Hawthorn Woods

by Patrick Canning

  Mr. Banderwalt smiled, blood dribbling from the shard of animal bone Francine had lodged in his cheek. He dropped Eric and went out into the storm.

  “Can’t…let…him take her,” Eric rasped.

  Francine got to her feet, her legs feeling like they were made of concrete. She staggered dizzily across the room and ran into the doorframe. Leaning outside, she saw Mr. Banderwalt fling a plastic shell weightlessly into the yard. A yellow-orange glow rose from the window well. He’d found her at last.

  One of his huge, bloody arms reached down into the well and effortlessly pulled up his daughter. Diana’s toes dragged along the smooth, corrugated metal in a final effort to stay. The Glo Worm fell from her hand as Mr. Banderwalt carried her toward the pickup.

  Francine stumbled down the ramp and picked up the toy by its pajama tail. She caught up to Mr. Banderwalt and swung it as hard as she could into the side of his face, driving the shard of bone deeper into his skin.

  He screamed in pain and dropped Diana in a puddle. Then he rounded on Francine, pink eyes wide with rage.

  “Okay, bitch. You want it?” In one step he had his hands around her neck.

  They fell together onto the lawn, his weight squeezing the air from her lungs as they sank into the watery grass. Diana screamed and ran inside the house.

  Spots of color popped in Francine’s vision as Mr. Banderwalt’s hands pressed tighter and tighter. The simplest thoughts came with more and more difficulty.

  He was hurting her. She was going to die. The monster was going to kill her.

  Then she saw an even bigger monster stalk past the headlights of the pickup.

  Lischka’s command came low and deadly. “Off her.”

  The grip on Francine’s neck loosened and she inhaled hard, gulping burning air down her ravaged throat.

  Mr. Banderwalt stood slowly, half-smirking at the elderly man before him. “What is this? What do you think you—”

  The tip of the rifle flared white in the darkness. A pillar of light passed straight through Mr. Banderwalt’s head and into the graveyard of bones below. He fell sloppily to the ground, and the deafening sound of the gunshot faded, letting the rain and thunder back in.

  Lischka spat on the corpse. “A man like my father. And so he enjoys the same fate.”

  He turned his attention to Francine, pressing the still-hot barrel of the rifle into her cheek.

  Francine looked up at the man she’d once trusted, once revered like a father. Rain plinked off his blue blazer and the gold frames of the readers clipped to the breast pocket.

  “Your reader glasses.” She croaked a bitter laugh. “They were Ida’s father’s. You did keep something.”

  Lischka glanced down at his pocket, realization coming to him slowly. “The hotelier in Poland? His daughter. She escaped.”

  “Yes. And she found you.” Francine’s voice was raspy, but satisfied. “No hammock for your twilight years. No happy poem on your gravestone. You’ll be captured, or die in an unfamiliar place, under a new meaningless name. But you’ll always be Lischka to me.”

  Lischka tapped the glasses down in his pocket, and smiled. He knelt close to her, still holding the hot rifle barrel to her cheek. “I was superior to my father, to the Jewish disease of Europe, to my pursuers in South America, to this pile of filth on the lawn. And now, to you as well, Francine. Goodbye—”

  His eyes caught on something at the front door.

  Eric Banderwalt, walked slowly out into the storm, his BB gun pointed at Lischka’s head. In the darkness and rain, the rifle looked real enough.

  “Put it on the grass,” Eric said, as rain dappled the mask of blood on his face.

  Lischka slowly withdrew the barrel from Francine’s cheek. “Easy, boy. Easy…”

  “Put it on the fucking grass!” Eric shouted.

  Lischka dropped his rifle and walked carefully backwards, stepping through the scattered bones until he reached the idling pickup.

  “Can’t let him leave,” Francine rasped to Eric, but he didn’t seem to understand.

  Lischka reversed the truck into Del’s Corvette, inadvertently pushing it sideways and blocking the driveway. He threw the pickup into drive and fishtailed across the lawn, sending a wave of mud and bone over Francine as she picked up Del’s rifle.

  Wiping the sludge from her face, she aimed at one of the truck’s rear tires and pulled the trigger. The recoil hammered her shoulder so hard, it was impossible to see if she’d hit anything. When she tried to fire again, the gun jammed.

  As the pickup hit the ditch between the yard and the street, it slowed just long enough for Francine to run forward and jump in the back.

  Chapter 47

  At times I feel like smashing things.

  [ x ] TRUE [ ] FALSE

  She landed hard in the truck bed and lost the rifle in a sloshing pool of rainwater. A moment later, everything shifted in a surge of energy as the truck’s front tires gripped the road. Francine was thrown into the truck’s back gate, but mercifully it didn’t buckle.

  She watched Eric shrink behind them as the truck accelerated down the street. The sky beyond the Banderwalts’ house glowed orange. Accelerant-fueled flames battled the rain as the roof of Lischka’s cottage began to fold in.

  Lischka took the next turn hard and Francine fell into the side of the truck bed. She tried and failed to find her footing on the slippery metal, fighting against every one of Lischka’s attempts to throw her out. Finally, her fingers dug into a seam on the cab, and she pulled herself to a standing position. The truck gave its biggest lurch yet as the rear tire Francine had apparently hit earlier tore apart under the stress of the last turn. Chunks of rubber and yellow sparks spit up behind the truck as Lischka approached the three ponds.

  Then something in the water bumped against Francine’s leg. The rifle.

  She grabbed the weapon by its barrel and arced it high over the roof of the cab. The shoulder stock smashed into the truck’s windshield, spidering fracture lines across the glass.

  Lischka cursed, leaning to see through the ruined windshield just as something white dashed across the road ahead.

  He automatically jerked the steering wheel to avoid Ajax, and the truck left the road, veering wildly toward Haunted Pond. They hit a berm in the grass and Francine was thrown clear, ground and sky becoming a spiral of color until her feet caught the pond’s surface and she plunged underwater.

  Headlights stabbed into the darkness a half second later, yellowing the water as the truck sank toward the silty bottom of the pond, pulling Francine down along with it.

  She fought with everything she had left, working against her heavy clothes, the sharp pain in her neck, and the fiery exhaustion in every muscle. She kicked and kicked until her hands clawed the bank of the pond.

  She lay there, gasping in the euphoria of escaped death. Then she saw them, running toward her from the direction of the barn as the storm continued to rage. Bruno in the lead, Laura Jean and Magdalena behind him, Chief Durham and Mark behind them.

  The rain was practically horizontal now, tree branches bending and breaking as a tornado siren screamed somewhere in the distance.

  Bruno slid to Francine’s side and shielded her from the flying debris as best he could, careful not to move her. A moment later, Laura Jean and Magdalena were on her other side.

  With great effort, Francine tilted her head up to watch Chief Durham and Mark pull a blue-blazered figure from the water and put him in handcuffs. It was over.

  Unable to hold her head up any longer, Francine lay flat against the grass. The sky above was green and black, but calmer now. Maybe the eye of a storm. Maybe the remnants of a storm now passed.

  She felt Bruno’s hand slide into hers. He squeezed, and she squeezed back.

  Chapter 48

  I have had a tragic loss in my life that I will never get over.

  [ ] TRUE [ x ] FALSE

  “Shall we?” Ellie asked.

  Francine nodded at her sister as
much as the neck brace would allow, and out they went.

  Down by the mailbox, Laura Jean and Magdalena applauded their arrival.

  “I went for walks with Francine before it was cool,” Laura Jean announced. “I just want that on the record.”

  Magdalena offered Francine a pack of Camel 100’s. “I brought the cigarettes you like. But Laura Jean says she does not allow this.”

  “The doctor doesn’t allow it.” Laura Jean stuffed the cigarettes inside the mailbox. “But I agree. It’s a bad look for a national hero.”

  The four of them started a slow walk around the block, the topics of conversation as numerous and wide-ranging as breath would allow: Laura Jean’s ideas for the Halloween parade, Magdalena’s plans to visit her brother in Indiana, Ellie’s favorite cafés in Paris.

  Francine participated, but couldn’t keep her mind off the slow scroll of people and houses they passed, wondering what the future might hold for each.

  The Cunninghams’ home was blessed once more by the twins, who’d decided to come back from Notre Dame and spend the rest of their summer in a neighborhood that wasn’t quite as dull as they’d thought. Laura Jean was delighted to have them, as well as the ten pints of rum raisin ice cream gifted by Francine.

  A moving truck shaded the driveway of the mint-colored ranch on the other side of the block. The new residents, busily throwing out teddy bear knick-knacks by the bagful, had heard about the recent events in the neighborhood, but were unaware that their very own kitchen had been ground zero for what had turned out to be a very effective, improvised detective agency.

  The storm had finally erased the bloodstain marring the street in front of the Durhams’ house. There was still much to be worked out between Hollis and Magdalena, but in the afterglow of full disclosure, both had decided to try and make the situation work. They’d requested the matchmaking services of Laura Jean for outside dates, while continuing to maintain total honesty in what was proving to be quite the modern marriage.

  The Colonial next door was uncharacteristically humbled: every window closed, every blind drawn. Aiding and abetting a kidnapping meant Dennis wouldn’t be back to Hawthorn Woods for quite some time—assuming Lori stayed herself. It was unclear exactly how much she had known about her husband’s unwholesome hobby, but she’d been notably absent from the opening of his court case, and from every neighborhood event since.

  An opposite change had taken hold in the next house. Mrs. Banderwalt was seated in the shade of a leafy maple, her face clear and smiling as she watched her daughter play with Ajax, the family’s new pet. Eric’s shed had been cleaned out and converted into a giant dog house, leaving plenty of room for a cushy dog bed and the windfall of toys gifted by the rest of the block. Del Merlin crouched in the gravel driveway, helping Eric fine-tune the engine of his dirt bike. Aside from a baseball-sized lump and a week of headaches, he had emerged from the ordeal unscathed, though the same couldn’t be said for his truck-smashed Corvette. But the mechanical enthusiast had waved away Francine’s apologies, thrilled his car needed actual repairs for once. He was excited to do the work, and his new assistant, Eric, was excited to learn. The shocking death of Mr. Banderwalt hadn’t exactly been celebrated by the boy, but it seemed the cloud of dread that had long fogged his family had lifted, allowing them a chance to start their lives again.

  The charming cottage nuzzled in the spruce trees was still picturesque, save for the yellow ribbons of crime scene tape crossing off every charred door and window. Everything inside that hadn’t been turned to ash had been relocated to police lockups. Oskar Lischka was in a jail cell somewhere downstate, awaiting a distant trial. He’d become the rope in a legal tug of war between a dozen different governments, all of which were thoroughly reviewing the findings of an overly dedicated history teacher and a vacationing hairdresser.

  Francine and her friends stepped back into Ellie and Pete’s driveway. Once the honeymooning couple had gotten over the incredible events that had taken place in their absence, Francine had noticed a mild glow to her sister, and a more chipper attitude in Pete. She had a feeling, just a feeling, that Ellie had gotten pregnant in Paris. If it was true, Francine would be genuinely ecstatic for them, as long as they picked any name other than Charlie and used any baby food other than Gerber. She would be a great aunt. She’d had the practice.

  Everyone they’d seen on their walk slowly converged in the driveway, where Chief Durham and Pete chatted with Bruno next to a car now packed with one more suitcase than it had arrived with.

  The thirteen-hour drive to New York in a neck brace wouldn’t allow for much sightseeing, but Francine didn’t mind. She’d count down the highway exits to her new life with anticipation. The first thing she was going to do when they got to the city was check out the referrals given to her by her recently-acquired therapist. Francine had learned a lot about something called dissociative identity disorder, and the alternate personalities that sometimes emerged out of it. She hadn’t seen or become Charlie since the night before the storm, but she was ready to deal with it if she did. Her therapist was confident she’d continue to make progress with the right kind of support, both professional and personal.

  She and Bruno were going to pick up where they’d left off, now free from the incredible stresses of their investigation. Unless, of course, they opted to embark on a new case together, becoming summer sleuths who solved mysteries between May and September. Maybe they’d swap research and field work while they waltzed to classical music in the kitchen of their new apartment, somewhere not too far from Bruno’s old one, so they could still have dinner with Ida from time to time. Francine was looking forward to all of it. The easy times that would bring joy, and the difficult ones that would bring perspective.

  After a flurry of hugs, well wishes, and promises to call and visit, she and Bruno were alone in the car, waving goodbye to the grateful residents of Hawthorn Woods through the windshield.

  Bruno put on the “New York or Bust” tie Laura Jean had made for him, then handed Francine a map from the glove compartment. “Ready?”

  She smiled. “Absolutely.”

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to these people, whose generously shared childhood memories helped detail the book’s setting: Nick Canning, Amy Jackson, Becca Mandru, and Jess Palakshappa.

  And thank you to these immensely brave individuals for reading and critiquing early drafts of the story: Bett Canning, Justyna Canning, Terry Canning, Katie Contri, Sachi Georgieva, Jess Gittler, and Sarah Novak.

  PATRICK CANNING is the author of The Colonel and the Bee, and Cryptofauna. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his Australian Shepherd, Hank, considered by some to be the greatest dog of all time.

  For more of his work, please visit

  www.patrickcanningbooks.com