Thief River Falls

by Brian Freeman

  Denis shrugged. “I talked to Laurel March at the hospital, and I explained the situation. She’s on her way over here.”

  “Is this woman a doctor?” the mayor asked. “Or is she a friend of Lisa’s? I mean, either way, I hope she can help.”

  “Dr. March is a psychiatrist,” Denis replied.

  “A shrink? Really?”

  “Lisa’s been seeing her for the past couple of years.”

  “Well, I’d like to say it’s helping, but it sure doesn’t look that way. Did Dr. March have any suggestions?”

  “She said to do nothing until she got here,” Denis replied. “We don’t want to push Lisa and make her feel threatened. It’s impossible to predict how she’ll react if we do that. On the other hand, I’m worried that she may take matters into her own hands. She’s got a lot of guns and ammunition in there.”

  The mayor wiped his glasses again. “You really think she’s dangerous?”

  Denis scowled and lost his temper. “Dangerous? Of course, she’s dangerous! She broke into my house and took a shot at me tonight. She took a shot at the cops when she went off the road. Yesterday, she pulled a gun on two deputies at her house. She’s holed up inside the church with assault weapons, and she knows how to use them. She’s putting people at risk, and I don’t care if she’s mentally ill. You could say that about any mass shooter.”

  The mayor waited for him to calm down.

  “I hear you on all of that, Denis, and you’re right. The only thing I’m saying is this is Lisa Power we’re talking about. Everyone around here knows her. And this isn’t going to stay local. We’re going to have national press on this, too. This is news, Denis. I’m already getting calls. We need to take every possible step to make sure this situation doesn’t get out of hand.”

  “It’s already out of hand,” Denis snapped. “Look, I know exactly who Lisa is. Believe me. No one wants to see anyone get hurt here, least of all Lisa herself. But that’s up to her. The safety of the town and our police officers comes first. If we had some nobody hunkering down in that church with a rifle, you think we’d hesitate to take a shot when we had it? Of course not. The sheriff and I aren’t giving Lisa Power any free passes. If she threatens our people, if she fires at us, she becomes a target, and we have to take her out. You know that’s the only way to go.”

  The mayor exhaled long and slow. “Son of a bitch. I know what you’re saying, Denis, but you need to think about what Lisa has been through. Not only is she not some nobody, she’s also a woman who’s just gone through the worst kind of loss that a human being can experience. We need to keep that in mind.”

  Denis held himself in check this time. He wanted to yell, but yelling accomplished nothing. And the fact was, he did know what Lisa had been through. He didn’t like her, but he didn’t wish her any harm. They’d been estranged for years, but she was still a part of his life. And a part of his family.

  “I’m not casting blame on Lisa,” Denis told the mayor. “I know how difficult this situation is for her and how impossible it is to accept. Remember, my wife and I are going through this, too. We’re grieving, just like she is.”

  The mayor reached out and put a hand on Denis’s shoulder. “Of course, you are. I wasn’t trying to imply otherwise, Denis. You and Gillian have been through hell these past few days. This whole year, really, ever since the diagnosis. I can’t imagine what this time has been like for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is there any news of Harlan, by the way?” the mayor asked. “Did you find out where Lisa took the body?”

  Denis nodded. He felt as if one weight had been lifted from his shoulders, only to be replaced by an even heavier burden. “Yes, I got a phone call a few minutes ago. They found him and took him back to the hospital. The funeral home will collect him shortly. So at least that mystery is solved.”

  “Well, good. One small blessing. Where was he?”

  Denis stared at the church and thought of Lisa inside, making a fortress out of her guns and her grief. “She took Harlan from his hospital room to the cemetery. A groundskeeper dug up the grave tonight and found the boy’s body there, wrapped in a sheet. Really, I don’t know why I didn’t think to send someone over there before now. I should have guessed that’s what she would do. After Harlan died, she took him away from the hospital to be with his father. She buried him with Danny.”

  Laurel rushed to get ready. She had to get to the church.

  She already had Lisa’s clinical file open on the desk in her hospital office, and she’d been rereading every sentence of her notes from the past two years, looking for clues, looking for new ideas. She went over everything. Everything Lisa had told her about losing Madeleine and the rest of her family. Everything Lisa had told her about Harlan as her son’s cancer got worse month by month. As the treatments produced no results, only misery.

  Until two nights ago in the hospital.

  Until the end.

  Laurel felt helpless. She hadn’t felt that way often in her career. She told herself that she’d guided a lot of patients through terrible loss, but she’d failed Lisa. She had never imagined the possibility of a crisis like the one Lisa was experiencing. She’d tried to contain it; she’d hoped she could reach Lisa before grief carried her across a line from which she’d never return. But Laurel was worried now that it was too late.

  Lisa was ready to die for the child she called Purdue.

  She turned off the lamp on her desk and grabbed her coat from a hook near the window. She needed to hurry. The office was dark, and the snow was like silver through the window. She pulled on her coat, but before she could leave, a shadow filled the doorway.

  A man was there.

  “Noah,” Laurel said.

  She crossed the short space between them and put her arms around Lisa’s brother. She felt a desperate sense of relief seeing him, as if maybe there was still hope. Maybe with him here, Lisa could still be saved.

  “I’m so glad you came,” Laurel said. “Did Lisa call you? Do you know what’s going on?”

  Noah shook his head. He looked at a loss, not sure what to say. It had been more than a year since Laurel had seen him, more than a year since Noah had run away from Thief River Falls. Of course, Laurel knew what Lisa didn’t, that Noah had been on the verge of suicide before he moved away. That he’d sat in Lisa’s basement with a loaded gun in his mouth. The only thing Lisa knew was that a month after her brother had bolted from her life, her only son had been diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer, and she’d been left to deal with it alone.

  “I don’t know anything,” Noah said, “but I can feel that Lisa’s in trouble. Do you know what it is?”

  “It’s Harlan,” Laurel told him softly.

  Noah stared at her, his eyes widening with horror. He didn’t want to hear it, and he didn’t want to believe it. “Oh my God. You can’t be serious. Not him, too. How bad is it?”

  “He passed away two nights ago, Noah. Cancer. I’m so sorry.”

  Noah turned away from her and slammed one of his fists into the office wall. A keening, desperate wail squeezed from his throat. When he turned back, his entire face had dissolved into fury and tears. He could barely speak. The skin on his hand was a mess of blood.

  “I thought the Dark Star was me,” he murmured in a strangled voice. “I really did. I thought I was the curse, that I was the reason they all died.”

  “There’s no such thing as a curse,” Laurel told him.

  “Well, I didn’t believe that. I thought if I left, the tragedies would go away. And instead this happens. I leave Lisa and Harlan alone, and this happens. My God.”

  Laurel saw something different in Noah’s face. Maturity. He’d aged more than just a year in the time he’d been gone. For a man who was nearly forty, he’d been mostly a child his whole adult life. With each loss in their family, Noah had grown more vulnerable, forcing his sister to shoulder the burdens by herself. Lisa had always been the strong one. But that was then. Laur
el was staring at a new man. He was torn apart by guilt, but he wasn’t running anymore.

  She took Noah’s elbow and led him down the gloomy hospital corridor. The overnight lights were turned low. They reached the empty room where she’d confronted Lisa earlier in the evening, and she stopped, because Noah needed to see it.

  “He died here,” she murmured. “This was Harlan’s room.”

  Noah stepped inside. His gaze was drawn to the bed, and he inhaled sharply. “That poor, sweet kid.”

  “I know.”

  “What did my family do, Laurel? How did we piss off God like this? I can’t believe it. I can’t believe the Dark Star took Harlan, too.”

  “Lisa put him on a DNR order about two weeks ago,” Laurel told him. “She wanted him to go peacefully. And he did. He passed away two nights ago in her arms. We’d known it was likely for some time, and I’d tried to get her ready for it, but some things you can never really be ready for. After the boy died, Lisa was alone with the body, and she had—well, she had a breakdown. She wrapped up Harlan in a sheet and took him away from the hospital. She took him to the cemetery. She dug up the ground above Danny’s grave, and she put Harlan there with his father.”

  “Of course she did,” Noah murmured. “That doesn’t surprise me at all. God, I can’t imagine this. Lisa must be going through hell. I need to go to her. Where is she? Is she at home?”

  Laurel hunted for a way to tell him. To explain. She felt choked for words, and Noah realized in her silence that something was very wrong.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice darkening with worry. “What’s going on? Tell me.”

  “It’s not over,” Laurel murmured.

  Noah took her by the shoulders. She could see panic rising in his face. “What are you saying?”

  “She needs you, Noah,” Laurel told him. “She needs you right now. The Dark Star isn’t finished. It’s trying to take Lisa, too.”

  40

  The lights of the police cars flashed through the church windows above Lisa’s head and lit up her face. She sat on the cold floor, her back against the wall, with a loaded AR-15 rifle draped across her knees. She wouldn’t let it out of her hands. Her finger hovered near the trigger. The police could storm the church at any moment, and she needed to be ready to fire.

  Purdue sat beside her, cross-legged, his hands neatly folded in his lap. He looked calm and unafraid, and she wished she could be like that herself. Her nerves were raw. Her muscles twitched uncontrollably. She could feel something black and ugly lurking in the shadows. It reminded her of the old Japanese fairy tale about the boy who took refuge in a church and drew cats on the walls to keep away a monster. Except there were no cats with them now. Just the monster, ready to come for her. That was okay. That was fine. The monster could have her, but she wouldn’t let him have Purdue.

  She knew they were in their final moments together. She hadn’t had the courage yet to tell him that he would have to go and leave her behind. It was the only way to save him. And yet the boy was wise, and she suspected that he already knew the truth.

  “There are a lot of people outside,” Purdue said.

  “You’re right.”

  “Do they have guns?”

  “Yes, I’m sure they do.”

  “Are they going to come inside?”

  “Maybe. At some point. But before that happens, I’ll probably have to go outside myself.”

  “Why?”

  “To give you a chance to escape.”

  “But how will you get away?” he asked.

  She smiled at him, hiding her sadness. “Don’t worry about that. That’s my problem, not yours. The main thing is for you to get to Canada. That’s what your mom wanted. That’s what I want for you, too. She was right. Canada is so pretty. It’s wide open, and there are mountains and lakes and waterfalls and forests. It’s like heaven. You’ll see. It’s just like heaven.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere without you,” the boy told her. “I want to stay right here. Can’t we just talk to them?”

  “No. It’s gone too far. The only thing we can do is save you. You’re not going to die, my sweet. I promise you that. You are not going to die.”

  “How will I know when it’s time to go?” he asked.

  Lisa tilted her head and cupped her hand behind her ear. “We have to listen. There will be a train whistle. You can’t miss it from here. It’ll pass by on the other side of the field behind the church, and it’ll be heading north. It’ll take you up into Canada. The train stops here as it’s coming into town, so you’ll be able to hop on board. Can you do that? When we hear the train whistle, you’ll need to slip out the back door and into the trees. No one will see you. And then you have to run, Purdue. Run until you get to the train, and then you just climb on and never look back.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll make sure no one follows you,” Lisa said. “That’s my job. To protect you.”

  “When we hear the train whistle?”

  “Exactly. When we hear the train whistle, you run. Can you do that for me?”

  “Yes,” Purdue replied, but his lips puckered unhappily. “Why can’t you come to Canada, too? You could come with me.”

  “Well, you can look for me up there,” Lisa said, “and one day you’ll see me.”

  They sat for a while longer in silence. Whenever there was a noise outside, she tensed, expecting the doors to burst open, expecting the assault to come. She prayed they would wait long enough for the train to arrive first. After that, nothing mattered. She shivered, because the monster in her head was getting bolder, getting closer, enveloping her in a dark cloud. She felt its breath on her neck like needles of ice.

  “Lisa?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you tell me a story?”

  “Sure. I can do that. What kind of story would you like?”

  “Tell me about the book you wrote. Tell me about Thief River Falls.”

  “That’s a book for adults, my sweet,” Lisa murmured. “Not for children.”

  “Tell me anyway. Please. I want to know what happens before I go.”

  Lisa reached out and put a hand over his. “Okay. I can tell you the story if you really want. Thief River Falls is about a lost boy. Remember? I called him Purdue, just like you. And it’s the story of a lonely woman, too. A lovely, lonely woman.”

  “What’s her name?” Purdue asked.

  “I called her Madeleine. I named her after my mother.”

  “Was your mother lonely?”

  Lisa smiled. “Oh, no. Not really. I mean, sometimes I’m sure she was, because she was very far from the place where she grew up. But that wasn’t why I used her name. I use real names in my books when I want to feel close to the characters as I write them. And there was no woman I felt closer to than my mother. We were the only two girls in the family, so we had to stick together. Plus, my mother was the kind of person who would do anything for others, and that’s what my Madeleine—the one in the book—is like, too.”

  “Madeleine,” he murmured.

  “Yes.”

  “So what happens?”

  “Well, this boy Purdue arrives in Thief River Falls from Missouri. He’s running away from home because his mother died, and he’s on his way to find his uncle in Winnipeg. But he’s on a train, and the train stops here for repairs. He’s lost and sad and confused, so he gets off the train and begins to wander. He wanders through the cornfields in the pouring rain until he gets to a river. There’s a cabin there, and he figures he can stay inside for a while. But instead, it’s like wandering into a horror movie. There’s a man hiding in the cabin who did a terrible thing, and some other men arrive to punish him for what he did. They torture him. They kill him. And the boy, Purdue, he witnesses the whole awful thing.”

  Purdue sat next to her, saying nothing, just listening to her as if this were some kind of Grimm fairy tale. She put an arm around his shoulder and nudged him closer, and he leaned his head agains
t her.

  “The men discover the boy, and they know he’s seen what they did. He can get them in big trouble if he tells anyone what he saw. They’re not necessarily bad men at heart, but they’ve let themselves become cruel. Revenge can do that to people. It can make you believe that the only way to deal with a monster is to become a monster yourself. And that’s the wrong lesson.”

  “They hurt the boy, don’t they?” Purdue said.

  Lisa nodded. “Yes, they do. They hit him, and then they bury him in the ground along with the man they killed. But they don’t realize that the boy is still alive. He’s under the ground, but his mother is there with him in his head, and she tells him what to do. How to stay perfectly still. How to escape. And so Purdue digs himself out of the hole and wanders away from the cemetery. A woman in a trailer park finds him. She takes him to the hospital, but the first thing the hospital people do is call the police. Purdue sees the two policemen coming, and he realizes they’re two of the men he saw at the cabin. So he does a smart thing. He runs away. He hops into the back of a truck, and when the truck stops, he wanders again until he finds himself outside a woman’s house.”

  “Madeleine,” Purdue said.

  “That’s right. It’s Madeleine’s house. She’s a tough, sweet farm girl, but the kind of girl you don’t mess with. She’s an only child, and with her parents gone, she’s just sort of existing from day to day, not really living. This boy, Purdue, gives her something to live for. The two of them click with each other. It’s like they’re meant to be together. Madeleine is determined to rescue Purdue, but as the book goes on, it’s clear that Purdue is really rescuing her. Does that make sense?”

  “I think so.”

  “At that point, the book becomes a little like a detective story. Because he was injured and buried alive, the boy has blocked out most of his past. He can’t remember anything. So Madeleine and Purdue have to put the pieces back together to find out what happened to him. The clues lead them here to Thief River Falls, and Madeleine discovers that a horrible murder took place days earlier, in which a young wife was killed by her ex-husband. And the boy recognizes the man who killed her. It’s the man he saw tortured and murdered at the cabin in the woods. So Madeleine understands just how serious this situation is. The people they’re up against, the ones who want to find them, aren’t just dangerous people. They’re people with power in town. Police officers. The county attorney. It was his daughter who was killed, and he’ll do anything to cover up the crime he committed out of vengeance. Madeleine knows she has to get Purdue out of Thief River Falls for him to be safe, but as they try to make their escape, the men track them down, and they’re forced to hide away in a remote country church just like this one. They’re inside, and the county attorney and his partners are outside. With guns. So Madeleine has to figure a way out of the trap that will keep Purdue alive.”