the bowl and held the still-beating heart in his hand for a second, until he put it in his mouth and swallowed, feeling the small thing beating, tick-tock-tick, inside his throat until it went all the way down.
Ahote closed his eyes, r
emembering how his grandfather had told him as a child that frogs represented healing, ancient wisdom, and transformation, so now that power was part of him. Ahote sighed deeply, as he understood he would have to be quiet for another long spell. For now, this type of sacrament and self-evolution would have to do.
The power from the dead creature’s soul seemed to ignite through Ahote’s body. He went over to a small locked cabinet, opened it, and pulled out a shoe box of carefully arranged pictures, catalogued by date. He labored over each photo of the men and boys propped against trees. The pictures captured the light draining from their eyes and fueled Ahote’s spirit as his victims died.
The first photo that Ahote pulled out with his thick fingers dated back nearly forty years, the big Indian’s first kill, when he was just nineteen. The deceased was a transient male who was too easy to hunt because he was as high as a kite and wouldn’t give chase. Not a worthy trophy and a mistake, and one Ahote regretted. He breathed out hard, trying to expel the remnants of the man’s spirit that he believed still weakened him and caused illness, and hurried the picture back in its place.
The fifth picture in the careful row of his collection was of a Vietnamese teenager, the kill almost ruined by the Duke Gooden man his old boss Max had hired. Ahote was sure the boy possessed the essence of the dragon, which held the four-prong power of clouds, rain, thunder, and lightning. As that boy died, Ahote felt an electrical current surge through him as the teenager’s spirit entered him, and Ahote’s body had convulsed in a series of rhythmic shock waves.
Ahote closed his eyes, and his fingers instinctively went to the back of the pack to the special one.
“Sae tong! Lo tenen son!” Ahote whispered, speaking his own language as he pulled out the photo that he studied every night.
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