“Sounds like a winner to me. Believe it or not, I do actually have a job in Knoxville.”
“Sure you do,” he cracked.
The crime-scene techs and I spent the next three hours packaging skeletal material for shipment to the Gainesville lab for processing the next day. It was nearly midnight by the time we reached the Twilight Motor Court. Eighteen hours had passed since I’d closed the ill-fitting door of bungalow number three in the predawn darkness. If someone had told me at the time that I’d look forward to returning to the musty room and crawling beneath the stained bedspread, I’d have laughed. Yet here I was, eager to lean into the rusty, dribbling excuse for a shower, scrub off the day’s worth of sweat and dust, and then sink into the dank, lumpy mattress.
I left my grimy clothes on the bathroom floor. The floor was dirty, but at least I could see the film of dirt on the linoleum and gauge its depth. The nastiness lurking within the shag carpet, on the other hand, was unfathomed… and possibly unfathomable.
I reached behind the slimy shower curtain and twisted on the taps all the way. The pipes groaned and clanged, and a trickle of reddish brown emerged from the showerhead. I let the water run while I brushed my teeth at the sink. By the time I’d finished brushing, the shower was running clear, more or less, and lukewarm.
Half the shower curtain’s rings had ripped through the plastic. Carefully, so as not to tear the rest of the curtain loose, I slid the rings along the rod to open the curtain.
The motion of the curtain unleashed an explosion at my feet. I yelled and jumped back just as a four-foot water moccasin — its body as thick as my wrist — thrashed furiously in the tub and then turned and struck at the thin film of plastic between me and him.
I fell back against the sink and then — as the snake reared up, cobralike, and opened its mouth wide — I pulled my legs up onto the counter. “Stu!” I shouted. “Stu! Can you hear me? Stu!”
A minute later, I heard a knocking at my door.
“Stu? Help!”
The knob rattled and the door scraped across the carpet. “Doc? You got a mouse?” I heard a chuckle.
“Stu, have you got your gun?”
“Doc?” The panic in my voice finally registered with him. “What’s wrong? Is somebody else in here?”
“Not unless you count a big cottonmouth,” I said. “It’s here in the bathroom. It’s in the tub at the moment, but I’m thinking it could get out pretty easily. Be careful.”
“Okay, I’m coming that way,” he said. “Exactly where are you?”
“I’m up on top of the sink, where any sane person would be.”
“Don’t move. And make damn sure to let me know if that snake starts over the side of that tub.”
“Trust me, Stu, the whole county’ll know if that snake starts out of the tub.” Moving slowly, I wrapped myself in a towel.
I could hear his breathing as he approached. “All right, I’m getting close to the door. He’s staying put?”
“Yeah, he’s still wiggling around some, but he’s still in the tub.”
Stu’s head ducked quickly around the door and then withdrew, then reappeared more slowly, and he stepped into the doorway. Just as he did, I heard Angie’s voice coming from the doorway of my room. “Hey, guys?”
“We’re in the bathroom,” I called. “Me and Stu and a huge water moccasin.”
Either the news of the snake or the silhouette of the gun in Stu’s hand made a big impression on her, because she exclaimed, “Oh, Jesus.” After a moment, she added, “Stu, how good a shot are you with that?”
“Well, I keep qualifying every year,” he answered without looking around, “but they’ve never thrown a pissed-off snake at me on the firing range.”
“I’ve got a shotgun,” she said.
“A shotgun? Where? In the Suburban?”
“In my hand.”
“What? What are you doing with a shotgun in your hand?”
“Well, right now, I’d say I’m coming to kill a snake with it. Unless you’d rather take the shot with your sidearm.”
“Hey, be my guest.”
“Okay, here I come.” I heard the unmistakable click-slide-click of a shell being racked into the chamber of a pump-action shotgun. “I’m right behind you, Stu. Is your safety on?”
“It is now. Is yours?”
“It is. All right, you want to trade places with me?”
Stu’s head disappeared, and an instant later, Angie’s took its place. She eased through the doorway, the shotgun angling upward across her chest and left shoulder. Slowly she lowered the barrel toward the tub and snugged the butt of the gun against her right shoulder. I heard the slight scrape of the snake’s scales on the bathtub; I heard the deep breaths Angie was taking through flaring nostrils; I heard the metallic click as she released the safety. “Doc, you might want to cover your ears,” she said. Moving almost imperceptibly, she leaned closer to the tub, close enough to see the snake. “Damn,” she said, “that is one mean-looking snake.”
Maybe it was the vibration of her voice, or maybe it was a slight movement of the barrel; whatever it was, something triggered the snake again, and as I watched in horror, it whipped around and lashed directly at Angie.
* * *
I was alive, but I was blind. No, actually, I was not blind, I realized as the smoke and my mind began to clear and I saw light streaming through the doorway from the bedroom beyond; I was in darkness because the bathroom lightbulb had shattered when Angie had fired the shotgun.
“Talk to me,” I heard Stu calling. “Doc? Angie? Are you okay?”
“I’m all right,” I said. “But I’m not so sure about Angie.” She was slumped against me, her body rotated from the recoil of the shotgun. “The snake was going for her when she pulled the trigger.” Suddenly I had a bad thought. “Stu, watch out. I’m not sure about the snake. It’s too dark and smoky in here for me to see.”
“I’m watching out,” he said.
Angie groaned and stirred. “Wow,” she said. “Remind me not to do that again.”
Stu appeared in the doorway with a flashlight, whose beam — a solid-looking shaft of light in the smoke — darted back and forth from Angie to me to the wreckage of the bathtub. “You all right?”
“I guess,” she said. “Not sure. A place on my right leg hurts. I might be snakebit.”
“Doubtful,” Stu answered. He bent down, and when he straightened up, he was holding a foot-long piece of the snake’s tail. It was the only piece of the snake that the shotgun blast hadn’t shredded. “Angie, one; snake, zero.” He played the light slowly over the tub, which had been reduced to fiberglass splinters, then added, “Bathtub, minus one.” He turned and shone the light on the shotgun, which Angie was holding loosely, the barrel pointing at the floor. “That’s a Mossberg 500 tactical, isn’t it.” He wasn’t asking; he was pronouncing. “That thing packs a punch.”
Angie nodded. She stared at the shotgun as if she were staring at a ghost. The peppery odor of gun smoke hung heavy in the air; underneath that scent, subtler but unmistakable, was the metallic tang, the rusty taste, of blood. The taste that would have hung in the air at Kate’s house.
It was true, what Angie had said at Shell’s a few days before. All roads — or at least this road, smelling of blood and brimstone — led to her sister.
It also, I realized, led to my father.
Remember me, remember me, remember me.
Chapter 23
I did end up getting a shower; the manager of the Twilight — whose anger at the damage done by the shotgun was tempered by his fear of a cottonmouth lawsuit — grudgingly put me in bungalow number two, which was a dead ringer, stain for stain, for number three. But I did not get the several hours of sleep I’d hoped to get.
Instead, I read the next entry from the diary, which Vickery had handed out at the end of the day. I should have known better than to read it so late at night. Like the television documentary about the lost boys of Sudan — the haunting
film that had kept me awake the night I’d first arrived in Tallahassee — the diary was the stuff of nightmares. It would have been the stuff of nightmares, that is, if I’d been able to sleep after reading it. Surely the boys of the North Florida Boys’ Reformatory and the boys of the Bone Yard had also earned the label “lost.”
Buck wasn’t even over his beating when it happened. He still had scars from the worst of the cuts the strap give him, and he still walked with a limp. But he was getting better.
We were standing up to leave the dining hall after supper last night, and I was right across the table from him. Cockroach come and stood behind him. Looks like you made a mess at your place, Bucky boy, he said. Look at all those crumbs. And you spilt some gravy on the table. Dont you know thatll ruin the damn finish? Nobody had been talking, but the room got dead quiet now. Im sorry sir, Buck said real fast, I didnt mean to make a mess. Ill clean it up right now. He swept the crumbs into the palm of his left hand, then wiped the gravy with his right hand. Cockroach leaned down and stared at the table, then stared at Buck. Does that look clean to you, Bucky-boy? Look at that stain. Buck licked one of his fingers and went to rub the spot. Goddammit boy, Ill teach you to spit on a dining table, Cockroach said. Please, sir, Ill clean it up real good, spic n span. His voice sounded like somebody had a hand around his throat and was starting to squeeze it. Tell me how you want me to clean it. Cockroach didn’t answer, he just kept staring at Buck. He had a mean look in his eyes and a little smile on his face that was scary. Buck started to cry. Do you want me to go get a wet rag and scrub it? Ill put soap on the rag. Ill clean the whole table. Its too late for that, said Cockroach. Please, sir, Buck said. Just let me scrub the table with a clean rag and some soap. Please.
Shut up, said Cockroach. You need a lesson in manners. Buck started to shake, and then I heard a wet, dripping sound. Goddammit, boy, now look what youve done. Youve went and pissed your pants, you little sissy. He looked around the room. The rest of you boys, yall get on back to the dormitory. I went last, and when I looked back, I saw Bucks knees start to buckle, but Cockroach grabbed him by the arm with his one good hand. Dont make me drag you out of here, boy, he said. You stand up straight and you walk, or Ill make you wish you could walk tomorrow. Walk, Buck, I prayed. He did, stumbling along, Cockroach still digging those five fingers of his into Bucks arm.
They didnt head for the shed like I thought they would. Instead he took Buck toward the office, but they didnt go inside. They went around the corner to the back of the building. All the other boys had went inside by now, but I didnt, instead I snuck down toward the office, hiding behind one tree and then another. When I got to the building, I squatted down and looked underneath the floor, through the crawl space. I saw legs, Cockroach and Bucks legs, and a parked car. Then I saw another mans legs step out of the car. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled under the building so I could get close and see what was happening.
I wished I hadnt.
They washed him off with a hose, and then they started talking about doing things, things I knew had happened to some of the other boys. The man with the car said how about if I take him for a little joyride, bring him back later?
I dont care, said Cockroach. Take him wherever you want to. Just get him back before morning.
Come on boy, said the man. Lets go for a ride. He reached down and pulled Buck to his feet. Get in the car.
Wait a minute, said Cockroach. You best put him in the trunk.
No, said Buck. Dont put me in the trunk. Please dont. Cockroach took a step toward him, and then I heard a slap and Buck fell to the ground again. You shut up, faggot. You get in that trunk. And you do whatever this man tells you to do, or youll get a lot worse strapping than what you got before. You hear me? Buck didnt answer, and Cockroachs leg drew back for a kick, but the other man stopped him. He hears you, dont you boy? Dont you? Buck nodded, still crying.
Take him, then, said Cockroach. But boy, remember this. If you say one word about any of this itll be the last thing you ever say. The very last thing.
Then I heard the trunk of the car come open, and the two men lifted Buck off the ground, and I heard the trunk slam shut. The man got into the car and started it up and drove away slowly. Cockroach stood and took a piss in the mud puddle where the hose was still going. I crawled back to the other side of the building and skedaddled back to the dormitory.
It took me a long time to fall asleep. Buck still wasnt back by the time I did. But he was in his bed the next morning when I woke up. There was clean pants at the foot of his bed for him to put on. But there was blood on his sheets and blood on the back of his shorts.
I wish I had a gun. I wish I could kill Cockroach.
Chapter 24
It was still dark when we left the Twilight at 5:45 A.M. We were waiting at the door of the Waffle Iron at six when the dead bolt snicked open and a waitress let us in. She looked tired, as if she were just finishing a busy shift rather than just starting one. She probably thought the same about me. We snagged half a dozen sausage-and-egg biscuits to go and ate in the car as we took the blacktop out toward the North Florida Boys’ Reformatory. The biscuits were hot and flaky, with a golden crust that still retained a bit of crunch. My lap was soon covered with crumbs, but I knew that before long, biscuit crumbs would be the least objectionable contaminants on my clothing.
* * *
The buzz of Angie’s cell phone woke me during the morning’s briefing. Between my lack of sleep and the steady hum of the printer in the command post, I’d barely sat down before nodding off.
Angie stepped outside to take the call. Through the window, I saw her pull out a small notepad and make notes as she cradled the phone between her shoulder and her ear.
Stevenson had dug up an old newspaper account of the fire at the school, which he handed out. According to the story, the fire began in the school’s main building — the structure housing classrooms, administrative offices, and sleeping quarters for the staff — and quickly spread, as embers were carried aloft by the heat and the wind, to the boys’ dormitory, the chapel, and the outbuildings. Spared from the flames, by virtue of being upwind, were the school’s Negro facilities.
The story named the guard and the nine boys who’d died in the fire — three of whom, Hatfield had told Vickery, were buried in the school’s pipe-cross cemetery because no one had claimed their bodies. So the crosses, apparently, marked “acceptable” deaths, accidents and illnesses for which the school and its staff would probably not be held accountable in any serious way; the Bone Yard, on the other hand, was the closet in which the school’s dark skeletons had been carefully hidden.
When Angie stepped back into the command post, she caught Vickery’s eye and gave him a look that indicated she’d just heard something interesting. He pointed at her with his cigar. “What’s up?”
“Two things,” she said. “I just got a call from Steve Hobbs, in Latent Prints. Steve examined the note that was on our windshield last week. The one that said, ‘Find the Bone Yard.’ Steve treated the note with ninhydrin and got some prints off the paper.”
I raised my hand like a student in class. “Let me guess. They were mine.”
“Some of them,” she said. “Not all of them. He ran them through AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. And he got a hit. A really interesting hit.”
“Define ‘interesting,’ ” said Vickery.
“They matched a guy named Anthony Delozier,” she said. “White male, age fifty-nine. Been in and out of prison his whole life. Most recently at the Florida State Penitentiary, in Starke, for aggravated armed robbery.”
“So if he’s locked away in Starke,” asked Whitney, “how’d he put the note on your windshield?”
“He was released three months ago.”
“That is interesting,” Vickery agreed.
“Here’s the most interesting part,” Angie went on. “Forty-six years ago, at age thirteen, he was sent to the North Florida Boys’ Ref
ormatory for truancy.” As she said it, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
“Where’s he now?” asked Vickery.
“Havana.”
“Cuba?”
“Florida.”
“That’s a lot closer. Smaller, too.” Vickery assigned one of the agents to track down Delozier; meanwhile, Angie pulled a stack of pages from the copier and began passing out handouts.
“Flo, in Documents, just sent us the last of the diary,” she went on. “She thinks it sheds light on the fire that burned down the school in 1967.”
Skeeter, I cant stand it no more, Buck said. He didnt look at me. I just cant stand it no more. Still not looking at me. If I dont get out of here Ill be dead in a month.
It scared me, him talking like that. Partly it scared me because escaping was hard and dangerous. There wasnt a fence around the school, at least not a fence you could see. But sometimes its the fences you cant see thats the hardest to scale. In six months only two boys had tried to get away. One of them come back missing an eye and the other one come back dead. They said he drowned trying to swim across the river, but Id seen that boy swim, and he was part fish. He never drowned. Not unless somebody helped him do it.
But I knew it was true, what Buck said. If he didnt get away he would be dead soon. That was the part that scared me worse, the truth of it. When I went to regular school I saw how teachers picked out some kids as the smart kids and some kids as the dumb kids, and some kids as the good kids and some kids as the bad kids. Once a teacher decided what kind of kid you were, all the other teachers treated you that way from then on. Like you had a big sign on your back saying smart or dumb or good or bad. Same thing in here, only nobodys sign said good or smart. They just said bad or worse or worst. For some reason Bucks sign said worst. I dont know if that meant Buck was the worst or his punishment was worst. Both I guess. No matter what he did hed get singled out and taken down.
Here, I told Buck, take this. I handed him the compass I wore around my neck. You might need it to find your way.
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