The Toymaker

by Sergio Gomez

  “Look, we’re trying to figure out what’s going on. You grew up here, I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but this is a small town that doesn’t see such things often.”

  Jamie couldn’t care less if this was Timbuktu or downtown LA. “Why would I get my little brother involved in this? If I was just going to come into town and kill two people, why would I drag my brother around with me while I was doing it?”

  “Makes it more convincing if you’ve got somebody there to back up your story,” Deputy Smith said.

  “Christ, you have to be kidding me. I should’ve stayed the hell away from this place.”

  Deputy Smith opened up the manila folder on his lap. “You’re the only person connected with both Jarod Crimp and your father, Jamie. And here’s a rap sheet of the trouble you’ve been in: underage drinking, destruction of property, obstruction of justice, breaking and entering into government property, another citation for underage drinking… Want me to go on?”

  “All kid’s stuff. You’re trying to pin a double homicide on me. With all due respect, sir, get fucked.”

  “We don’t know what the training at the Army did to you,” the deputy continued.

  “Enough, Dwayne,” the Sheriff said, putting up a hand like he was about to chop the air to silence him. “Jamie, if you’ll talk to us and cooperate, we’ll talk to the State Police. Try to soften them up on you.”

  “Don’t I get a lawyer or something?” Jamie said.

  “Yes, that’s your right, son. But once you take it there our hands are off this case and we hand it over to the PA police.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’ll no longer be us just talking like men.”

  Jamie shook his head. This was crazy and stupid. He couldn’t believe this was happening. These were the people he grew up with, people he thought of as neighbors who happened to fit into a role in the community. Sheriff Harris had bought him and his friends ice cream a few times at the county fair when they were kids. Shit, he’d chaperoned more than one of his grade school trips. And now here he was, on the other side of his cell, accusing him of slaying two people.

  “Your call,” Deputy Smith said.

  Jamie walked away from them and leaned his head against the wall. He didn’t know how the law actually operated. They could be lying for all he knew.

  It certainly would escalate things if a lawyer got involved, because right now they hadn’t really accused him of doing it. They just brought him in for questioning, and didn’t happen to have the time to question him until this morning. Which had just been a workaround for them to go home last night instead of spending all night doing what they were doing now.

  Jamie walked back to the bars after considering this for a moment. “Sheriff Harris, you have to believe me about the man with the mask—the rabbit killer as you called him.”

  “Would you be open to speaking to Doctor Brown?” Sheriff Harris asked.

  “Yes. Get him here. I’ll prove to you I’m not crazy and I’m not just making this stuff up.”

  “Fine. Give us five.” Sheriff Harris got up, and waved Deputy Smith to follow him.

  They walked down the hallway to where a phone was on the wall. The Sheriff leaned in closer to Dwayne and said, “Something tells me he isn’t lying about this.”

  Deputy Smith stopped, eyebrows scrunched. “What makes you so sure all of a sudden?”

  The Sheriff shook his head. “He’s right. Everything he’s done up until now has been kid’s stuff.”

  “So what’re we going to do, Sheriff? Wait for this rabbit killer to show up and kill someone else? And hold Jamie Harper until that happens?”

  Sheriff Harris leaned against the wall, took his hat off, and wiped at his brow. Drenched.

  Damn blood pressure.

  “I don’t know Dwayne. But I have over thirty years of experience in this, and something in my gut is telling me we have this all wrong.”

  Deputy Smith started for the phone. “Well, he’s the closest thing we have to a suspect that isn’t a thirteen-year-old boy. Want me to call the doctor while you figure out this morality crisis you’re having, Sheriff?”

  “You can drop the bad cop act now, Dwayne.”

  Should I make the call?” he asked, ignoring the comment.

  “Yes, make the call.”

  The Sheriff started the opposite way they’d come, back to where the holding cell was.

  With the phone in his hand, Deputy Smith said, “Sheriff, what’re you doing?”

  “Going to try to talk to him one on one, see if he opens up more. You call the doctor anyway.”

  Chapter 3

  Lucas was sitting at the edge of his bed, staring into his face when Raymond woke up.

  It took him back to when he’d been dating a girl his freshman year of college that had a cat that woke him up with similar behavior. The cat’s name had been Mr. Toodles, if he remembered correctly.

  Only this wasn’t a furry animal. It was his son, made of wood. And the surprise of seeing him on his bed was a greater shock than the cat had ever been because he didn’t think Lucas would have had the strength to climb up the stairs to his room, but here he was.

  “Good morning, Father,” Lucas said.

  “Good morning, Son,” Raymond reached for his glasses, which now sat on his nightstand next to his carving knife.

  There was yet another surprise, because around Lucas’ wrist was the plastic watch Ernesto had given him. The hands ticked away around the iguana.

  Noticing that his father was staring at his new accessory, Lucas addressed it. “I found it in your workshop next to the lovely letter your friend wrote you. So sad. Hope you don’t mind me wearing it.”

  Raymond shook his head.

  “Onto other matters, Father, I have bad news.”

  “Uh oh,” Raymond said, sitting up and putting the glasses on his face. “What now?”

  “I have good news as well,” Lucas said. “Which one shall I give you first?”

  “Bad news, I guess.”

  “What we did last night, taking out that plague, it’s caused another disturbance with Oliver Harper.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lucas shook his head. “I’m not quite sure, but there is a new distress in the boy’s heart and mind.”

  Raymond hopped out of bed. Ever since this whole ordeal with Lucas had started, he’d felt a lot sprier, a lot more pep in his step. After killing Big Bob, the pain of his old joints had hardly returned at all. He was moving about without second guessing himself. Perhaps he’d pay for that in the future, but for now it felt good to move carefree like this.

  It was almost like his youth was back to him.

  Almost.

  Raymond walked over to the window facing Dudley Street and peeked through it. There were no immediate signs of any sort of disturbance he could see. It was as still as it was any other morning.

  “The good news Father,” Lucas said, “is that ridding the plague last night gave me back my mobility.”

  By the time Raymond turned from the window to face Lucas and ask him what he meant, the dummy was already at his side, looking up at him. The permanent smile on his face was stretched bigger, as if the paint and wood were transitioning from inanimate objects into flesh, but the transformation was not quite there.

  “Boy, that was quick.” Raymond laughed with excitement.

  “I got up here all on my own. One step at a time,” Lucas said. “Are you proud of me, Father?”

  “Of course.” Raymond bent down and hugged him. His body was still wooden, but there was that warmth emitting from it again. “I love you, Son.”

  “Good, Father. Because there is more to be done. More evil to rid this world of.”

  “Yes, yes. I know, Son. There’s more work before you’re truly alive.”

  Raymond changed out of his pajamas into street clothes. Then kissed his son on the head.

  “I’m going to pay our neighbors a little visit,” he told Lucas, the
n headed out to the Harper’s house.

  On the porch, Raymond held Mrs. Harper as she finished telling him what happened last night and cried onto his shoulder.

  He knew of Big Bob’s murder—after all, he’d done it—but the tidbit of information he didn’t know that he got out of her during the retelling was that the older son, Jamie, had gotten arrested and was being suspected of the murder.

  They hadn’t counted on that.

  Darn.

  He’d also found out that Oliver Harper was in pieces about his brother, so much so that he hadn’t left his bedroom since it’d happened.

  That was the disturbance Lucas must have sensed, and that was the information he needed to report back to him.

  Raymond held Wilma for a little while longer, then when she gained control of herself again, he said he was sorry again and dismissed himself.

  Wilma Harper’s sobs haunted him as he walked down the porch.

  Things weren’t right on Dudley Street, and he and Lucas needed to fix that.

  Chapter 4

  “I’m missing something. What the heck does this have to do with what we did at the tunnel?’ Gina asked. Her arms were crossed in front of her.

  They were in the “bunker,” a little shack Twist and Gina had built a few summers ago a few feet into the woods behind their houses. It was the one area back here that was barren of trees, so they’d set up some milkcrates and pieces of plywood around to make a makeshift clubhouse. The plan had been to make a roof for it, either out of cloth or more discarded plywood, but they’d given up on the idea and never got around to it. So now it was just a bunch of uneven walls and milkcrates to sit on in a patch of dirt between some trees.

  Twist tried to make sense of it for her. “Maybe the man with the rabbit mask is the demon we summoned up from the other world.”

  “Look, Slick,” Tommy said as gently as he could, “I know you’re upset about your stepdad getting killed and such—”

  “The hell I am,” Twist snorted. “Good riddance. It’s Jamie I’m worried about. Him, and whoever the guy in the rabbit mask goes after next. You don’t think it’s weird that it all starts happening right after we did that stuff in the tunnel?”

  “Oh shit,” Tommy said.

  “What?” Gina asked.

  “This is too coincidental. He might be right.”

  “What do you mean he might be right?” Gina was fuming, unsure where to direct her anger. At them or at herself or at this dumb rabbit-masked man that had apparently kidnapped Jarod Crimp and killed Big Bob. “This is stupid.”

  “Gina, calm down.” Tommy said, getting up from his milkcrate.

  “What do we do?” Oliver asked.

  Both of them looked at him, as the oldest, he was in charge. In moments like these, especially.

  Tommy began pacing back and forth. “I have no idea. Let me think.”

  “Oh, that’ll be a freakin’ first. A Marino thinking,” Gina scoffed.

  “Gina…” Oliver said, giving her an icy glare.

  “It was his stupid fault Twist. All of this is his fault.”

  “Mine?” Tommy said, stepping closer to her.

  Gina shot up from the milkcrate and stepped closer to him, their noses almost touching. “Yeah, if you wouldn’t have taken me into that stupid tunnel in the first place none of this would have happened.”

  “You chose to follow me into the tunnel. Besides—what the hell? I didn’t do any of that satanic stuff that happened in there, so don’t point the finger at me.”

  “The dummy,” Twist said.

  Gina and Tommy both turned to look at him, and in unison said, “What?”

  “The dummy we had with us when we went into the tunnel.”

  “You think it grew to over six feet tall and put on a rabbit mask to kill your stepfather—?” Tommy stopped himself as it dawned on him what Twist was thinking.

  “There was something in that tunnel with us, none of us can deny that,” Twist said. “If Victor and Jack were here, they wouldn’t be able to deny it either. Something was woken up when all of us went in there together.”

  “And…you think it took over the dummy’s body?” Gina said, and to her surprise she said it without laughing.

  “As ridiculous as it sounds,” Twist said, gulping, “a guy suddenly popping up with a rabbit mask and killing people in town is just as ridiculous.”

  “Yeah, but we’re talking Chucky shit here,” Tommy said.

  “The killer was over six feet tall, Tommy. Think of who fits that description. Think of who made the dummy in the first place.”

  Tommy felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He and Gina glanced at one another, and the look on her face suggested she felt what he was feeling, too.

  “You think it was Mr. Gibson that kidnapped Jarod?” Gina asked. “Why would he do that?”

  “Maybe the demon—spirit, whatever—we woke up used the dummy’s body like a vehicle. Took it over until we returned it to Mr. Gibson, then possessed Mr. Gibson’s body.”

  This was making a lot more sense than Tommy had hoped it would. “And now Mr. Gibson is hearing voices in his head or something and going around killing people?”

  “Yeah,” Twist said.

  Gina hugged her arms. “What do we do then? Call the cops and tell them this?”

  Tommy shook his head. “No way, Homeschool. They’ll throw all of us into the funny farm if we do that.”

  “Then what?”

  Tommy began pacing again.

  “Let’s try to find evidence or something that Mr. Gibson was the one who did all of this,” Twist suggested.

  “How? By breaking into his house?” Gina said.

  Twist shrugged.

  “I know how,” Tommy said. “Pauly showed me a few things before.”

  He could feel Gina’s eyes judging him, but this was bigger than that, so he ignored it.

  “When do you want to do it?” Tommy asked them, but mostly Twist.

  “As soon as possible. So we can get Jamie out of jail.”

  “Yeah,” Tommy agreed. “Gina, you coming along with us?”

  She regarded both of them. There was no way she wanted to look like a chicken in front of them, but breaking into a house was a crime she wasn’t sure she was ready to commit—or ever would be, for that matter. But even scarier than getting caught breaking into someone’s house was the possibility that Twist’s crazy theory was right, that it was indeed Mr. Gibson who’d murdered Big Bob and kidnapped Jarod Crimp.

  “You don’t have to,” Twist said.

  Gina stirred, and scowled. She hoped her voice didn’t quaver as much as the nerves tickling her throat suggested it would when she spoke. “I helped to wake this damn thing up. If you’re right about this Twist, I guess I shouldn’t stick you guys with it.”

  “Alright,” Tommy said, “let’s go scope out the house. If the old man isn’t there, we’ll break in.”

  “He usually is,” Twist informed him.

  “We’ll wait ‘til nighttime if we have to, but come on. Let’s go anyway, maybe things are different today.”

  Chapter 5

  “There was no weapon found at either scene, was there?” Jamie said. He had his face pressed up against the bars.

  Sheriff Harris had returned with less confrontation in him. Jamie could see that he was as scared of what was going on as he was, scared that he couldn’t figure out this murder and this emergence of a strange “rabbit killer” in his town.

  “No, you’re right about that,” the Sheriff said.

  “Because the rabbit killer took the weapons with him when he fled the scenes.”

  Sheriff Harris’ eyes dropped down to his boots, then he looked back up at Jamie. “He struck twice in one night. Why?”

  He wasn’t so much asking Jamie, as he was thinking aloud.

  “I have no clue, Sheriff. I’ve been back in town for less than a day and I’m still trying to get my bearings.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the Sheriff
grabbed at the keys on his waist, the ones that would open up the holding cell and let Jamie Harper out free, but he didn’t take them off his belt.

  “You came back without Deputy Smith for a reason, sir.”

  “He’s calling Doctor Brown.”

  “I’ll take all the psych evaluations you want, but the Army already did that when I signed up and I passed with flying colors. It’s kind of a waste of his time.”

  “You’re right.” The Sheriff rested his hand against one of the metal bars. “How about this, Jamie. You stay in here until I talk to folks around the neighborhood. If I find any evidence, anything at all, that there’s a rabbit killer, I’ll come back and let you free. Okay?”

  Jamie nodded. “Sure. I’ve been here all night, what’s another day to me?”

  “I’m sorry, son. But you’re the only possible suspect in all of this.”

  “And you need to look good for the town, I get it. I guess.”

  “I’ll try to be quick, but I’ll be thorough. If I do find any evidence there’s a killer out there, I’ll issue you a public apology—and treat you to a burger.”

  “Fair. But I want fries with that.”

  The Sheriff smiled thinly, then started down the corridor toward the exit of the jailhouse.

  Chapter 6

  Raymond parked the car across from the county jail. The county jail was located at the bottom of a hill from an industrial complex. Factories that had once been used to manufacture computer and car parts used to make up this complex some years ago, but it was the late nineties now. Most of those jobs had long been outsourced overseas, and the buildings that had once been the centers of blue-collar work were now nothing but empty husks of concrete and linoleum floor.

  Which meant this was one of the most isolated parts of Dutch County.

  Their car was in the lot of what used to be a Chevrolet factory that was at the top of the hill, overlooking the jail grounds. They were far enough away to not be suspicious, while also being close enough to observe the activity at the jailhouse.

  Lucas saw his father’s face had gone pale.