What She Found in the Woods

by Josephine Angelini

But Zlata is dead, and I know what I see is not really her. Since this is not the right time or place, I banish the image, pick up my knife, and start slicing peppers long and thin for fajitas.

  Maria arrives and calls us all to the circle. At the end of Serenity Prayer, Gina decides to share something.

  ‘The police stopped by. Found out Sandy was killed. It wasn’t no OD,’ Gina says out of the side of her mouth.

  A low rumble goes around the circle. Breaths puff in and out of Gina, and her voice comes out strangled so she doesn’t shout.

  ‘Another dead girl?’ she asks, incredulous. ‘How many girls I know gotta get killed?’ A chorus of uh-huhs answers. ‘Hearing that? It made me want to use.’ She pauses. Collects herself. ‘But not today. Not today. I’d just end up another body like her.’

  I feel the hands holding mine tighten. The circle draws in, gathering strength.

  ‘I hope they find him,’ Gina says. ‘Just once, I want someone who deserves to go down to get what’s his.’

  A guttural ‘Hell, yeah’ is said by all. Like they’re saying amen. I’m the only one who doesn’t raise her voice. See, I’m not a victim. Never have been. I’m one of the ones who deserve to go down.

  We start work. Rachel’s everywhere today. She’s in my vegetables, and my pots and pans. I scrub and rinse and scrub some more. My fingers whiten, pucker, and split. I sweat buckets into the steamy air, and it sweats back on me. Still, Rachel’s there, drifting in the mist.

  At the end of my shift, there are two girls who expect me to eat ice cream and talk about clothes and parties and boys. I take off my rubber apron and put on my smile.

  ‘Don’t stretch your lips like that or they’ll crack,’ Maria tells me. She hands me some udder cream. ‘For your hands,’ she tells me.

  ‘Thanks,’ I reply, scooping out some of the balm and rubbing it on my ruined cuticles. I have so many splits, it looks like my hands have been shoved through razor wire. How did I get this hacked up? I’m bruised, too. It has to be the blood-thinning meds.

  Mila is calling my name from out front, begging me to hurry. I hand the jar back to Maria.

  ‘This was so much easier when I was on drugs,’ I say wryly.

  ‘Drugs make everything easier,’ she replies with a grin. ‘Until they make everything impossible.’

  I nod and go to join Mila, who hugs me, and squeals, and insists she has so much to tell me.

  ‘Where’s Aura-Blue?’ I ask. Mila purses her lips and flips her hair over her shoulder.

  ‘Her grandfather made her quit.’

  ‘Quit?’ I parrot back.

  ‘Come on,’ Mila says, taking my hand and dragging me outside. ‘I’ll tell you on the way.’

  ‘My bike,’ I say.

  ‘I’ll drop you back here after we eat. Now come on! I’m starving.’

  I am, too. Working in food service is like being a becalmed sailor, dying of thirst surrounded by an ocean. Cooks don’t eat.

  I close the passenger-side door of Mila’s Mini and say, ‘So I’m guessing Aura-Blue quit because of Sandy’s death.’

  ‘Murder,’ Mila corrects. ‘She didn’t just die.’

  ‘You heard?’

  Mila nods and cranks the engine. She swings out of her parking space with her usual disregard for the fragility of the human skeleton.

  ‘Her grandfather doesn’t want her hanging out in a “high-risk” area,’ she says.

  I can’t tell how she feels about that. She’s watching the road intently like she should, which is odd for her.

  ‘But you’re still coming?’ I half ask, half state. ‘Don’t you think it’s too risky?’

  Mila shrugs a shoulder and licks her lips. ‘I’m not like Sandy,’ she says. Again, I can’t quite tell what she’s thinking.

  ‘OK. Back up,’ I say. ‘Why is it high risk to work at the shelter?’ A thought occurs to me. ‘Do they think someone at the shelter did it?’

  Mila looks at me out of the corner of her eyes. ‘Everyone who stays at the shelter is a drug addict. Drug addicts tend to do illegal things, like kill people.’

  ‘No. That’s not it.’ I look out the window shaking my head. ‘Chelsea Oliver wasn’t at the shelter.’

  ‘Who?’ Mila asks. She pulls into the Snack Shack and stops.

  ‘The out-of-state hunter who wasn’t mauled by a bear. She never stayed at the shelter. There’s no reason to think she was an addict,’ I say. ‘And the cops think the murders are connected.’

  I tell her about my interview with the rookie cop. Mila throws back her head and laughs.

  ‘What an idiot! He told you all that?’ she says as she gets out of the car.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, coming around the car and walking next to her into the Snack Shack. ‘But what do I know? Maybe the connection between Sandy and Chelsea is drugs. Just because Chelsea didn’t stay at the shelter doesn’t mean she wasn’t an addict.’

  ‘And she came from hundreds of miles away to camp out in the woods in camouflage gear to score drugs?’ Mila asks doubtfully.

  We get in line for a scoop. ‘I don’t know,’ I mumble. ‘But I’ve heard there’s more than deer out in those woods.’

  I should shut up. I should just let it go, and get my ice cream, and ask Mila about her social life. But I don’t.

  ‘Have you ever heard of Dr Goodnight?’

  Mila’s face doesn’t move. She doesn’t look at me. She stays calm and keeps her eyes trained on the people in front of us.

  ‘Shut up,’ she says in a neutral voice.

  She tosses her lovely hair over her shoulder, but only so she can look at the people lining up behind us to check and see if they’re listening. When she finally makes her way back around to look at me, she gives me the bored, belaboured smile of someone waiting impatiently for ice cream.

  ‘We’ll talk after we sit,’ she says, like she’s telling me what flavour she’s going to order.

  I get my usual butterscotch sundae. Mila orders a chocolate brownie frappé. She’s out of money again, so I pay. We look for a booth but have to settle for a spot outside so we can be alone.

  ‘So who is he?’ I ask.

  Mila pulls her ice-cream-sleeved straw out of the glass and wraps her tongue around it, stripping off the sweet coating. She rubs the ice cream around her mouth, thinking.

  ‘I first heard about him through Aura-Blue, actually,’ she says. ‘Her grandfather has been chasing him for years, but it’s been so long now, no one really knows if he exists or not.’

  ‘Oh, right. Serial killers are his hobby, or something like that,’ I say. I shiver. The wind off the water is cold. ‘Why was her grandfather after him?’ I ask, recalling that Aura-Blue’s grandfather was the sheriff here.

  ‘Because he’s the biggest supplier of drugs for a hundred miles, supposedly,’ she says quietly.

  ‘Why do they call him . . .’ Her eyes flash at me in warning, so I drop my voice and lean across the table towards her. I have to know. ‘Why do they call him Dr Goodnight?’ I whisper.

  She shifts and looks around. ‘Because he’s a genius. He can make any kind of drug you want from used refrigerator coolant and tree bark. And it’s good shit, too. It’s, like, medical-grade meth and fentanyl. Everyone says he used to be a doctor.’

  Her figure telescopes away from me as I sink. It can’t be.

  I’ve seen news shows on TV that go into detail about how our National Park system is so underfunded that many illegal drug growers have set up shop in remote places that park rangers just don’t have the resources to manage. I mean, I’m not a troglodyte. I watch Vice and 60 Minutes. But how many geniuses with deep knowledge of medicine and/or herbal drug making could possibly be running around the same few miles of National Forest?

  But, no. I just can’t accept that Bo’s father is Dr Goodnight. I can’t accept that he’s got a meth lab hidden in one of the tree-house dormitories where his philosophy-professor wife and six hippie children live. It goes against everything Bo has told me
about his father. And himself.

  Except for the fact that Bo admitted his dad did commit a crime. A big one. If the FBI is after him, it’s probably one of four things: terrorism, kidnapping, tax evasion, or murder. I shake my head, barely stopping myself from yelling at Mila. As if she were personally indicting Bo and his whole family.

  ‘But why the Goodnight part?’ I ask, digging for some incongruous information, some detail that would make it impossible for Bo’s father to be tied up in this mess.

  Mila’s voice drops so low I can barely hear her.

  ‘Because he enjoys putting people to sleep. Most of the time, he just spikes the heroin with too much fentanyl, killing randomly just to kill people, but sometimes he likes to watch. He needs to watch. He’s a psychopath.’

  I sit back in my chair and study her. Hoping that any second now, she’s going to look up, laugh, and tear into me for falling for something so melodramatic. But she doesn’t. In fact, she looks terrified.

  ‘You think he’s real,’ I say.

  Mila nods. Then she rolls a shoulder. ‘Is it so hard to believe?’ she asks. ‘Our shelter is over capacity, but how many people live in this area year round?’ She shakes her head and leans back in her chair. ‘Such a high percentage of addicts doesn’t happen for no reason. And people have been going missing in those woods for years.’

  ‘The woods are dangerous,’ I say, but she shakes her head and stops me from listing the many ways a vacationer can get herself killed.

  ‘I’ve hiked my whole life. Camping, fishing – I’ve been doing it all since I was born. I love it.’

  She smiles softly, and I see another level to Mila I hadn’t seen before, but I’d sensed. Mila is a not a party girl. Not in the centre of her. Deep down, she’s a forest thing, like Bo.

  ‘I know the woods are dangerous,’ she says in a measured, rational way. ‘But this is something else. Too many people have died here. It’s been going on for years. Even Aura-Blue’s grandfather believes he’s real, and he used to be the sheriff.’

  I sit back, momentarily silenced. But something still isn’t right about all this. ‘Sandy and that hunter weren’t put to sleep,’ I say. ‘They were cut up.’

  ‘Yeah. Cut up,’ she stresses. ‘That’s no accident.’

  I resist the urge to nod. Obviously, there’s more going on than just the occasional hunting or hiking accident, but I refuse to accept anything Mila is saying right now. Besides, it doesn’t even line up. Cutting people up and putting them to sleep are two totally different things. She’s got to be imagining a connection.

  She has to be. Because if I start accepting any of it, this would be the moment I would have to open my mouth and say, ‘Actually, I’ve met a genius doctor who lives in the woods and makes all kinds of drugs. Oh, and he’s wanted by the FBI for a crime my boyfriend won’t tell me about because he’s trying to protect me from the police with plausible deniability.’

  Or, I say nothing and live with more blood on my hands.

  So. What am I going to do?

  Nothing.

  I’m not going to do anything because Bo’s father is not Dr Goodnight. Dr Goodnight does not exist. There’s an undeniably large drug problem in this town, and that explains the deaths.

  I don’t know anything about the drug trade, but I’ve seen network television. Where there are drugs, there is violence and a lot of dead bodies, and not just from overdosing. If this were New Orleans, the bodies would get dumped in the swamp, but here those bodies get dumped in the woods. It’s Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. And there is very rarely one diabolical genius masterminding a web of dastardly deeds in order to fulfil his bloodlust.

  ‘You don’t believe me,’ Mila says. Her eyes are sad, but her mouth is turned up in an endearing smile. I smile back and shake my head.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I stop to laugh, and then collect myself. ‘Look, it’s not that I don’t think there’s something scary going on – that’s obvious. People are dying, and the FBI is here investigating something that is not a bear attack or a drug overdose. So it’s a big deal.’ I can’t help but grin. ‘But the whole Dr Goodnight thing is a little . . .’ I trail off. I see Mila’s eyes blaze and all humour drops from my tone. ‘I’m sorry. You knew Sandy, and it’s wrong of me to laugh. Nothing about this is funny.’

  ‘You don’t believe me,’ she repeats.

  I shake my head regretfully. ‘I don’t believe in the bogeyman, either.’

  I look out across the water so I don’t see Rachel bleeding out between our untouched ice creams, but instead I see a woman free-falling through the air to her death. That was Brooklyn, I remind myself sternly. Brooklyn is on the other side of the continent. That isn’t real. I blink until the image is gone.

  ‘I do believe that desperate people make bad choices, and there are a lot of desperate people around here. It’s not as romantic as what you’re suggesting. But the truth rarely is.’

  Her face hardens. ‘Do I look like a romantic to you?’ she asks.

  Again, I get a glimpse of something in Mila that goes against the grain of her perfect-girl persona. Something in her has shifted.

  ‘No. You don’t. And you’re certain he’s real,’ I say.

  She doesn’t answer.

  ‘Why are you so certain?’ I ask. She looks down. ‘Have you met him?’

  Her eyes shift to a faraway place. She looks back at me, smiles, and says, ‘Yeah. He lives under my bed. Right next to the bogeyman.’

  She changes the subject, and I feel her take a giant step back from me.

  We force down a few more bites of our ruined desserts, but the sweetness is too much, and our ice cream is too warm, and both of us just want to go. She takes me back to the shelter to get my bike in silence.

  This is the first time I’ve left Mila feeling further from her at the end of the afternoon than I did at the start of it.

  This, too, has happened to me before. Right before I lost everything.

  30 JULY. MORNING

  I haven’t forgotten about the animal I shot. Quite the opposite. I think about it all the time.

  I’ve decided it had to have been a fawn hiding in the ferns. Too young and weak to follow its mother, the baby deer hid, waiting for its mother to return. I picture her coming back to the carnage I left behind.

  Bo asked if I wanted to go back to his camp and visit with his mother while he hunted, but I said I’d rather spend time with him today.

  So he’s taking me with him. This would be the perfect time to tell him about the fawn. I could describe it in such a way that he got the whole picture. He would understand. Accidents happen, and I really looked for the poor thing, but . . .

  ‘If you’re not up to this, you don’t have to come with me,’ he says, eyes searching mine. ‘But I have to hunt today. We need meat.’

  ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I can go with you. I want to go with you.’

  He gives me an uncertain look. ‘OK. We probably won’t find anything anyway,’ he says as we leave our spot and head out into the rich undergrowth.

  ‘We’re going to find something,’ I say quietly. I know because that’s how things are with me. We’re going to find something, and I’m going to help kill yet another unsuspecting creature.

  ‘I don’t know. We’ve pretty much exhausted this area of bucks.’

  ‘They have to be bucks?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course,’ Bo says, nodding. ‘The bigger the buck, the better for the environment. They take the most resources over the winter, and it’s better for the species to leave the foraging for the does and fawns.’

  Here’s the moment. This is when I should tell him. I take a breath to speak.

  ‘My parents say we’ll have to move soon,’ he says, before I get the chance.

  ‘To where?’ I ask, suddenly thrown.

  ‘Not too far. Just enough to hunt different game trails.’ He smiles at me shyly. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll still be able to see
each other.’

  We walk in silence for a while. ‘Would you rather just come back to my camp with me?’ he asks tentatively. ‘I can tell my parents we’ll fish instead.’

  ‘No,’ I say, a little too abruptly. The thought of possibly running into his father is just too jarring right now.

  Dr Goodnight does not exist, and Bo’s family does not cook meth. I just have to keep telling myself that, and I’ll be fine. Even though Bo just reminded me that they had more than one camp, and if one were going to have a family and cook meth in the middle of the woods, it would make sense to keep the two apart.

  Christ, what’s wrong with me? Ray is not Dr Goodnight.

  ‘I wish you’d tell me what’s bothering you,’ Bo says. He huffs out a frustrated breath. ‘It’s very quiet out here. I can practically hear you screaming in your head, you know.’

  He pauses, and I know I should laugh at his joke, but nothing’s funny right now.

  ‘Just talk to me, OK?’ he pleads. ‘Did I do something wrong?’

  ‘It’s not you,’ I say, but he doesn’t believe me.

  Given the choice between telling Bo about the fawn or telling him what I suspect about his father, I don’t really have a choice. I tell him about the fawn.

  I make such a hash of it. I start blubbering in the middle and begging him not to hate me. I’m like a raw wound, now that I’m not drugged out of my mind. Once I start in on the fawn, I tell Bo about how I’m haunted. How I’m seeing Rachel everywhere. And how I deserve to be haunted because all I ever do is murder innocent things.

  I’m wiping my nose on his shoulder when I realize that he’s holding me. ‘It’s OK,’ he murmurs against my cheek. ‘None of it’s your fault.’

  I pull back, still sobbing. ‘How can you say that? It’s all my fault!’

  He shakes his head and smooths my hair. ‘You’ve done a lot of stupid shit, but it’s not all about you, you know.’

  ‘What?’ I say, utterly confused. ‘I’m having a fucking . . . thing –’ I search for the right word and find it – ‘epiphany about how my self-absorption is the root of all the evil in my life. I know it’s not all about me! That’s my point!’