by Tom Hunt
She couldn’t even imagine how crushing it would be, if Joshua was locked up in jail. After all they’d been through, not just over the past few days but over the past eighteen years, she didn’t think she could handle him being taken away from her.
She recalled what Teddy had said earlier. If they told the police everything and Joshua was convicted of manslaughter or a similar crime, he could be looking at years in jail, maybe many years. Locked up in jail instead of graduating high school or starting college. Still locked away as his friends finished college and moved away to different cities, maybe started families of their own. The conviction would be on his record forever, following him around for the rest of his life. Eighteen years old, and his life could be ruined.
“The body, it’s still out there in the forest,” Karen said to Teddy. “No one’s found it yet.”
“I know. I’ve been looking at the news. There’s been no mention of it.”
“We might not have to tell the police about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you know exactly what I mean. I know this is a person’s life. I know it’s terrible and wrong to even think about not telling the police what happened. But I just can’t get it out of my head, Joshua going to jail. His life being ruined.”
She shook her head. “I just don’t know.”
But she did know. She’d already thought about it last night. Thought about it endlessly. And no matter which angle she looked at it from, there was just no way she could convince herself that telling the police about the body was the right thing to do. She couldn’t turn Joshua in.
That was her decision. There’d been so many paths and choices that led to this point, and now this was the final decision to make. She couldn’t believe she was even considering such a thing, but she was. Actually, no, she wasn’t considering it—her mind was made up.
“I’m not going to say anything to the police,” she said. Teddy stared at her. Not much of a reaction on his face. It was like he expected her to say exactly that.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m not sure about anything. But this is my decision.”
She stood up from her chair.
“I have to go,” she said. “The police will be back soon to talk with Joshua and me. I want to make sure our stories are straight. Just wanted to come here and let you know what I decided.”
She walked toward the door.
“Karen?” Teddy said.
She turned back to him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This whole thing, it’s all my fault. But I did it for Joshua. You have to believe me.”
She believed him, but it was impossible not to feel some anger toward Teddy. The feeling wasn’t much, though. Here she was, faced with the same situation, and making the same decision. Covering up what had happened to protect Joshua.
There was plenty she wanted to say to Teddy, but it would have to remain unspoken for now. Too much else to focus on.
THIRTY
Karen glanced at a clock as she walked back through the hospital. Almost seven a.m. Franny would be returning to the hospital soon. Stop by Joshua’s room, get their stories straight; then there was one more thing she needed to do before the police returned.
In his room, Joshua was still sleeping. Shoulder bandaged up. A few bruises on his face. There were specks of dirt in his blond hair. Maybe it was blood. She leaned over his bed and shook his arm. His eyes fluttered open.
“Hey, you,” she said.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Feeling okay? How’s your head?”
He shrugged. “Better. I guess.”
“I need to talk with you,” she said.
She looked over her shoulder, out at the hallway. Just to be safe. It was empty.
“I still haven’t given my statement to the police, but they’ll be talking to me soon,” she said. “You, too. I want to talk about what we’re going to say to them.”
“What do you mean?”
“The accident. The dead body. I was talking with your father. We’re not going to mention what happened in the forest to the police. It just . . . it seems too risky. I don’t want this to end with you going to jail. I can’t stand that thought. But I want to leave it up to you. The decision is yours. If you’d rather come clean and tell them everything, we will.”
Joshua shook his head. He turned away from her. His lip started quivering. He turned and buried his head in his shoulder, the one that hadn’t been dislocated. His eyes became watery.
“Don’t do that,” she said, reaching over and stroking his hair. But maybe it was for the best. Just let it all out. Cry it away.
Joshua wiped his eyes and turned to her.
“Do you really think it’s the right thing to do? Not tell them?”
“No. It’s not right. Definitely not. But it’s what I think we should do.”
Joshua sniffled. “Okay.”
“We’ll begin our story the night we were ambushed, out in the woods. Like nothing happened before that. We’ll say we were out looking at the stars. Ross and Amber confronted us, a fight broke out, and Amber was shot. Just like what happened. He forced me to take Amber to the hospital by holding you at gunpoint. Told me if I said anything about him, he’d hurt you. Sound good to you?”
Joshua nodded.
“Okay. That’s our story. We’ll stick to that.”
“The clothes I wore on the night of the accident,” he said. “They’re still at the house. Under the deck. They’re all bloody.”
“Why are they there?”
“When I got home that night, there wasn’t time to get rid of them,” he said. “I pulled back that loose board and threw them under the deck. Figured I’d do something about them later.”
Karen stood up from her chair.
“I’ll grab them from the house, get rid of them,” she said. “Then there’s one final thing to do.”
She leaned over, kissed Joshua on the top of his head, and left the room.
* * *
• • •
She hurried through the hospital, out to her car in the parking garage. Left the hospital and drove away. She stared out the windshield, solemn-faced, as she drove through the city. A mixture of nerves and dread in her stomach. The smell of blood in the car’s backseat had only gotten stronger overnight.
Her first stop was their house. She parked out front and walked around the back. Pulled the loose board on the side of the deck and there it was: a plastic garbage bag. She grabbed it and opened it up. A charred, burned smell rose from inside. She could see a pair of pants, what looked like two deformed shoes. And the coat. The coat she’d bought Joshua for Christmas.
She carried the bag out to the car and pulled away. She drove on the interstate, turned onto a few gravel roads, and eventually reached Hawkeye Wildlife Management Area.
Trees everywhere. The sheet of paper she’d printed off showing Joshua’s cell phone location was still in her car cup holder. She referenced it as she drove on.
She did her best to avoid thinking about what she was preparing to do. Tried to clear her mind and remain calm—but that was impossible. She drove on, deeper and deeper into the forest. The morning sun was rising in the distance; it was actually a pleasant sight. The forest wasn’t nearly as creepy as it had been in the middle of the night, when darkness surrounded her.
As she drove, she thought about backing out. Reconsidering. She knew this was wrong, but she kept driving, her car bumping and jostling on the uneven road.
She looked at the sheet of paper.
Getting close.
More driving.
Closer.
A few more minutes of driving and she arrived. The body was right there, on the edge of the road. A huddled mass. Black coat. Dark pants.
> She slowed her car and pulled just past the body, so it was near her trunk. She stayed in her car and stared out the windshield, her expression blank, all business. She had to do something about the body. It was the final loose end. Right now, the police didn’t even know the body was there, but once Amber was healthy enough to give her statement, she’d surely mention the dead body that was out in the forest when she and Ross had encountered Karen and Joshua the first time. After the police came and found the body, there was no telling what would happen. They’d have questions for Joshua and her. What had happened? How had the person died? Why was the body out in the middle of nowhere? Maybe they’d even find something on the body linking it to Joshua—his DNA or some sort of trace evidence that had gotten on it during the scuffle after the accident. A million things could potentially go wrong once the police found the body.
No, if she wanted to end this for good, she had to get rid of the body.
She gave herself a final chance to turn around and drive back. Instead, she opened the car door. Stepped outside. Took a deep breath. She popped the trunk with the button on her key fob and walked around to the rear of the car.
The body was faceup in the same location it had been in the first time she’d seen it. It hadn’t started to smell much, just a musty odor like wet sneakers: a scent of rot and decay. The smell wasn’t overpowering, but it was enough to make her gag.
She stared down at the man’s ghost white face. Open mouth. Unblinking eyes. A large gash on the side of his head, near his temple. Blood covering his face, splattered onto his coat.
She still had no idea who this man was or what he’d been doing all the way out there. Seemed like an odd place to go for a stroll, but that was about the only explanation she could come up with.
She doubted they would ever know.
She took a few steps and stood directly over the body. She clenched her jaw, braced herself, then leaned down and grabbed the arms. She dragged the body over to her open trunk. She clenched her jaw even harder, ground her teeth together, and bent over. She closed her eyes as she worked her arms around the body—she couldn’t handle such an up-close view of the dead man’s face. She picked up the body and tried to hoist it into her open trunk, but the body kept slipping out of her hands. It was heavy—even worse, it was awkward. Hard to get a good grip.
After a few failed attempts, she was able to work her arms around the back of the body and get the torso into the trunk. Then the legs. The head. The arms.
She slammed the trunk shut and walked around to the driver’s seat. She sat down and exhaled so deeply she thought she would pull a muscle in her back. A few more deep breaths. She nearly started crying.
After she’d calmed herself, she pulled back onto the road and drove away.
THIRTY-ONE
Amber lay in bed. Stared at the ceiling. She was in a hospital room that looked nearly identical to the one she’d been in after she was shot.
She had no idea how long she’d been here. She could recall only bits and pieces of everything that had happened since she’d arrived. Her clearest memory was of meeting with a doctor after her surgery. He’d told her she was lucky to be alive.
She didn’t feel lucky. Didn’t really feel alive, either. Whatever medication she was on made her feel dazed and tired. Like she was in a dreamworld. She vaguely recalled speaking to a police detective at some point. He’d asked her a number of questions but she couldn’t remember what he’d asked or whether she’d actually been able to form responses. She was just too tired to remember much of anything.
In a way, her grogginess was a positive: she was so exhausted that nothing that happened yesterday truly seemed real. Ross was dead. She’d shot him. She remembered that much, but it just wouldn’t register that he was gone. Everything would sink in at some point, she figured. Just not now. Once the drugs wore off, she’d probably be able to recall with total clarity everything that had happened, and the full weight of it all would come crashing down on her. After that happened, maybe she’d be able to numb the pain. Convince herself that the man she’d killed wasn’t the real Ross, the Ross she loved. That he was someone different. Someone who was out of control. The way he was acting, it was inevitable that he would get himself killed. She’d only prevented him from hurting anyone else on the way out.
Not only was Ross gone, but her life was over, too, she knew. There’d be no happy ending for her. Ross was dead and she was looking at years in jail for the bank robbery. No way she was getting out of that. If she was convicted of murdering Ross on top of the robbery, she might spend the rest of her life behind bars, though she figured a jury might view it as self-defense.
There was a pinprick of pain in her stomach. Not too intense, but even through the haze of the medication, she felt it. She winced. Closed her eyes. Tried to ignore the pain. An image suddenly came to her. The face of the woman involved in all this. Karen. And her son. Couldn’t remember his name right now. Amber wondered what had happened to them. Wondered if they were safe. Wondered if they’d survived. She hoped so.
If nothing else, she hoped that at least someone would have a happy ending.
* * *
Karen drove out of Hawkeye Wildlife Management Area. Back onto the gravel roads. It’d be faster to get to her destination via the highway, but she wanted to avoid any and all major roads. Something bad could happen on a major road. A distracted driver, an accident, the police arriving to look at the damage and wondering about the smell coming from the trunk.
She drove on, tires crunching over gravel and kicking up rocks. She occasionally encountered a truck heading in the opposite direction but she was mostly by herself. She constantly looked back at the car trunk in the rearview mirror. A dead body was back there. A dead body she was about to dispose of. It was all so unbelievable.
Driving on the gravel roads was slow going, but after what felt like an hour, she arrived at an area that was perfect for what she needed to do. She parked on the side of the road. All around her was farmland. No cars, no houses. Cedar Rapids was just visible in the distance, ten miles away at least. Just a few feet off the road was the Cedar River, the biggest river in the area. Even with the cold temperatures, it wasn’t frozen over. Just a few chunks of ice floating in it.
Isolated and right next to the river—the spot was ideal. She grabbed the bag of clothes and walked over to the grassy marsh beside the river. This close, she could hear the noises of the river, the flowing, the movement. She threw Joshua’s clothes, one by one, into the river, then wadded the garbage bag into a ball and threw it in. She watched the current carry everything away. There was no telling how far they’d go. The river eventually met up with the Iowa River, then the Mississippi River. From there, they could end up anywhere.
She walked back to her car and stood outside the trunk. She scanned the area around her, looked back and forth. Nothing. Still no one and nothing nearby.
It was time.
Her heart was hammering. She hit a button on her key fob and the trunk popped open a few inches. She opened it all the way and was hit with a musty smell that was a little more intense than it had been earlier. She turned her head to the side and held her breath as she reached into the trunk. She wrapped her arms around the body and lifted it out. Flopped it onto the ground.
A final quick look around. Nothing. No one.
She grabbed the body’s arms and dragged it off the road. Down into the roadside ditch. Across a few feet of land that separated the road from the river. There was no time to waste. She felt as though she should say something, some final apology, but she remained silent. It seemed so cold and heartless, what she was about to do, but she just didn’t have a choice. She just couldn’t leave the body in the forest, just waiting to be discovered, like a ticking clock, counting down.
She bent down and shoved the body out into the water. The river was shallow at the edges and the current wasn’t strong.
The body just stayed there, barely submerged in water. She took off her shoes and socks and walked out into the river, submerging her feet in the icy-cold water, and pushed the body toward the center of the river.
Eventually, the current picked up the body and it started floating away, down the river, away from her.
THIRTY-TWO
Karen returned to the hospital. The next few hours were a blur. She talked with Franny. Told him her story, from the start.
She and Joshua had been out looking at stars.
They encountered Ross and Amber.
Ross had accidentally shot Amber and had forced Karen to take her to the hospital, threatening to harm Joshua if she mentioned him, then forced her to break Amber out of the hospital.
Then Shane showed up and things got out of control.
Franny had asked her questions. She’d answered them. From what she could tell, he believed her. At least, she thought he did. She thought he believed Joshua, too. As Franny talked to him she’d waited outside his hospital room, holding her breath, hoping that this was almost over and there’d be no more surprises. When Franny opened the door to Joshua’s room and told her he was leaving, she felt such a sense of relief that it nearly knocked her to the ground. It felt wrong to be relieved, like she didn’t deserve to feel anything positive right now, not after so much horror had occurred. But she couldn’t help it.
Once Franny was gone, she felt exhausted all of a sudden, so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. It was all finally catching up with her. She’d felt worn-out at times over the weekend, but that was nothing like the total exhaustion she felt now. Before, there’d always been her adrenaline to combat the sleepiness and keep her alert. But now, it was as though her body knew that it was all over and there was nothing left to keep her going.