Sons of Dust

by P. Dalton Updyke

  It’s like kids never played here, he thought.

  He could see the edge of the stone foundation above the weeds and walked that way, grass slapping against his jeans. When he reached what used to be the basement, he was surprised at how small it looked. In his memory, the foundation had been huge, a rambling structure that became a great fort, with rooms and cracks in the spacing of the rocks, perfect for Daisy air rifles. Now he saw that the foundation was only about 25 feet long, maybe 20 feet wide. Most of one side was gone, leaving it looking more like a lean-to than a basement. The separated rooms were there, like he remembered, but the window and door frames weren’t. He heard a sound and turned.

  Gina and Vinny were making their way toward him and behind them, he could see Alex’s tall frame striding up Blood Hill.

  “I called Katie,” Vinny said, “But she didn’t answer the phone.”

  Vinny looked more than tired; haggard. His eyes were puffy, ringed with purple shadows that made him look bruised. More than ever, he looked like an old dog about to be put down. He shivered and shoved his hands into his pockets. His bracelet flashed. “Have you been there yet?” He jerked his head toward the left, toward Essex but Marcus shook his head. “Maybe we should walk down there, see if the police are done.”

  “Why?” Even in that one word, Alex’s calmness came through. Fitting for a priest, Marcus thought.

  “We should go there when the cops leave,” Vinny said. “Take a look around.”

  Alex was frowning, but Marcus couldn’t make out his eyes behind the glasses. “Take a look at a murder scene?”

  “It isn’t just a murder scene,” Vinny said.

  Alex didn’t reply right away and although Marcus couldn’t see Alex’s eyes, he thought Alex was staring at Vinny. “It is a murder scene, Vinny. A man died there last night, violently. While I pity that poor man and his family, I don’t understand why you called and insisted we all come down here.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Vinny interrupted. “Jesus, Al. C’mon.”

  “No,” Alex’s voice was cooler, but still calm. “It isn’t obvious, Vinny. Not to me.”

  Vinny snorted and shook his head. “First Bo. Then a guy is killed right outside of Katie’s house and you don’t think there’s a connection?”

  “Connection? Come on, Vinny.”

  “I can’t believe you’re standing here, pretending you don’t know-”

  “I am not pretending anything.”

  “Hey,” Marcus said mildly. “I didn’t come all the way down here to watch you two fight.”

  “We aren’t fighting,” Alex said. “I’m just trying to understand why Vinny wanted us all here.”

  “I know what I know,” Vinny said. “And you know it, too, Alex.”

  There was something hard and dangerous in Vinny’s voice. Marcus took a step forward and laid a hand on Vinny’s arm. “Come on,” he said. “We can see Katie’s house from the other side.”

  **

  The police weren’t finished.

  There were four cruisers parked in front of Kate’s house. The lights were whirling on all of them. An ambulance had been pulled up to the mouth of the alley between the house and the tenement next to it. The bubble lights were off. Several cars were parked at odd angles; one driver had left his door open. It swung in the breeze like a gate.

  Marcus watched the men in uniforms and dark suits. He recognized one or two of them, but he didn’t cross the street. He could have spoken to them, could have even come up with a pretty plausible explanation of how he happened to be on a murder scene and maybe he’d get a little information. He was an Assistant DA. It wouldn’t be unusual for him to be here. Except—

  “What was it you said, Vin?” he asked, his eyes on a man in a black trench coat. The man was heavyset and short, balding. Detective John Corville. Homicide.

  “About what?”

  “About the body being like Bo.”

  Next to him, Alex jerked. A small sound escaped Gina and Marcus knew that however Vinny had gotten them here, he hadn’t mentioned that fact to them.

  “Yeah,” Vinny said. “It was just like Bo’s.”

  “What do you mean? How could it be like Bo’s? She fell; she wasn’t murdered.” Alex was the one who had spoken; Marcus had expected Gina to react first.

  “There were marks on it. Marks just like what they found on Bo.”

  “Rat bites?” Gina’s voice was a whisper.

  “No.”

  They were all looking at him now, and as Marcus watched, Vinny’s face grew red. “I heard it from a friend of mine, okay?”

  Marcus was about to interrupt, to ask who, but Vinny held up a hand and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter who told me. What matters is this morning, I get a call and this friend tells me about this and it’s too fucking close, man, too fucking close.”

  “Vinny,” Alex stepped forward, and he was smiling what Marcus thought of as his priest smile. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? Just slow down and say what it is you want to say.”

  At first, Marcus thought Vinny would blow at the condescending tone, but instead, Vinny took a breath and rubbed his lips again. “You’re right. This friend of mine, I called him after I heard about Bo. I asked him a few questions, but mainly, what I wanted to know was, did she suffer? At first, I thought he was going to bullshit me, because he hesitated and then he says, ‘Yeah, man. She suffered. A lot.’ And that about knocked me over. So I sit down and I start asking other questions. Was she raped? No, he tells me. Not raped. But there was something in his voice that tells me he’s not being exactly straight with me, either, so I start to get a little pissed off and he says, ‘how much do you really want to know, Vinny?’ and that got me thinking. How much did I want to know? At first, I think, nothing. She’s dead. End of story, But when I open my mouth, I hear me say, ‘Tell me all of it. Everything.’ So he does.”

  It was so quiet now Marcus could hear the wind in the weeds. Rustling, like satin against skin.

  “Marcus told you about the broken bones. And he told you about the bites. What he didn’t say – because he didn’t know – is that not all the bites were made by rats.”

  A horn blared, but no one looked toward the sound. They were all staring at Vinny. “The bites, my friend said, weren’t like nibbles. That’s how he described it; it wasn’t like chunks gone as if rats had been at her. ‘They were more like scrapes,’ he said, ‘like someone had bitten her and then pulled his teeth down, like he was clawing at her, but not with his nails. With his teeth.’ And then he told me…he said…”

  Vinny stopped and Marcus wanted to scream at him, finish damn it, finish but he couldn’t say a word. His voice was a hard block in the center of his chest.

  “In some places, the scrapes went down to the bone. Long, jagged scrapes that went so deep the bastard’s teeth left marks on her bones.”

  Gina abruptly turned and walked away the way they had come. She was staggering, as if drunk, and Marcus thought he should go after her, one of them should go after her, when she stopped and doubled over, holding her stomach. The sound of retching floated to them.

  Vinny swallowed, his Adams apple moving up and down.

  “Why didn’t you say something before?” Marcus asked. His face grew hot and he tried to keep the anger from seeping into his voice. “God, Vinny, I talked to you two days ago and told you what I knew about Bo and you never mentioned this friend of yours. You let me tell you like it was the first time you were hearing any of it.”

  “Yeah, well, friend, I did that for you.”

  For a second, Marcus couldn’t speak. “For me?” he said flatly. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Vinny held his gaze. “I know how it was with you and Bo. I know how much you loved her. I couldn’t see any reason for you to know how much she suffered. What would that have done for you? You think you’d sleep better at night?” When Marcus didn’t say anything, Vinny ran his hands through his hair and added, “Besides,
I was thinking the less you knew about the specifics, the better.”

  “He’s right,” Gina said as she returned. “The police were asking you so many questions, Marcus. If you knew about the way she died, it wouldn’t look…right.”

  Reluctantly, Marcus nodded. “Okay. I get it.” He looked at Vinny. “And thanks.”

  Vinny’s expression loosened a little. “This morning, my friend called me. He didn’t have time to say much, just enough to tell me that they had another body with bites so deep there are teeth marks on the bones.”

  Sweet Jesus, Marcus thought.

  “And when I heard that, I called all of you.”

  “Why?”

  Vinny turned toward the voice and locked eyes with Alex. “We know what did it.”

  Alex laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “You’ve always been cryptic, Vinny, but this is a bit much. We know what did it? Please. If I knew what happened to Bo, don’t you think I’d be at the police station right now?”

  Vinny’s eyes were flat and black. “No. I don’t. You don’t want to face the truth, Alex. You never did. But you do know what killed Bo, you just choose not to believe it. You were there when Katie and Bo called it. You saw it, just like Marcus, Gina and me. And you heard it. It called us--”

  “Sons of dust,” Gina murmured.

  Marcus turned his head and their eyes locked.

  “Sons of Dust,” Vinny repeated, his lips twisted and it occurred to Marcus that he was trying to smile. “It laughed at us, remember? It held out its hands and we could see chains dangling from its wrists and it said, ‘The sons of dust will free a child of darkness…’”

  “That’s enough!” Alex exploded. “I don’t know where you’re getting all this, Vin, but it’s too much. You hear me? Too much.”

  “It sounded like a man at first.” Gina’s soft voice had the effect of a shout. Alex stopped talking, his eyes wider. Two spots of color lit his cheeks. She laid a hand on Alex’s arm. “At first, it looked like a man and then it started changing…”

  “Right in front of us,” Vinny finished. “Thank God Katie could--”

  “I’ve heard enough,” Alex’s voice was loud over Vinny’s. “If you want to stand around here and talk about childhood games, then that’s your choice. But count me out.”

  “What about Bo?” Marcus asked. “What about her, Alex?”

  He thought Alex would answer him, but Alex’s expression darkened and he turned and walked away, his shoulders hunched as if he were cold. Marcus watched him stride across the Forest Field but Alex didn’t turn around and when he reached Blood Hill, Marcus turned back to the activity on Essex Street.

  The front door to the house was open, a man in a blue suit was standing in the doorway. He was talking to someone still inside the house. Nodding his head, he stepped onto the porch. The person he was talking to followed him.

  It was Kate.

  She was wearing jeans and a sweater. Her long hair was loose, flying around her head in the early morning breeze. She pulled a strand away from her mouth and lifted her head. Even from this distance, Marcus knew she saw them. She wrapped her arms around her middle, hugging herself, and walked the man in the blue suit down the steps and when he was in his car, she crossed the street and headed toward the Forest Field.

  An odd thought came to him, chilled him to the bone. This is where it starts.

  Chapter 14

  Kate

  Marcus was the first person she saw. He was hard to miss, standing on the edge of the Forest Field, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. Kate couldn’t read his expression, he was too far away, but she could tell by his posture that he was watching her. Vinny and Gina stood to the side, close together, and the question Where’s Alex? rose in Kate’s mind, a reflex of the past.

  “—call if you think of anything else,” Detective Corville said. He was watching her closely, his blue eyes never leaving her face. He’d asked her a hundred questions, routine, she supposed, but she couldn’t answer any of them.

  She didn’t know anything about the man found next to her father’s house. She had moved away with her mother twenty years ago and had no idea who the man was or what he had been doing in the alleyway. After answering, “I don’t know, Detective,” a dozen times, the cop finally nodded and stepped onto the porch. Kate walked onto the worn boards behind him. She looked across the street—

  And saw Marcus.

  “—have the number, right?”

  Kate forced her eyes away from the tall, broad-shouldered man standing on the edge of a vacant lot. So silent and still, like a guard—

  “Yes,” Kate said. The detective was staring at her again. He’d been staring at her a lot, watching her in a way that made her think of her father. “Got to keep an eye on you,” JoJo used to tease, “God knows what trouble you’ll get yourself into.”

  God, indeed.

  “I have the number, Detective,” Kate forced herself to say. “If I think of anything else, I’ll call you, but…”

  The Detective waved his hand. “I know. It’s a long shot, but hey, you never know. Later on tonight, you get to thinking, something clicks and maybe you come up with a connection, some reason this guy would be at your house.”

  Kate rubbed her elbows. “Somehow, Detective, I don’t think that’s going to happen. This was…random.”

  But she knew better than that. It wasn’t random. It was a calling card.

  Corville nodded and walked down two more steps before hesitating. “I was just wondering,” he hesitated so Kate was forced to say, “Yes?”

  “Why did you have the power turned back on after all this time? You’ve been gone for twenty four years?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your folks divorced--”

  “Separated,” Kate corrected.

  “Separated,” Corville repeated. “And your mother moved with you away to…” he flipped his notebook. “Fryeburg, Maine.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you came back here to see your Dad, what, like every other weekend?”

  Kate smiled bitterly. “It wasn’t that simple, Detective. My parents were Catholic. They didn’t believe in divorce – or court. It wasn’t like there was a set visitation schedule. My mother and I moved away and we came back to visit every few weeks.”

  His eyebrows rose. “We? Your mother came, too?”

  Kate felt her cheeks flush. How could she explain it to this man? How could she explain that yes, her mother had moved them away, but even so, there was love between her parents. There was love in the secret glances they shared, loved heard in the creaking of bedsprings and the whisper of soft voices, love flashed from her eyes to his. Even when Kate was in high school and not willing to come to Chelsea anymore, her mother still made the trek from Maine to the city she claimed to hate, still stayed for weekends with her husband, still kept her possessions in the house she no longer called her own.

  “Yes,” Kate said simply. “My mother came, too.”

  The detective shifted his weight. “Your father died what, five years ago?”

  “Six.”

  “How often did you get back down here to check on the place?”

  Reluctantly, Kate answered, “Never.”

  The detective nodded like he expected that answer. “So why did you call the power company and have the juice restored?”

  “I told you. My lawyer recommended it.”

  “When did you call them?”

  “When?”

  The detective nodded, waited for her answer.

  “I don’t remember, exactly.”

  “Was it before or after your friend died?”

  The wind blew harder, whipping Kate’s hair around her face. She was thankful she’d worn it down. Maybe it was hiding her expression long enough for her to replace the confusion with something more confident. “Before,” she said. “I called before I knew Bo died.”

  “Quite a coincidence, huh? I mean, you have the house all ready and then get the c
all that a good friend in the city died.”

  “I’m not sure how coincidental it is.” She glanced at the Forest Field again and saw Marcus was still there. He hadn’t moved, and somehow, she found that comforting.

  “So?” Corville spread his arms open slightly, a help-me-out gesture.

  “So, Detective?” Kate repeated. “What’s your question?”

  “Why’d your lawyer recommend turning the power back on now?”

  Kate hesitated for less than a heartbeat. She straightened her back and when she opened her mouth, her words were smooth and natural. “I’m putting the house on the market. Having the service restored is just the first step in that process.”

  Rollins nodded. “Got it. And then you got a call that this friend of yours. Bowsa-“

  “Bosauvia Caveleska.”

  “Right. Died, and you came back to go to her funeral.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the funeral was yesterday.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then this morning, the body of an as-yet unidentified man was found on the back porch of a house that belongs to you.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  The man on the steps below her grimaced. “Well, not quite. I know about your friend. Matter of fact, talk about coincidences, I was assigned that case, too.” She met his gaze and didn’t drop her eyes. She knew what he was going to say next. “There are certain…similarities, I guess you could say. And that makes me wonder.”

  Kate felt sick to her stomach and wished Corville would hurry up and leave. She wanted to cross the street, talk to Marcus, maybe put her arms around him so he could hold her a moment and then she’d break away and tell him she was going back to Vermont. Back where it was safe.

  “—didn’t you stay the night here last night?”

  Kate looked away from the field back to the man on the steps below her. “Excuse me?”

  “I was just saying, one of the questions that keeps crossing my mind is this: you’ve got this big, beautiful house in the city, all ready to go, and you stay in a hotel in Boston. How come?”