[Ash Park 01.0] Famished

by Meghan O'Flynn

  He crouched underneath the table, not because he was scared, but because she had screamed at him to do it. The john didn’t want him in the closet while they were in the bedroom. There was apparently no worse buzz-kill than the sneeze of a small child.

  He waited while the moans from the bedroom accelerated and finally stopped. A shirtless man walked out to the table, kicked under it until his foot connected, and left the apartment.

  He watched the door close behind the john and rubbed his throbbing shin.

  Then her face appeared, nearly purple with rage. She reached under the table to grab him, as he had expected, and jerked him into the open. The splintered linoleum tiles slashed at his legs as she dragged him across the floor. She slapped him in the face and his cheek lit up with pain. Her foot connected with his stomach. He tried to breathe but the blows came too quickly.

  Still, he remained impassive, yielding. It was better this way, faster too. Maybe he’d even pass out. When he came to, it would be over.

  “You prolly just cost me fifty bucks, you little piece of shit.”

  Her words were slurred. She kicked him hard in the thigh. The air returned to his lungs. Much better. Much more—

  He was weightless for half a second. Stars shot into his vision as he struck the cabinet with his head and crashed to the floor on his stomach. There was a loud snap as a bone in his ribs gave way. Pain flared in his chest. He gritted his teeth and lay still.

  The front door slammed.

  He struggled to his feet, panting through his nose as the ache in his side intensified. In the bathroom, he climbed gingerly onto the sink and peered into the mirror. Blue and green marks stained his skin. He touched his side, swallowed the pain, and watched his face. His eyes stayed as empty as the kitchen cupboards.

  He brought the edges of his mouth up like the hero did in the comic magazine he had found. He frowned.

  That wasn’t it.

  He tried again, willing the corners of his eyes to move as well.

  The door slammed. A man’s voice muttered something. Then a clink of glass—they’d stopped in the kitchen. He scrambled from the bathroom sink, gasping against the stabbing pain in his side, and ran to the bedroom, into the closet.

  Maybe if she came for him again, that smiley face he’d been practicing would help him. It certainly seemed to help the man with the cape.

  He shook his head at the long-ago memories. Superheroes never lasted, nor had that vulnerable boy who had once dreamed of becoming one.

  She wouldn’t last either.

  The woman paced the alley on legs run through with purple veins. Her stomach was too thin to have seen anything but blow in the last week. He wondered if the boy housed in the apartment upstairs was as malnourished as she was. He could almost smell the child, dirty and sweating, hiding in a closet, cowering in a corner. But no matter. Soon the boy would be free of his bitch mother.

  Her artificially yellowed hair shone under the single streetlight like a beacon as she tossed it over one shoulder. Business was good tonight; he could tell it by the bounce in her step. So much the better. Her good mood would make her that much more trusting.

  Fucking idiots. Like oysters led to their slaughter.

  He emerged from the shadows and let her see him. She grinned, revealing yellowed teeth with wide gaps.

  “Hey, honey, you looking for something?”

  He nodded, feeling the cool wetness in the hand he held behind his back. Chloroform always made the taking easier. Plus, it let them awaken for the best part.

  He squinted, beckoning another face into focus, a reminder from the past.

  There you are, bitch.

  She walked toward him on precariously high heels.

  He readied himself, pulling his lips into his best superhero smile. Though she was not the one he wanted, for today, she would do.

  No one would miss her. No one at all.

  Thursday, November 19th

  When I opened the door to my apartment, the first thing I saw was the box. Jake’s box, brown and sad and lonely. Forgotten. That seemed the worst kind of slight. The air itself seemed itchy, like someone was picking at my skin.

  “Hannah?” Dominic set a stack of pre-folded boxes against the dining table and straightened. His khakis matched the boxes. His sweater brought out the subtle flecks of green in his eyes. I wondered if he’d done that on purpose.

  “Oh, sorry. I was just thinking, I should bring that box to Jake’s mother.”

  “I’ll have it sent.” His eyes scanned the kitchen and the living room beyond. “You’ve had company.”

  I followed his gaze to the kitchen, where white powder dusted the cabinets. Two of the upper doors still hung open. By the fridge, a piece of blue tape clung to the countertop.

  “They were already in here right after Jake died,” I said uncertainly. They must have come back for … something. What had they been looking for that they didn’t find the first time?

  I scratched at my arm, too hard, but stopped short of drawing blood. Maybe they knew my father was after me. Maybe they knew he’d killed Jake. Maybe they’d be back to arrest me any day. I stared at Jake’s box and tried to avoid retching.

  “I’m sure it’s just routine. I heard the FBI is taking over the case, so I bet they’re double-checking everything.”

  Of course. It wasn’t all about me, was it? I was as narcissistic as the world’s most irritatingly self-centered rappers. Maybe I’d even name my child after a direction in honor of the kid’s importance, so whenever anyone said, “Go left” I could hear, “Go, Left!” and rejoice in the universe’s unrelenting support of my child.

  “I’ll take this box to the car and let you get started up here.”

  “You’re leaving?” But you’re supposed to protect me!

  “I’m walking to the car, Hannah. I’ll be right back.”

  “But—”

  He closed the distance between us and hugged me tightly to him. “Everything is fine. You haven’t even been here in three days. No one is crouching in a closet waiting for you to show up.”

  Something in my chest writhed and tightened around my lungs.

  “Have I steered you wrong yet?” He let me go and peered down at me. “Have I done anything inappropriate or even remotely dangerous?”

  Inappropriate. I took a deep breath and could almost feel it crackle over my dry tongue, like winds across a desert. Was sleeping with me inappropriate? If so, I wished he’d been more inappropriate. The past three nights I had slept snuggled against his back and he hadn’t even tried to touch me. Why doesn’t he want me anymore? Maybe something was wrong with me. Maybe he realized that he had been a total dolt bringing some strange girl home with him. Or maybe the sex just hadn’t been as good for him as it had been for me and he was loathe to repeat it.

  And yet, sleeping next to him, I had felt safer than I had in years. Tammy would be thrilled at the change reflected in my sleep journal. I’d even occasionally wondered if all my fears had just been me being crazy about nothing. Maybe the man in the parking lot had just been someone trying to steal my car stereo, as Dominic had suggested. This possibility did seem more likely than my father showing up at the shelter. Too much coincidence. And if they thought the killings were related to dear old dad, wouldn’t the police have called me to get some information on him? As Dominic said all the time, logic ruled. I wondered if Dominic would kick me out if I decided to stay in town after all. Maybe he’d kick me out just for being nuts.

  “Hannah? Do you trust me?”

  I swallowed. Nodded.

  “Good.” He hoisted the box to his shoulder. “I’ll be right back to help you finish and we’ll go out to lunch after. I know a great Italian place.”

  I watched him go, licked my parched lips, and tossed an empty box onto the kitchen floor. Plates and bowls. Silverware. Cups. Some got wrapped in paper towels. I picked up Jake’s favorite mug, the one he had always chugged beer out of while I cleaned the kitchen. I left it on th
e counter. Noelle would have thrown it in the trash. Noelle. I should call her.

  The door clanked and packing tape squeaked.

  He came back!

  Of course he came back.

  “I’ll set these next ones up and secure the bottoms,” Dominic said, unfolding a box. “I’ll tape that one when you’re done.”

  “It’s done.” I pushed the box toward the door and Dominic taped it shut. “Thanks.”

  One box of choice items was enough for the living room, too. In the bedroom, I stared at the dresser drawers, sighed, and upended one after another into a cardboard box before turning my attention to the bedside tables.

  The bed hulked in the middle of the room, a reminder of things I didn’t want to think about—and much closer to the dresser than I remembered. It was like the room had gotten smaller, collapsing in on itself now that the world was missing Jake’s energy. But I wasn’t sure I missed him. I took his pillow from the bed, put it to my nose and inhaled the faintest trace of cigarettes. I threw it against the wall.

  Footsteps approached, but there was no menacing squeal of rubber, like that which accompanied the shoes my father wore, only the soft clack of moneyed leather.

  The tension drained from my neck. I flipped the cardboard box closed. “Last one.”

  He scooped it up in one arm. “I can send someone for the furniture.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Are you sure?”

  It won’t fit in my car anyway. “Too many memories.”

  I followed him to the front door and down the stairs, calling quiet goodbyes to my life here; the hallway, the stairwell, the smell of socks and putrid onions.

  “Did you want to invite some of your friends to lunch? You haven’t seen anyone in the last few days.”

  My toe caught on a stair. I righted myself on the railing.

  “Are you okay?” Dominic stopped and turned back, the barest of smirks on his beautiful mouth.

  “I’m fine. And no, I don’t want to call anyone. They won’t even miss me yet.”

  He started back down, shoes lightly smacking the stairs. “I just want to make sure you’re staying in because you want to and not because you’re frightened. I’m sure Noelle misses you.”

  “Maybe.” My face heated. “Lately, I haven’t wanted to hang out with her.”

  “Why?”

  Because I suspected her of screwing my dead boyfriend and now I feel guilty. “I—I’m not sure.”

  “I see.”

  He shifted the box to his shoulder and held the lobby door for me. The room was barely brighter than the stairwell, dust particles playing in a beam of sunlight that shone through the tiny window.

  “I find being around people is helpful during trying times,” he said. Tammy said things like that too, but the words felt different coming from Dominic. Almost … believable.

  I glanced at the mailboxes, ominous and dark, and remembered the letter. That girl. Jake had probably been thrilled every time I left. Maybe Dominic wants me to go out, too. “Do you want me to make plans to get me out of the house?”

  “Of course not. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to stay home all the time.” He smiled and I forgot the mailboxes.

  “Okay. But just so you know, I don’t usually make big plans. The only thing I did on a regular basis was volunteer, and I can’t go back there.”

  “The place where he tried to get into your car?”

  “Yes.”

  “You think he’d be brazen enough to do it again?”

  “I … maybe.”

  “I can hire someone.”

  “Hire someone?”

  “To check the lot. Or to drive you. Either way, you can’t let fear hold you back. And it’s not too late to call the police.”

  I shook my head. “No. Thanks, but no.”

  He opened the door to the parking lot. “Hannah, I just want you to live your life normally. You need to do the things that make you happy, not spend your life afraid. I’ll help you.”

  A beam of sunlight fell on my arm. “Why are you doing this for me?”

  “I made you a promise. I’m keeping it.” He shoved the front door and it opened, screeching in protest.

  Air blew against my face, cold, crisp but somehow sweeter than it had ever been.

  I made you a promise.

  I followed him out into the sunshine.

  Friday, November 20th

  Petrosky dumped coffee grounds into the filter, his gut heavy with old hurt and yesterday’s donuts. Julie’s nightlight glowed over the sink.

  Fix this. Save someone else’s girl. It’s the least you can fucking do.

  He ran over the cases in his head. The women had been young, urban prostitutes who used their hard-won funds to feed drug addictions. Jacob Campbell had been a white boy living in the suburbs with a pretty girlfriend and an absentee kid who was taken care of elsewhere. It didn’t fit. But that wasn’t the problem.

  The killer was methodical, intelligent. Maybe angry.

  He has a plan. So why wouldn’t he leave a message at Campbell’s scene?

  Petrosky punched the countertop, relishing the ache in his knuckles.

  The clamps. The nails. The dissections. There was a reason for everything. Had to be.

  The scene had been scoured by crime scene techs and FBI agents alike, and each board and piece of trash had been examined. They had printed and moved and touched and tagged. Yet they’d found nothing.

  Did he run out before he could finish the note?

  Petrosky shook his head at the thought. They would have found another body if someone had interrupted him.

  Look deeper.

  Fuck. He yanked the nightlight off the wall and hurled it in the sink next to six empty beer bottles. The coffee pot percolated like a lazy asshole. Petrosky walked back to the bedroom and jerked on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.

  Halfway to the car, he stopped in the driveway and stared at the ground, then returned to the kitchen and retrieved the nightlight. He wiped it on his shirt and plugged it back in.

  Sorry, honey.

  He shot the half full coffee pot one final glare and kicked the front door shut behind him.

  “What are we looking for, exactly?” Morrison stared at the cinderblock mass in the center of the underground room where they had found Campbell’s body. Small chunks of cement had been chipped away, probably by their forensics team.

  Petrosky knelt at the back corner of the room and ran his fingers along the line where wall met floor. “Not sure. Anything different.” He hated the strain in his own voice.

  “Different like what, Boss?”

  “Different like …” Petrosky stood and wiped his fingers on his jeans. “Shit, I don’t even know anymore.”

  Morrison prodded the side of a cement block with his thumb. “It’s crazy that there was a body on here. It doesn’t have blood on it or anything.”

  Anything different …

  “There was a tarp here, right?” Petrosky pictured the blood-stained table in the westside basement and the cemetery concrete that would forever smell like copper. This guy had never used plastic before. There had to be a reason now.

  He knelt and laid his head against the floor, exploring the bottom of the structure with his fingers, then heaved himself upright and sat back on his heels. “There’s no way. A cement mass this size has to weigh, what? A thousand pounds?”

  “I doubt it,” Morrison’s voice echoed against the concrete. “I worked construction in college. Cinderblocks are usually hollow.”

  Petrosky stared at the table. “Hollow, but still pretty heavy.”

  Morrison bent down beside him. “Yeah. He’d have to be strong to shove it even a short distance. Or he has a partner.”

  “No, no partner for our guy.” Petrosky stood, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. How did he do it?

  Wait. The treads. Of course. “He had a dolly. And he didn’t shove it. He needed a way to lay it down without marrin
g the words.” If there were words. There had to be words.

  “There’s no way he lifted this whole thing with a dolly alone.”

  Petrosky squinted at the rows of cinderblock that made up the top. “Could you hold those top pieces up with something besides other blocks?”

  “Metal supports, secured internally and run from one side to the other could do it.” Morrison stared at the concrete. “Do you think the killer put it together himself?”

  “In this whole place, there isn’t a single other intact structure. I can’t believe we missed that.”

  Morrison frowned. “But if he painted words in Campbell’s blood under there, he couldn’t have done it before he killed Campbell. And he couldn’t have built the structure underneath the body afterwards—the blood splatter on the tarp and the surrounding ground was consistent with Campbell being killed where we found him.”

  Petrosky walked around the cement table, probing the mortar between blocks. “All this was dry when we were here, right?”

  “It was. I talked to the techs and they pulled samples from the blocks, side and top. Someone would have noticed wet cement in the crevices.”

  Petrosky’s chest was tight. He kicked at the base of the block in front of him. Solid. He took a step to the right and kicked again. No give.

  Morrison lowered his eyes and followed suit. Kick, pause. Kick, step. Kick. “Boss?” Morrison disappeared below the side of the structure.

  Petrosky stepped around the blocks. Morrison was pressing on one of the lower bricks with the beefy part of his palm. “There’s a little give. Not much, but the bottom should be the most solid and there’s definitely some wiggle here.”

  Petrosky knelt on Morrison’s right, pulled his Swiss Army knife from his back pocket and scraped at the mortar, where a hairline crack was already widening. A chunk of mortar fell, revealing dead space between the bricks. Were they all like that? Mortared thinly on one side to save dry time? No. That tricky fucker had left himself a way to get in, then patched the outside to make it look solid. You don’t do that for no reason.

  Petrosky shimmied the knife into the mortar over the brick to the left, but the mortar there was thicker. Morrison pushed at the first brick. A crack appeared down the left side. Petrosky followed suit on his side until the block was free of the rest of the structure, but there was still no room to get his fingers around it.