Sticks and Stones

by Michael Hiebert

“No, green.”

  “You can call it whatever you like.” Ripping off the top of the packet, she poured the green powder into the jug and then scrunched the packet up into a ball. Then she hefted the sugar from the cupboard and poured a whole lot of that in, too. With a groan, Carry struggled under the weight of all that sugar to lift the jug by its handle as she sidestepped to the sink, using her left hand to open the cupboard beneath it so she could drop the scrunched-up packet into the garbage can.

  Setting the jug onto the sink’s aluminum bottom, she let the water run cold for a bit into the other side of the sink before she swiveled the faucet over and let the water pour into the jug.

  “Do you like Dan?” I asked Carry.

  “What?” she asked. The water was loud.

  “He asked you if you like Dan,” Jonathon said for me.

  Carry sort of smiled and took a deep breath. “I dunno. He’s okay, I guess. I like Mom being happy, and he makes her happy, so I s’pose, yeah. I guess I like him okay. Why? Don’t you?”

  I should have seen that one coming before I asked. I had no idea what to say, so I took the advice my mother gave me once: If you don’t know how to answer a question, just be as honest as you can. “I guess he’s all right. He gets a little annoying with his stupid jokes sometimes.”

  “Oh yeah, I didn’t say he wasn’t annoyin’. I just said I like how he makes Mom happy.”

  “Do you think we should talk to Mom ’bout these bottles?” I asked.

  Carry turned off the faucet and stared at me. “No,” she said firmly. “I think that’s a terrible idea. All you’ll do is put Mom in an awkward spot where she either has to lie to you or ’fess up to herself ’bout somethin’ I’m pretty sure she’s doing her best to ignore.” She lifted the jug from the sink and set it down on the counter, placing the top on it.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Carry frowned and rolled her eyes.

  “No, no, Carry,” Jonathon said calmly. “He asked you what you mean. Clarify for him.” I couldn’t figure out what Jonathon was doing. He had been acting weird ever since we started talking about Dan.

  “Look,” Carry said to me. “You’re probably not old enough to understand this, but Mom’s hiding spot for his bottles was so not a good spot that there wasn’t any way we were the ones she was hiding them bottles from.” She turned to Jonathon. “Does that make sense?”

  Jonathon smiled. “Don’t ask me. Ask him. I know where you’re going with this.”

  I shook my head. I had no idea where she was going. “I don’t get it.”

  “Mom just wanted them bottles out of sight from her. She didn’t even think ’bout you or me finding ’em. She just didn’t want to keep them anywhere she’d have to be seeing ’em all the time, constantly being reminded of the one bad thing in her perfect relationship. Remember, Dan’s the first guy she’s ever dated since Pa died. How long ago was that?”

  I shrugged. “I dunno, I was only two.”

  “Do the math, then. Thirteen minus two. So, it’s been like eleven years. First guy in eleven years, and she’s found herself ass-over-teakettle in love with him. The last thing she wants to face is that there might be parts of him she didn’t expect would turn out to be so bad when she first started dating him, and now her heart’s completely invested. She doesn’t want to even consider that she might’ve made a mistake.” Carry was reaching up into the cupboard on the other side of the plates and bowls, going for the glasses. She looked back at Jonathon. “You’re havin’ some, right?”

  “Sure.”

  Then, surprisingly, she looked to me. “What ’bout you?”

  I nearly fell off the chair I was leaning on. “Sure!” I said.

  “Anyway,” Carry said, bringing down three glasses and setting them in a row on the counter, “Mom put those bottles in that bag and hid the bag in the closet so she wouldn’t find ’em. So I reckon you better put ’em back where they were before she gets home.”

  Jonathon stopped leaning and now just stood. His hands went into the pockets of his pajama pants, and he rose up on his toes. I just noticed he had bare feet. “Hey, you, um, got any chips or anythin’?” he asked Carry.

  Carry opened the corner cupboard again. That was where my mother stored all the snacky food on days she went shopping. The snacky food usually lasted one, maybe two days before me and Carry ate it. It had been almost a week since my mother bought groceries. I knew as well as Carry did that there was nothing in that cupboard but old, stale crackers.

  “Not that I can see,” she said. “Oh, hey, do you like crackers?”

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t make him eat the crackers.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ve been there since Christmas.”

  “Seriously?” Jonathon asked. Then to Carry, he said, “You were goin’ to give me six-month-old crackers? Seriously?”

  She laughed. “I would’ve stopped you before you actually put one in your mouth.”

  “No, you wouldn’t, I can tell by your face! You were goin’ to watch me eat crackers from Christmas!”

  “Actually,” I said, “I think they were from the Christmas before last.”

  “They were not,” Carry said.

  “I don’t care,” Jonathon said. “You’re evil.”

  “Tell you what I’ll do,” Carry said. “After we’re done with our Kool-Aid, let’s walk down to Harrison’s Five-and-Dime and buy you some chips. Consider it a peace offering for fiddling with the idea of possibly giving you food poisonin’.”

  Jonathon pushed his hands up over his face, continuing upward into his hair. He groaned. “Oh, I really don’t feel like getting dressed again before I have to leave.”

  Carry smiled. “That’s fine, I’ll just go. You don’t have to come. You do a lot for me. Consider it my turn.”

  “You sure? I mean, I’d let you take my car, but you don’t have a license.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “No, here’s what we’ll do,” Jonathon said. “I’ll drive and just leave my pajamas on. You can run in and—”

  “Stop!” Carry said. “I told you I’d go and that’s it. I’m goin’. It’s a beautiful night out there.”

  “All right. You win. How long will you be?”

  “I dunno. It’s not far. Probably thirty minutes. Maybe a bit longer. I want to drink my Kool-Aid first, though.”

  I placed the bottle from my hand back in the bottom of the bag with the others and closed up the top. All that glass was heavier than I thought. I used two hands to drag them off the table and put the bag back into the closet beside all our rubber boots. I closed the door.

  “Good job,” Carry said, picking up two of the glasses, which were now filled with green Kool-Aid I was near on positive tasted like lime. But if my mother could fool herself about Dan’s drinking by hiding the bottles away somewhere she knew not to look at, then maybe we were all susceptible to thinking things were different than they really were. Maybe I tasted lime when I drank green Kool-Aid because my mind expected green liquid to taste like lime.

  I thought me and Dewey should do a blind taste-test with a bunch of different colors of Kool-Aid, just to see what happened.

  Jonathon had followed Carry and the two glasses in her hand back to the living room. The jug still stood on the counter beside the sink. I put it in the fridge and went back to the counter for my glass. Closing my eyes, I tried to convince myself it was full of purple Kool-Aid. I kept concentrating on it until my mind only saw purple water in the glass I was holding.

  Then I brought it to my lips and tipped it up.

  As soon as the Kool-Aid touched my tongue, the picture in my mind shifted to green and all I could taste was lime. I wasn’t certain which came first, the taste or the change to the image I had been trying to hold in my head. It annoyed me.

  Then I realized how much it didn’t really matter whether the Kool-Aid all tasted the same to everyone but me. Besid
es, that wasn’t what was really annoying me. My eyes automatically cut back to the closed closet door on the other side of the table, and I couldn’t help but wonder if my mother maybe closed her eyes, forcing her mind to picture the closet empty except for all them boots. Just because I couldn’t make my Kool-Aid taste different by picturing it a different color in my mind didn’t mean my mother couldn’t make that bag full of bottles disappear by convincing herself it wasn’t there.

  Maybe she was just better at it than me.

  CHAPTER 55

  Leah’s call from Mobile didn’t come in until after eight o’clock. Chris had gone home at five sharp, and Ethan left maybe a half hour after Chris. Leah and Dan were just about to call it a day when the phone rang.

  “That can’t be the forensics guy,” Leah said. “It’s my kids, probably wondering where the hell I am.”

  Dan shrugged. “One easy way to find out.”

  Leah answered the call. It was Chuck, one of the cops Leah was pretty sure was in the secret circle.

  “Chuck, what do you have for me?”

  “Hey, Miss Leah. First, I want to apologize for calling so late. I’m actually surprised y’all are even around to answer the phone.”

  “We are nothing if not faithful,” Leah said.

  Chuck gave a little laugh. “Anyway, you wanted us to test this blood sample you sent against Harry Stork?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, I did that, not really expecting to get a hit from a new blood sample against a fifteen-years-gone dead man.”

  Leah felt her adrenaline increase. “But you did? It matches?”

  “Sure as hell does. Positive match against Harry Stork. Came out 99.97 percent inclusive. Now, just tell me again, what made you even think this blood would match a dead guy from fifteen years ago? I really need some clarification here.”

  “Terrance didn’t tell you?” Leah asked.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Oh.” Leah laughed. “Harry Stork has a brother. The sample’s gotta be from him.”

  She picked up a pen that was beside her keyboard and quickly wrote on a piece of paper: Blood positive match for Harry Stork. 99.97 percent inclusive. She held it up for Dan to read.

  Dan made a gun with his index finger and thumb and pretended to shoot the timeline they had hanging on the wall.

  Even though this was the outcome she’d expected, hearing it in real life brought a weird sensation of relief with it. All the puzzle pieces finally fell into place. Well, most of them did. The important ones, anyway.

  “Okay . . .” Chuck said, tentatively. “But without testing the sample against the brother, I can’t make you a guarantee that it is necessarily his blood. Likely? Yes. But I doubt it’s enough to get you a warrant if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  “I’ll worry ’bout that,” Leah said.

  Dan was looking at her, trying to gauge both sides of her conversation from her face. Leah covered the mouthpiece on the phone and whispered to him, “He won’t commit to it being Tommy’s blood, but says it’s very likely. I’m okay with ‘very likely.’”

  “So, that’s it, then?” Chuck asked. “Anythin’ else I can do for you?”

  “No, I think that’s it. Thank you, Chuck. I appreciate you puttin’ in the time to get this to me today.”

  “I live to serve,” Chuck said.

  Leah hung up the phone.

  “So,” Dan said, “I suppose Tommy Stork just jumped to number one on the suspect hit parade?”

  “He’s been there for some time, to be perfectly straight.” Yeah. Tommy Stork right along with Thomas Kennedy Bradshaw. Leah supposed this just eliminated Bradshaw completely, which meant when she interviewed him that morning he was just acting weird on account of him actually just being weird.

  That was one of those thoughts that didn’t settle properly in Leah’s stomach. People reacted more than they acted. Their reactions almost always pointed to some fact. And if you didn’t understand their reaction, then you weren’t privy to the fact that drove it.

  “So, what’s our next step?” Dan asked.

  “I say we go pick Tommy Stork up now. Bring him in for questionin’.”

  “We really only have vague circumstantial evidence on him.”

  “If we play it properly, maybe we can get him to believe we have more?”

  Dan narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we can probably fill in some of the blanks ourselves. Then tell him we have proof of the facts.”

  “Are you saying to lie to a potential serial killer suspect?” Dan asked. “The audacity.”

  Leah laughed. “I’m sure, between the two of us, we can make this work. We’re allowed to bring him in for questioning without a dump truck full of evidence.”

  “. . . and you’re right. Nobody said we weren’t allowed to lie a little.” He thought this over. “Okay, let’s go get him. We’ll figure out the details on the way.”

  Leah glanced at the clock. It was just past eight-thirty. Outside, twilight was unraveling in a deep purple and blue dress.

  Dan made it to the door first. He turned the handle and held it open for Leah. She was just about to walk through when she noticed something on the step outside.

  A white envelope with the name Leah Fowler scribbled across the front in what was becoming familiar handwriting.

  “Oh no,” she said. “Not now. Not goddamn now.”

  Dan leaned over and plucked it up. “It’s for you,” he said, gravely.

  With deep breaths, Leah leaned against the doorjamb as Dan passed her a pair of latex gloves. Snapping them on, she carefully tore open the letter. Inside was a single piece of paper folded in thirds. She removed the paper and unfolded it, knowing exactly what she’d see.

  Only . . . it wasn’t exactly what she’d expected at all. This note was different from any other she’d ever heard of coming into the station.

  There wasn’t a single stickman or stickwoman, there were three: a tall woman with some sort of badge on her chest, a shorter woman, and an even shorter man. The tall woman and the short man were both drawn in black felt marker. The middle one, the girl, was in red.

  It took a good second for everything to sink in, a good second before Leah knew what she was looking at.

  “Oh my God,” she said, her breath catching on the words.

  “What?”

  “It all just ramped up,” she said, her eyes glued to the page. “It’s . . . I didn’t think it could get any more personal. But—” The sting of tears ached behind her eyes. She couldn’t stop them. She felt the first one roll down her cheek.

  She handed the paper to Dan. “It’s Caroline,” she said in a whisper. “That bastard’s goin’ after my daughter.”

  Written on the page was Cherry Park Forest, with a time of 11:30 P.M. There were also two initials on the bottom right of the page: T.S. Only, unlike the H.S. letter her pa had received fifteen years ago, this one looked, at least to Leah, like it was written by the same person who wrote all the rest.

  Why would Tommy Stork initial his own letter? Did he know they were onto him? She reflexively looked around the station. Could it be bugged? Again, she didn’t find that a conceivable proposition.

  “There’s no way we can search that forest in three hours. That forest is huge.” Cherry Park Forest hugged the southern bank of Cornflower Lake, and extended all the way north to First Road. There had to be five or six square miles of forest to go through.

  It would be near on impossible.

  Dan held out his hand, palm down. “Okay, just take a breath for a moment. As far as you know, Caroline’s at home, isn’t she?”

  Leah looked at the clock. She and Jonathon would be on the sofa watching television for at least another two hours.

  “Call her,” Dan said, his voice straining to be calm.

  Leah picked up the telephone receiver and quickly dialed her home number. “Abe,” she said when her son answered, “put Caroline on. Do it qu
ick, it’s an emergency.”

  Abe told her Caroline wasn’t home. She’d gone to the store.

  “Is Jonathon with her?” Leah knew she was sounding panicky, but she was panicked.

  “No, Jonathon’s here. What’s going on?”

  “Put Jonathon on.”

  “Mom, what’s going on?”

  “Goddamnit, Abe, just do what you’re told for once without asking so many bloody questions!”

  Jonathon came on the line.

  “Jonathon,” Leah said. “Where’s Carry?”

  There was a hesitation before he spoke. “She just went for a walk to the mercantile. Why? Is something wrong?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “She should be back anytime. She said she’d be a half hour or so.”

  “Listen, Jonathon,” Leah said, trying to remain calm. “I think Caroline may be in danger. Can you go pick her up and drive her to the station? I’ll be in my car and meet you up halfway. How long ago did she leave?”

  “Um, I don’t know.” His voice started quavering. Shit, Leah thought. She’d panicked him. “Maybe forty-five minutes? I’ll get in my car right now and find her for you. What kind of danger?”

  Leah ignored his question. “Forty-five minutes? Just to go to the goddamn store? Damn it!” Desperately, she tried to clear her mind so she could think. “Never mind. I’ll go pick her up myself. Which store was she headed to? Harrison’s Five-and-Dime?”

  “I believe so, yes. What’s going on, ma’am?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Leah said. “Right now I just gotta go get her. I’m sure she’s fine.” But Leah heard her own voice as the words came out. The words sounded fake and made-up. No doubt Jonathon heard it, too. They both knew nothing was fine.

  “Oh my God,” Jonathon said. “Does this have somethin’ to do with the Stickman?”

  “Just let me go find her before anyone else does, okay?” Leah said and hung up the phone.

  Dan was waiting for Leah to get off the call and give him an update. “She’s gone,” Leah said, her voice cracking. Goddammit, she thought. You have to hold it together. Now more than ever. “He’s after my baby girl.”

  Shushing her, Dan quietly asked, “Where? Where has she gone?”