The Homecoming

by Carsten Stroud

Then he and Delores went back out to the living room and got to know each other better.

  (As a footnote to Harvill Endicott’s premature decapitation, it’s worth mentioning that Warren Smoles’ absence from the Niceville social whirl was not remarked upon for almost three weeks. His partners at Smoles Heimroth Cotton and Haggard were aware of the spanking he had gotten from Terrible Teddy—it had been the talk of the legal community for days afterwards—Judge Monroe’s phrase “the Sultan of Slime” was on everyone’s lips—and they were not surprised that he was lying low.

  Smoles had no personal friends and when the cleaning ladies arrived on Wednesday only to find the house closed up and the entrance code changed, they simply marked him down as “Account Suspended.” No one else gave much of a damn about him.

  Except of course for the cats.

  After a while, when the new guy didn’t come back and the dry food ran out and the electric can opener continued to defeat their best efforts and all they had to drink was the trickle of water dripping into a bathtub on the third floor, the cats began to take a more active interest in Warren Smoles.

  Smoles was laid out on top of the king-sized bed in his master en suite, just as Endicott had left him. He was trussed up like a Christmas ham and he had a bullet hole in his thigh.

  But he was still alive.

  Whenever the cats would wander into the room, he’d jerk around on the bed and make weird noises at them. Sadly, if the electric can opener was simply impossible for creatures without opposable thumbs, there wasn’t much the cats could do about the knots and gags and plastic cord cuffs that were keeping Warren Smoles right where he was.

  He was, however, fun to watch.

  Being cats, they’d soon lose interest in what he was doing and wander out again to look a bit harder for something good to eat. Eventually it became clear to all of them that there really wasn’t anything left to eat in the whole damn house.

  On the morning of the fifth day they began to gather around Smoles again. He wasn’t jerking and twisting and making weird noises by then. He was badly dehydrated and slipping in and out of consciousness. The cats, all fifteen of them, sat around him on the bed and considered him through half-closed eyes.

  After a period of indecision, one of them—a tabby, of course—ventured an experimental bite. This seemed to energize Smoles quite a bit and he did a whole lot more of that writhing and twisting stuff and he went back to making those high-pitched noises. But soon it became obvious that other than doing his usual herky-jerky shrieking and squealing thing, Smoles was basically harmless.

  The Maine Coon cats were the first to get down to serious business. Soon all the others joined in. Everyone agreed that he tasted like ham.)

  Wednesday

  I Sing the Body Electric

  It took two days to set it up but now they were here—a Wednesday morning—and Kate was using all of her considerable powers of persuasion on the woman behind the desk.

  Doctor Lakshmi had very large almond-shaped eyes and full lips, which she colored a deep rose red. In the normal course of her day she radiated a calm, competent, and even loving nature. Today this was not so, and she sat looking at Kate with great resistance, even some anger.

  “One does not administer ECT to a child without very good reasons, Kate. WellPoint is not some third-world quack shop. I’m very sorry to—”

  Kate looked at Nick, who was sitting across the room, keeping his distance from this. They were back together, if they had ever been apart, but he had very little hope in Kate’s idea, no matter what may have happened with Hannah’s hearing aids.

  “It was electrical interference, Doctor. The audiologist confirmed it. He replicated the effect by using an oscilloscope. He even provided the frequency range that—”

  She waved that aside.

  “An audiologist is not a neurologist. There are professional standards, and I adhere to them. What you are proposing could not even be contemplated without a whole battery of diagnostic tests.”

  “All of which you’ve done, CAT scan, an EKG, PET scan, even a lumbar puncture. I’ve read your own website, and on it you clearly state that in cases where no other anomaly is present Electroconvulsive Therapy is often successful in treating mental health conditions like severe mania, schizophrenia, catatonia—”

  “Rainey is not catatonic. He’s resting quietly in the ward. There has been no repetition of that interior voice effect that Rainey reported.”

  Kate sat back.

  “Look, Doctor, I’ll be blunt. This is Rainey’s last hope—”

  “Kate I don’t for one second believe that Rainey has a demonic presence inside him. WellPoint does not do exorcisms—”

  “I’m asking you to treat his mania—his belief that there actually is some kind of demonic presence inside him. You yourself said that ECT is very often the answer to that kind of delusional condition, especially when all else has failed.”

  Dr. Lakshmi was silent for a time.

  “There are risks—”

  “I’ll sign any waiver you put in front of me.”

  “There may be short-term memory loss. He will experience nausea, headache, jaw pain. During an ECT treatment, heart rate and blood pressure spike. Although his heart is strong, the risk remains. Slight but present. We are inducing what amounts to a seizure. It is performed under a full anesthetic, which carries its own risks …”

  Her voice trailed away.

  Kate held her breath.

  “I will need to consult an ethicist …”

  “But you’ll consider it?”

  “You are set upon this course?”

  “I am committed to it.”

  Dr. Lakshmi studied her for a while and then looked over at Nick.

  “And you, Nick? You are also Rainey’s guardian. Do you support this treatment?”

  “Doctor, if he doesn’t get it, then Kate and I have a problem, because I’m not allowing Rainey to live in our house until his condition is resolved.”

  He glanced at Kate, gave her a wry smile.

  “So far what this has actually meant is that I’m in a hotel and Kate lives in our house with Beth and Hannah and Axel, and Rainey is confined in your ward—”

  “That’s because he’s a flight risk and the center of an investigation into the drowning of a school official. Are charges being considered?”

  “No. Because of Rainey’s mental … issues … the prosecutor has declined to lay any kind of responsibility on Rainey, but the fact is he may well have had something to do with it. If this treatment can help him live a normal life …”

  “Then you fully support it?”

  “Yes,” said Nick. “I do.”

  “Very well then.”

  She was down deep down deep curled tight inside a web of tasty memories savoring them tasting them breathing them eating them. She had been thinking of the pleasures to come when the oldfamiliar came to live here again—the things they had done together—tasted together—that neither could do alone. In the beginning there had been no one that nothing did not simply consume in anger but in this aftertime as the crack between the worlds cooled and changed and she changed with it old habits had changed too and some of the life that came to her she did not consume or did not consume all at once and a few of these lives slipped into her and stayed and she was less alone and the new aftertime had been very rich and tasty—this entity she had entered was unformed—unready—powerless to make things happen—but he was the matrix for the oldfamiliar and soon he would come again—

  —she was aware of the entity trying to see her—trying to fight her—it drew her—buzzing and clicking to herself she moved into that part of the entity’s mind where vision lived—

  Rainey’s eyes were closed tightly, and he was strapped down on the gurney as the nurses moved about him in the cold white room, but he saw the thing burning against the inside of shuttered eyes—his heart was pounding but he could not move—nothing looked back at him—

  —her eyes w
ere yellow sparks inside a field of black diamonds—she was spinning like a wheel of fire and smoke but the eyes held him—he could feel the heat of her on the surface of his mind—the electric crackle of her glittery skin—inside her eyes there was a wasteland—a burning yellow plain under an emerald sky swept with blue fire—her eyes grew wider—she knew that Rainey was looking at—looking into her—seeing her—she felt his raw terror—it was silky and silvery and living—she opened her mouth and

  —there was a hissing crackling flood of fire—blue and white and violet flames slithered and arced along all the wires and walls—they were so hot so burning such pain she had never known—she flitted down caves and leapt across glowing canyons and snaked farther down and farther down tunnels of pulsing flesh with the violet flames pursuing her … she went down deep and down deep and down—

  Three Weeks Later

  A Dappled Day

  The weather was changing, but it was still warm enough for the kids to play outside in the backyard. Kate and Beth had set out the lawn chairs, and they were watching Rainey and Axel and Hannah play some kind of game that they had arranged on a blanket at the bottom of the lawn, down where the creek ran through the pines and willows there, at the edge of the little forest. Sunlight filtered through the trees and lay like scattered gold coins all over the grass and flowers and on the heads and shoulders of the children.

  All things considered, they were almost happy, and although there was loss—their father was still gone—life had calmed down to a degree and Rainey’s voices had not returned. He and Axel had stopped skipping school and their marks were improving. The matter of Alice Bayer’s death had been filed under Misadventure, and she’d been decently buried in the Methodist Cemetery up in Sallytown.

  Deep in Kate’s heart she knew that Rainey had been there when Alice had gone in, but she found it impossible to believe that Rainey had in any way made it happen. Rainey was, after all, just a kid.

  Kate had managed to talk Nick into coming back home, even though Rainey was still living with them. He was distant and polite to Rainey. The Alice Bayer Question, among many others, weighed heavily on him.

  But Kate felt that Nick had a soft heart and a fair mind and would, in time, come to forgive the kid for what he had done with Warren Smoles and to accept that whatever happened to Alice, Rainey hadn’t made it happen.

  About Smoles, who seemed to have dropped off the planet, Kate was trying to forgive Rainey herself, and every calm day made it a little easier.

  Hannah had gotten a brand-new set of hearing aids, partly because she simply refused point-blank to allow the old ones anywhere near her. With the new hearing aids, there had been no reappearance of that interference thing, the kind that had occurred before Rainey’s ECT treatments.

  Kate had begun to hope that, whatever had happened to Rainey, it was over now, and that perhaps they could all just settle down and have as ordinary a life as possible in a town as strange as Niceville.

  Things were changing with the grown-ups too.

  Lemon Featherlight was seeing a girl named Doris Godwin. It looked like a serious affair. They were spending a lot of time checking out these shots Doris had taken, at the top of Tallulah’s Wall. And the thing with the “bone baskets” had grown into a project that took Lemon and Reed up to UV once a week to talk to Dr. Sigrid, the anthropologist. Kate was beginning to suspect that Reed had developed an interest in Dr. Sigrid, who was, by all accounts, a genuine Valkyrie.

  So Kate and Beth hadn’t seen much of anyone for a couple of weeks, although Lemon had met with Nick a few times to talk about the bone baskets and the pictures. Nick wasn’t saying anything about any of this stuff. Kate figured that when he was ready he’d fill her in.

  Meanwhile, she was happier not knowing.

  Now that Byron was dead, the Chinese had turned their attention to a young Asian man named Andy Chu, a Securicom IT guy who had been with Byron on the night he died. Chu was in the hospital, guarded by the FBI. According to Boonie, the Chinese wanted him very badly, and Chu was talking up a storm with Boonie in an effort to avoid being deported. Boonie said if Chu kept on talking he might be able to keep him away from The guangbo. Kate figured Boonie was starting to like the kid, who seemed to be—to a degree—an innocent hostage at the Galleria.

  Charlie Danziger’s funeral had come and gone—he’d gotten buried with full honors and Mavis Crossfire had given him a lovely eulogy.

  Beau Norlett was there, in a wheelchair but on the mend and due to go back to the CID—desk duty at first—in a month.

  About the Gracie robbery, the official word was that Charlie Danziger had nothing to do with it—that it was all on Coker—who was still missing, along with his girlfriend, Twyla Littlebasket.

  They were both now on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, which probably made Coker smile.

  Kate wondered whether she was getting the whole story—it was hard to see Coker doing anything that Charlie Danziger wouldn’t know about—but Nick and Tig Sutter weren’t moving off that line and it had now become The Official Version.

  Kate was a smart enough wife to leave it alone. Niceville was a town that had buried a lot of secrets far more strange than that one. Maybe everybody was just relieved to be taking a break from … Niceville. That suited Kate and Beth.

  “Can I get you a glass of wine, Kate. A nice warm red?”

  Kate looked a little odd.

  “Well, I think I better not.”

  Beth stared at her.

  “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

  Kate smiled, blushing a bit.

  Beth jumped up and hugged her sister. “That’s wonderful,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Have you told Nick?”

  Kate’s mood dipped and recovered. She had had two miscarriages in the past, both early, and had waited until now to tell anyone.

  “I am going to tell him tonight.”

  “I’ll take the kids to dinner. The two of you can be alone.”

  “Perfect.”

  They sat for a time in companionable silence, smelling fall in the air. Somewhere in the neighborhood, leaves were being burned and the tangy scent of them drifted on the wind. A burst of laughter came from the children down at the bottom of the yard, and Axel sat back, waving something in his hands, a wand of some sort. Apparently he had won something, a hand or a round or a prize. Hannah was sitting back—blond and happy—and staring up at the boys, her blue eyes wide.

  “What are they playing?” asked Kate.

  “That new game Rainey and Axel made up. They’re teaching it to Hannah.”

  “What are the rules?”

  “No idea. It involves a lot of whispering. I think there’s a secret language too. Kids only, anyway. No adults allowed. They all stop and stare at me like owls whenever I go down there.”

  The sun went into clouds and the dappled gold coins disappeared. It got cool. The children were whispering together. Kate felt a chill. So did Beth.

  “Getting colder,” she said. “We should go in soon. Can I get you a wrap?”

  “No. I’m fine. We’ll go in.”

  They watched the children for a while longer.

  “Kids do love their secrets,” said Beth.

  “They do. Probably harmless.”

  “Probably,” said Beth, suppressing a dark feeling. Kate was doing the same while they listened to the children murmuring at the bottom of the yard.

  Beyond the kids, the river bubbled and flashed in the deep shadows under the old pines. The sun stayed behind the clouds. It got colder. Kate looked up at the sky and thought, Winter is coming.

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost I am profoundly grateful to my wife, Linda Mair, for her wit, her style, her acute sense of business and writing, and above all for her amazing ability to put up with me.

  Beyond Linda, I need to thank Barney Karpfinger, my rather steely agent, and Cathy Jaque, who runs the Foreign Office, for their loyalty, patience, and fire. I need to thank Carole Bar
on, my editor at Knopf, the consummate pro who taught me that better is not acceptable when you’re capable of best, to Ruthie Reisner, Carole’s indispensable Two-IC, to Victoria Pearson—who brought it all home—to Jason Booher, who gave the Book the Look, and Cassandra Pappas, who gave the pages their grace, to Emily Stroud, for utterly brilliant graphic design and a killer website, and to all the copyeditors around the world who saved me from myself a hundred times.

  And of course, thanks to Sonny Mehta, who took a flier on weird and made it all possible.

  A Note About the Author

  Carsten Stroud is a highly praised writer of fiction and nonfiction, including the best-selling true-crime account Close Pursuit. Among his novels are Sniper’s Moon, Lizardskin, Black Water Transit, Cuba Strait, Cobraville, and Niceville. He lives in Toronto, and is currently working on his next novel.

  Other titles available by Carsten Stroud in eBook format

  Niceville • 978-0-307-95858-7

  Visit: www.nicevilleusa.com

  Follow: @CarstenStroud

  For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com