The Rising

by Lynn Chandler Willis

  “I’m glad y’all found Dusty,” Ellie said and smiled.

  Richie shook his head. “That boy. I’m telling you…” And that was all he said. He just continued to shake his head.

  When Tina joined them at the table, Ellie pulled her notepad from her jacket pocket and opened it to a clean page. “Tina, you told me on the phone that you thought you had seen Johnny Doe with someone Richie works with.”

  “Jerome Kenton,” Richie said. “Guy’s kinda weird.”

  “Weird how?” Ellie asked.

  Richie shrugged. “You know, don’t have a lot to say.”

  And this coming from a guy Ellie had heard speak a total of about ten words.

  “Richie saw him the other day at the regional drivers’ meeting, and when he came home, he said he thought he remembered seeing the little boy with him and his wife at the company picnic back in the fall. And then, I remembered, too.”

  “When was this drivers’ meeting?”

  “Day before yesterday,” Richie said. “He was all banged up and said he’d been in a wreck.”

  “Did he say if anyone was with him when he wrecked?”

  Richie shook his head.

  “And you met his wife at the company picnic?”

  Richie nodded, and like any good tag-team, Tina jumped in. “She’s even weirder than he is.”

  “Weird how?” It wasn’t exactly a concrete word.

  “She was really protective of the little boy. I mean, like—really protective.”

  “Could you elaborate?”

  “She wouldn’t let him play with any of the other kids. Said he had some kind of immune disease.”

  Ellie and Jesse glanced at one another. In all the tests Johnny Doe had been put through, there had never been any mention of an autoimmune deficiency. “And you’re sure the child you saw in the hospital is the same child that was at the picnic?” Ellie asked.

  Both Tina and Richie nodded. “I remember him because he looked a lot like Dusty,” Tina said.

  “But you didn’t recognize him at the hospital…” Ellie said.

  The toddler in the sagging diaper and stained t-shirt waddled into the kitchen and started banging the toy car against Jesse’s leg.

  “Damien, stop that,” Tina scolded.

  The kid toddled off and came back a minute later with another car and handed it to Jesse. He continued using Jesse’s thigh as a drag strip. Jesse joined in the fun, stretching his leg out to give the kid a longer straight-away.

  Tina sighed. “The kid did look like Dusty, but we were so mad we didn’t even think about it being the kid from the picnic.”

  “Mad at who?” Ellie figured the question didn’t have a lot to do with her case, but she was curious. For Dusty’s sake.

  Tina jerked her head toward the living room while Richie shook his head back and forth like a slobber-slinging dog. “Dusty,” Tina said. “He is always runnin’ off somewhere. Going to his grandma’s through those woods. Playing at the creek. He had gone off with one of Mama’s neighbors’ kids and didn’t tell her or me. That kid is one more handful. We don’t have any problems out of any of ‘em but that one.” She glanced at Damien still playing cars on Jesse’s leg, and for the first time, Ellie saw a hint of maternal love in Tina’s expression rather than contempt.

  Ellie turned the conversation back to Johnny Doe. “Did she say how old he was?”

  “Six,” Tina answered.

  Finally! She had a confirmed age. If, in fact, they were talking about the same kid.

  “Did she ever mention his name?”

  “They called him JJ,” Tina said. “I guess for Jerome Junior.”

  “Some dads like naming their sons after themselves,” Richie added then rolled his eyes in Tina’s direction.

  “And some people like giving kids original names,” Tina snapped back.

  Ellie wanted to remind her she had named at least one of her sons after a wrestler but thought now wasn’t the time. “Did she say what grade he was in or what school he went to?”

  Tina shook her head. “She said she couldn’t send him to school because of his immune disease.”

  Ellie scribbled some notes in her notepad then asked, “Did Jerome or his wife ever specifically refer to JJ as their son?”

  They both nodded. “Jerome referred to him as ‘my boy,’” Richie said.

  “How much contact do you have with Jerome at work?” Ellie asked.

  He twisted his mouth like he had to really think about it. “We have a regional drivers’ meeting twice a month. Other than that, I never see him.”

  “And the company picnic was the first time you met his wife?”

  He nodded.

  “How’d they act at the picnic?”

  Tina and Richie looked at each other and both shrugged. “She kinda kept to herself,” Tina said. “Like I said, she wouldn’t let the little boy play with any of the other kids, so they just kinda sat there at one of the tables.”

  “And what was Jerome doing?”

  “Just hanging out. He played horseshoes,” Richie said.

  A fight broke out in the living room. “Boys!” Tina screamed as Richie stomped off toward the action.

  In the chaos, the baby started wailing. Tina grabbed him up and bobbed him up and down on her knee while Richie was threatening to kill the next kid who moved.

  “The fish sticks! Here, can you hold him a minute.” She quickly handed the baby off to Jesse as she tended to their dinner.

  Jesse stared at the baby and the baby stared back. Jesse started making goofy faces, and the baby smiled then chuckled.

  Ellie was captivated at the sight of Jesse with a child on his lap. He looked so natural, like he was born to be a father. She pushed those thoughts out of her mind.

  Richie came back and assumed his position at the table. “Sorry. They get a little crazy sometimes.”

  “Understandable,” Ellie said and smiled. She jumped right back in with the questions. “How long has Jerome been with Bekley’s?”

  Richie shrugged. “Three or four years, maybe?”

  “And he didn’t say anything during the driver’s meeting about anyone being with him the other night when he wrecked?” Like perhaps his son had been killed or was missing? Events like that usually spread through companies faster than the flu.

  Richie shook his head again. “He didn’t say if anyone was with him or not. He did joke about being a bachelor again ‘cause his wife was going back to Louisiana to visit her aunt for a couple weeks.”

  ****

  “Remind me again why we’re at the hospital,” Jesse said as he carefully navigated the Taurus around the snow-covered parking lot.

  “I want to see how he’s doing. And, I want to test something. Park over there at the ER.” She pointed toward the emergency room entrance, and Jesse sighed.

  “I’m not exactly new to the job, you know.”

  Ellie cut him a sideways glance. She was still curious about this whole transfer thing.

  Jesse parked beside a patrol car but left the engine idling. “Any idea how long you’re going to be?”

  “How long I’m going to be? You’re going with me.”

  “I’m just the chauffeur, sweetcakes.”

  Ellie glared at him. She unlatched her seatbelt and opened the door. “You have to come. You’re part of the test, partner.” It was so easy to say, it almost frightened her. Behind her, she heard the engine shut off and the door slam then his footsteps crunching through the snow. He was grumbling something she couldn’t quite make out.

  “How do you know doctor what’s-his-name will even let you see him again so soon?” Jesse had caught up to her and tapped the snow off his boots.

  “His name’s Doctor Deveraux, and he’ll let me see him.” Probably not alone, but he shouldn’t argue about a brief visit in Johnny’s room. Hopefully, he’d be gone for the evening, anyway.

  A blast of warm air hit her in the face as they made their way into the entrance hall of the ER
. The warmth was almost suffocating, and Ellie quickly shook out of her coat. She flashed her badge at the nurse at the registration desk, and they were buzzed through.

  The ER was a flurry of activity with patients on stretchers parked in the hallway along the walls.

  “Pretty busy tonight, huh?” Ellie said to one of the nurses as she sprinted by.

  The nurse shook her head. “Snow. People ‘round here just can’t drive in it.”

  Jesse chuckled and Ellie glared at him.

  Life was a little quieter upstairs on the pediatric floor as nurses made their final rounds and tucked the little ones into bed for the evening. The door to Johnny Doe’s room was open, and Ellie poked her head in. “Hey, there,” she said in a cautious voice. She was a little unsure how he’d respond to her after their last session together.

  He sat at the table near the window working on a puzzle and smiled broadly at Ellie. Her heart fluttered with satisfying warmth.

  “Hey,” he said shyly.

  She walked into the room quietly, aware of the click-clack of her heels against the cold tile. Johnny stared at Jesse, unsure of the new person in his room. Ellie sat in an empty chair at the table. “Wow, you got a lot done this afternoon,” she said, looking at the nearly completed puzzle.

  Johnny gave Jesse a final glance then turned back to his puzzle. “Leon’s goin’ to bring me a new one tomorrow.”

  Ellie picked up a piece of the puzzle and put it in place. “I brought a friend with me. Is that OK? I’ve been telling him a lot about you, and he really wanted to meet you.”

  He glanced at Jesse again and nodded. Jesse offered the child his hand. “I’m Jesse.”

  Johnny shook Jesse’s outstretched hand and offered a slight smile in return.

  “His name’s Jesse Alvarez, junior. Some people call him JJ.”

  Both Jesse and Johnny looked at Ellie then Johnny quickly went back to working on his puzzle. “Why do they call him JJ?”

  Ellie picked up another piece of the puzzle and turned it over and over again in her hand. “JJ is his nickname. A lot of people name their sons junior, after the dad, but then they call them something else, like Jesse, or JJ…or Jerome.”

  Johnny pushed his chair away from the table then got up and went to Ellie and crawled up in her lap. Taken aback, Ellie carefully wrapped her arms around the child. “That’s stupid,” he said in a small voice.

  “What’s stupid?”

  “Why would you name someone one thing but call them something else?”

  “Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense, does it?” She ran her hand gently over his hair. “Sometimes adults do stupid things, I guess.”

  Jesse sat in the chair Johnny had been sitting in. “I like your puzzle,” he said and smiled.

  Johnny burrowed deeper into Ellie’s lap. Ellie continued to stroke his hair. “Johnny, did the man in the picture call you JJ, too, like Jesse?”

  Johnny turned away and stared out the window then slightly nodded. “But that’s not my name.”

  Ellie’s heart quickened as her breath caught deep in the middle of her chest. She stared at Jesse for a moment. God knew in her heart she didn’t want to upset this child any more than she already had during the course of the day, but she was so close….

  “Johnny, what is your name?”

  He stared out the window for a long while without saying anything. Snow was falling hard and glistened like sparkling crystal in the white-yellow glow of the mammoth lights in the parking lot below.

  “Will you tell me your name? I know it’s not Johnny.” She rested her chin on the top of his blond hair.

  “My daddy called me Landon,” he whispered after a long moment.

  Ellie felt like a slowly deflating balloon. Sheer exhaustion wrapped itself around her bones and squeezed every ounce of energy from her being. She took a long, deep breath. “Landon. I like that name,” she said softly. After a moment, she asked, “do you know your last name?”

  He shook his head.

  “Do you know what your dad’s name is?”

  Again, he shook his head. “No, but I knew who he was as soon as I saw him.”

  Ellie stared out the window at the swirling snow, trying to put the pieces together. He knew who his father was as soon as he saw him? How long had it been since he had seen him? Maybe they were dealing with an absentee parent? And how was Jerome Kenton connected?

  The child seemed relaxed enough. There was no tension in his little body, and he seemed willing to talk at his own pace. Ellie slightly pulled away from him and turned him in her lap so she could see his face. “Landon, remember you told me you were talking to your daddy in the room where Leon works, and that was all you remembered before you woke up?”

  He slightly shook his head. “We weren’t in a room. We were on a road.”

  Ellie glanced at Jesse. “Oh, that’s right. You said y’all were walking down a road. Do you remember what kind of road it was? Were there trees on the road or buildings?”

  Landon shook his head again. “There wasn’t anything—it was just a road. Real bright and shiny. Like in that movie.”

  “What movie?”

  “The one with that girl and little dog, and there was a big lion and a man made of hay. And there was a witch, too.”

  “You mean Dorothy and Toto?” Jesse asked.

  “Yeah, that one.” He smiled brightly. “The road was like that one.”

  The yellow brick road? Wonderful. Just wonderful. And she supposed there were munchkins, too.

  Ellie glanced up and saw Deveraux standing in the doorway. The expression on his face indicated he wasn’t overly pleased. Didn’t the guy ever go home? Ellie slightly raised her hand, silently begging him to back off. She mouthed the words, “he’s OK.”

  Deveraux frowned then came in and sat on the corner of the bed. Landon turned and looked at him then smiled a huge smile.

  “Hey Johnny. It’s about bedtime for you, isn’t it, sport?”

  Landon slid off Ellie’s lap and crawled up beside Deveraux in the bed. “My name’s not Johnny. My name’s Landon.”

  Deveraux looked at Ellie, surprise registering deep in his eyes. “Landon. That’s a pretty cool name.”

  “He was just telling me about walking with his dad along a real pretty road, right before the accident,” Ellie said, her brows raised, hoping Deveraux wouldn’t put the kibosh on their talk.

  Landon quickly shook his head. “No, we were walking down the road after the accident. Not before.”

  After the accident? Was his dad the one who dumped him in the alley? But he said his dad was with him in the morgue…if he was with him in the morgue, why didn’t he bring him to the hospital? Why dump him like a piece of trash?

  “Landon,” Ellie said, “Did your dad talk about anything else while you were walking?”

  Sadness shadowed his blue eyes as he looked away. “He said he missed me.”

  17

  “I reviewed every second of every security tape they gave you, and no one entered that morgue,” said Jesse. “No one that wasn’t supposed to be there, anyway.”

  Deveraux was sitting at his desk, his chin propped on his folded hands. Ellie plopped into the extra chair in his office, leaving Jesse to stand. She had introduced them in the hallway outside Landon’s room, and she wasn’t sure which one seemed less impressed with the other. Maybe they were both just tired?

  “And you’re one-hundred percent certain no one was with him in the ER?” Ellie asked Deveraux. She already knew the answer. They’d only been over it a hundred times already.

  Deveraux shook his head. “I’ve reviewed the files a thousand times myself. The paramedics brought him in as a DOA. They did everything by protocol.”

  “You didn’t come with the body?” Jesse asked, turning toward Ellie.

  She shook her head. “Jack said there wasn’t any need. He was dead at the scene; they just couldn’t pronounce it.”

  But he wasn’t dead. He was very much alive. The
little dead boy, bloodied and battered, called Johnny Doe was alive and well and tucked safely in a warm bed down the hall. And his eyes were the bluest she’d ever seen, and his hair as white as the snow, and his name was Landon.

  Ellie sighed. She was so tired she couldn’t even think straight. “How was he this afternoon?” She almost hesitated to ask, wanting badly to avoid the lecture she knew would come about how she had traumatized him even more.

  Deveraux slightly shrugged. “Actually, a lot better than I had expected. He didn’t talk about what happened in the playroom, but he didn’t shut down either.”

  “In all the tests you’ve run on him, did you ever come up with anything indicating an immune deficiency?” Jesse asked.

  Ellie knew she had brought him along for a reason. Not only was he driving for her, right now, he was thinking for her, too.

  Deveraux lowered his brows and shook his head. “His immune system’s completely normal. Why?”

  “According to a possible witness who may have seen him with the man in the picture I showed him, they said the man’s wife wouldn’t let him play with other kids because he had an immune deficiency.”

  “That was one of the first tests we ran. It would explain some of his developmental issues, though.”

  “Such as?” Jesse asked.

  Deveraux leaned back in his chair. “If children aren’t properly socialized at an early age, they’ll often fall behind their peers in mental and social development. All the tests we’ve run show nothing abnormal, so basically, that leaves an environmental cause.”

  “But—he does know his name. So we’re making progress, right?” Ellie asked.

  Deveraux shrugged again. “A two-year old knows their name. What I question is, why now? What was it that triggered that memory?”

  Ellie explained how she used Jesse and the nickname to see if or how he’d react to hearing the name “JJ.”

  “And his reaction was to tell you his real name,” Deveraux said. He twisted his lips, deep in thought. “But he didn’t have the same reaction when we were calling him Johnny.”

  “But,” Jesse said, “He said his dad called him Landon. Maybe he was called something else—like JJ—by people other than his parents? People, for some reason, that he doesn’t want to associate that name with.”