Blood on the Tracks (27 page)

“It’s good sitting here with you, Sydney Rose,” he said.

“Yeah.” By now I’d been shivering for some time. Despite the liquor and the pills, something mean and fanged had coiled up in the back of my head where Sarge had slammed me against the wall.

But I couldn’t leave Nik.

He chose a donut out of the box, began tearing pieces off for Harvey. Finally he picked up the bait.

“Those Royer Boys.” He cleared his throat. “Used to call them the Lost Boys. You know, like that movie about the vampire kids. Or Peter Pan, I guess. None of them with anyone to look after them. And all of them looking for something bigger than themselves to hold on to.”

“You remember much about them?”

Nik shook a cigarette out of the pack on the table. He placed it in his mouth but didn’t light it.

“Gentry got tangled up with them when he was still in high school,” he said. “Kid wanted to join the Marines. We should have let him. The Marines would have given him direction like it’d done for me. Would’ve given him something to belong to. But Ellen Ann—” His voice broke a little. “She told Gentry that if he enlisted, he might as well put a gun to her head and pull the trigger. She’d be that dead. Said she’d never sign that release, not for love or money.”

I wondered how my life would be now if she’d fought that hard for me back then. “So instead he hooked up with the Royer Boys?”

“Kid just wanted to be part of something. The Marines were his first choice, but he didn’t have it in him to break his mother’s heart. And he was seventeen, needed both our signatures to enlist. So he took to hanging out with those asshole punks down at the Hole.”

“My dad always thought they were trouble.”

Nik scooted his chair out of the dawning light. “Could be the one time your dad got something right.”

Talking about my parents was the one place Nik and I had agreed—without words—to never go. I’d clung to the hope that my dad had a good reason for leaving. But Nik never forgave him for walking out. Who leaves their kid with a woman who turns out to be a killer?

“So how long was Gentry with them?” I asked.

Nik’s eyes went small. “Not long. Those boys were older than Gentry, and mean. They got that way because of what they had to deal with at home. Parents missing or drunk. No one giving a shit about them. I promised I’d put him six feet under if I ever saw him with them again.”

I said nothing.

“And don’t take that personal, Sydney Rose. A broken home is just an excuse. You were always stronger than all of those boys put together. But for Gentry to hang out with them? He didn’t have any good reason. His mother and I worked as hard as anybody ever worked to make sure he had everything he needed.”

Nik finished feeding his donut to Harvey.

“And eventually it paid off,” he said. “Away from them, and with the Marines no longer dangling in front of him, he decided he’d do something to make his mother proud. He studied for his SATs, finished school strong. And look at him now. He’s going to make partner before he’s much past thirty.”

We gave Gentry’s success a respectful pause.

“Worst of all,” Nik said, “was when that little black girl went missing. The police came to ask Gentry about it. Was the first time the kid had to learn that it matters which toilet you do your business in. Ellen Ann was horrified, of course. But it was good for him. Taught him something.”

“So you never . . .” I stopped.

“Never what, Sydney Rose?”

I could feel ice cracking beneath my feet. “You never thought he—”

He sucked in air like a man who hadn’t drawn breath in a while. “No.”

“I had to ask.”

“No. You didn’t.”

I blinked. The flick in Nik’s eyes was a blow, as sharp as if he’d really struck me.

I backed off. “How is Gentry holding up?”

Nik backed off, too. “He’s hurting. Bad. He’s taken himself somewhere, gone into hiding. Just like he did when he was a teenager. But he’ll be okay. He has a future, that boy. And that’s what he needs to focus on right now.”

“What do you mean, hiding?”

“Means he was never the kind to fall sobbing into his mother’s arms. He’ll come around when he’s ready.”

“Did he and Elise talk much? In the last few weeks?”

“Those two always had something to jabber about lately, seems like. Dinners here. Heard them on the phone sometimes.”

“And things seemed fine between them?”

That flick in his eyes again. I winced.

“It’s not me,” I said. “It’s the police. If they start looking—”

“There’s nothing to find. Gentry was cleared by the police back when that little girl disappeared. Anyway, why would they think there’s a connection between that little black girl and—and what happened to Elise?”

“Tucker said Elise had started this thing where she was pushing people to come clean about their past. What if she thought the Royer Boys
did
have something to do with Jazmine’s disappearance, and she was telling them to confess?”

“And they killed her for it.”

I nodded.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth, rolled it between his fingers. “I don’t see it, Sydney Rose. I wish I did because if Tucker didn’t murder Elise, then her killer is still out there. But the truth is, no matter what Elise might have wanted them to come clean about, they didn’t have anything to confess. Not, at least, when it came to that little girl. Those boys could be royal creeps. They terrorized her, I’d be willing to bet. But the police did their investigation. They pushed hard. They couldn’t find anything.”

“I read the reports. The detective seemed to think they were good for it.”

“The report also mention that the lead detective was a drunk six months out from his retirement? Probably wanted to close the case and finish his career a Level Five. Probably would have arrested Santa Claus if he thought he could get a conviction.” Nik rubbed a hand along his jaw, scratching at the stubble. “Nah, they didn’t have anything on those boys. I wish they had. Maybe they’d have been put in prison a long time ago.”

“So maybe,” I said, “it wasn’t Jazmine she wanted them to come clean about. Maybe there was another crime she knew about that involved those skinheads. Because Alfred Merkel assaulted Tucker in Wyoming and took his hobo beads. We found the beads near Elise’s body. Or ones just like them, anyway. The theory is that after Merkel jumped Tucker in Wyoming, he got to Denver before him and killed Elise.”

A muscle jumped in Nik’s jaw. “What beads? What are you talking about?”

“There were hobo beads in Elise’s room. Scattered. Like a strand had broken during a fight.”

Nik tucked his chin down to his chest, hunched his shoulders.

“It looked like more evidence against Tucker,” I said, “until we cross-checked his story about being jumped by Merkel and having his beads stolen. Now it speaks against Merkel.”

“And you’re just now sharing this with me?”

“Because your first thought is revenge. You’re tough, Nik. But that gang is tougher.”

Nik offered the pack of cigarettes to me, passed me his lighter. We lit up together, letting the smoke hang in the air with our breath.

“Funny the turns life takes,” Nik said after a while.

“Or not.”

“I’ve spent too much of my life trying to leave the past behind. But the past is a leech. Digs its head into you and sucks your blood until it leaves you dry.”

“What past you talking about, Nik?”

“You sweet on that detective? Cohen, right?”

“What? No.”

“You got all misty when you talked about him.”

“That was just heart palpitations over the size of his house.”

“I’m serious, Sydney Rose.”

“So am I.” I took a lungful of smoke, released it. My chest protested. “Okay. So maybe I thought about it. But it won’t go anywhere.”

Nik waited.

“He was asking me things last night,” I said. “About the war. First time anyone’s wanted to know. To
really
know. About me. Warts and all.” I gave an elaborate shrug, kept my voice casual. “It counted for something, you know?”

“You want my advice?”

“You going to tell me anything I haven’t already told myself?”

“Keep it close, Sydney Rose. About the war. He’ll tell you that it doesn’t matter what you did. That he’ll love you no matter what, if that’s what you two have going. But every time you break down or lose your temper, he’ll start worrying that it’s because of something you did. He’ll start to wonder if you’re really right in the head, worry that you’re going to explode. First he’ll hide the guns, then he’ll hide the knives. He’ll start to think you’re broken.”

But I
am
broken, Nik. Broken bad.

“My experience?” Nik went on. “Pretty much anything you’ve done you aren’t proud of, whether it was in war or with something else, it’s best to keep it close.”

“I have.”

“All that news footage they’re blocking.” Nik went on. “The videos that show the coffins coming back. People don’t want to know. And you and I? We’re part of what society can’t bear to remember. Because if they really think about it, if they really look at us and realize the cost we’ve paid to keep them safe? They can’t live with the guilt. They put up their ribbons and they give us fucking discounts at stores and they say, ‘Thank you for your service’ so they can go home and feel good about themselves. But if they really looked at what war does to us? Hell. They’d never let us come home.”

“Stop it, Nik.”

“And for what? What did either of us accomplish in ’Nam or Iraq? What, exactly, did the US achieve?”

The front door opened and Grams looked out. “Sydney Rose? And Clyde? What are you doing out here in the cold with that crazy man? Get inside.”

I mashed out the cigarette and hoisted myself from the seat. “You know what Elise said to Tucker? She told him that a life’s no good if it’s a lie.”

“What we did over there?” His eyes followed me. “
That’s
the lie.”

C
HAPTER
22

There was nothing I could do for Dougie, the Sir told me. Fate had dealt its hand.

But later, many hours later, after they’d taken him away, I went back in. I knelt in his blood on the floor, and I prayed for the last time.

After a long time, I stood. I swept the floor clean of sawdust dark with what remained of Dougie, packed the sweepings into bags, and carried them outside.

—Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.

Grams drew me into the tiny foyer. She took in my battered face and filthy clothes and pulled me into her arms. I clung to her briefly then pushed away before the tears could start again.

“Don’t go home for a few days,” I told her. “You need anything, I’ll get it.”

“What are you talking about?” Her eyes went speculative. “How did this happen? Who hurt you like this?”

“Later, Grams. I need sleep. I’m dead on my feet.”

“You’ll be dead off of them if you aren’t careful,” she said. “Triage first. When I’m sure none of those injuries is going to kill you, then you can rest.”

Grams had been an ER nurse all her adult life. Convenient in a place like Royer, where kids play chicken on the streets and the adults are into bar fights. Grams had always been popular, even after we moved away. Cheap, capable, and she never asked uncomfortable questions.

Now she took my arm, led me down the shadowy hall toward the warmth and light of the kitchen, Clyde trailing behind.

Ellen Ann sat at the table, staring into space, a cigarette smoldering in her hand. The light over the table carved such deep shadows on her face that her features looked as if they’d been stitched together by a child, and an awkward one at that.

“Ellen Ann?” I said.

Her gaze slid unseeing around the room until her eyes met mine. My presence registered with a shock that bounced down her body.

“Dear God, girl, what happened? Is that your blood?” She stubbed out her cigarette. “You need to go to the hospital.”

“Is she right?” Grams looked me square in the face, assessing me in the brighter light. “You hurt bad enough you need the hospital?”

For my grandmother, coming as she did from the self-sufficient hollers of Appalachia, going to the hospital was a sinful admission of weakness. You went there if you were bleeding out or in full cardiac arrest. For everything else you had fortitude. And, hopefully, someone like Grams to patch you up.

I shook my head.

“But the blood,” Ellen Ann said.

“It’s not mine.”

Both women took that in then let it go.

“Get a pan and some clean rags,” Grams said to Ellen Ann. “Sydney Rose, go to the bathroom and strip.”

While Clyde watched from the narrow space between sink and toilet that he’d wedged himself into, Grams tended me as if I were a child again. She drew a warm bath then had me swallow a couple of Vicodin before she helped me into the water. With the rags brought by Ellen Ann she wiped down my arms and legs and torso with hands as knotty and strong as tree roots. She removed the old bandages and threw them into the basin with the rags, then washed my face and neck and lathered and rinsed my hair.

I leaned my head back against the side of the tub and closed my eyes, surrendering to the cocoon of being cared for. The pain pills and the liquor slithered through my veins, a night train in my blood, rocking me to sleep. I dozed while Grams finished with my hair, then listened vaguely as she catalogued each wound, her voice raw with cigarettes.

When I was at last clean, she helped me stand up out of the tub and dry off. She wrapped an old chenille robe around me and pushed me gently onto the closed lid of the toilet.

“I’ll be right back.”

While she was gone, Clyde laid his head on my thigh and gave me his soulful eyes. I rested my palm against his head, scratched behind his ears. “We’re still good, Clyde.”

My eyes sank closed. Images of Elise swirled through my mind. The medical examiner washing her body free of blood. Washing her bright-blond hair. I thought of Melody, whose cut I’d treated only two days ago. And Liz, balled into herself. Where were they?

I jerked awake at the sound of the door opening and then closing.

Grams laid out bandages and ointment and hydrogen peroxide on the counter by the sink. She gave me a glass of water and a bottle of antibiotics and told me to take one now and put the rest in my pocket. Then she studied me under the light, gently turning my head this way and that, her fingers like feathers on the bruises left by Sarge.

“I’ll stitch this,” she said, lightly touching my cheek. “Give me your arm where he hit you.”

I pushed up the sleeve on the arm Sarge had struck with the gun.

“This man, he really hurt you,” Grams said. “Whoever he was. He knew what he was doing. Enough to hurt you bad without killing you.”

Not right away, at least.

“That his blood on your clothes?”

I nodded. “Some of it.”

“Is he still alive?”

“Jesus, Grams.”

“Did he have anything to do with Elise’s death?”

“I don’t think so.”

She made me hold ice on the elbow, then knelt in front of me to apply ointment to the cactus wounds, some of which had begun to ooze.

“I know Ellen Ann’s a wreck,” I said. “But how’s Nik holding up? When he’s not drunk, I mean.”

The shake of her head was soft. “Oh, you know Nik. He’s hurting, but he takes it out by getting mad at the dog and the paperboy and the poor girl who got stuck waiting on him at Denny’s. He keeps saying he can’t breathe and opens the windows, and I keep closing them. He’s hard to live with right now. But that’s men and women for you. We take to grief different. Who’s to say his way isn’t better?”

“What about Gentry?”

Her head shook harder this time. “He won’t take my calls. Not his mom or dad’s, either. Didn’t answer the door when his parents dropped by. That poor boy does grief the worst of all. Always has.”

Something sharp wriggled into my gut. “You think maybe he’s home, just not answering?”

“Nik has a key. He and Ellen Ann went in.”

“Nothing was gone? A suitcase or anything?”

She looked at me sharply. “Nothing except him.”

“So he went somewhere to hide his grief?”

“Must have.” She took away the ice and wrapped an ACE bandage around my elbow. “All the time you were in Iraq, Gentry worried for you. His worry made him restless. Fevered, almost. It was all Ellen Ann could do to get him to come around for a home-cooked meal and to sit still through it. When you decided to re-up, I thought he’d fly apart.”

“He emailed me every day while I was over there.”

“He’s a good man.”

“Any idea where he might have gone?”

She stepped back and looked at me, studying her work, checking for places she’d missed. She clucked her tongue.

“The bump to the back of your head is swelling nicely, so that’s all good,” she said. “Swelling out means it’s not swelling in. That chest injury is the worst of it. How bad is the pain?”

“Fine as long as I don’t move or breathe.”

“You feel like you have to work for air?”

“No.”

She put her hands on my chest. “Pain here?” she asked.

I gritted my teeth.

Her hands moved lightly along my ribs. “Anywhere here?”

“No.”

Her hands moved around to my back. “What about here?”

“Just feels bruised.”

She dropped her hands. “A blow to the chest can damage organs, Sydney Rose. It can kill you. So pay attention to what your body is telling you. You have trouble breathing or if the pain gets a lot worse all the sudden, don’t wait. Call an ambulance. Don’t mess around with this.”

“Gentry?” I reminded her.

She laid out needle and thread. Numbing gel. “Ellen Ann says he always had secret places to go to. When he was a kid, she knew where those places were. But she hasn’t known for years. He’ll come home when he’s ready.”

“Friends? A girlfriend?”

“Ellen Ann tried. He was supposed to go into the office yesterday, some big trial they got coming. But his friends at work say he didn’t show. I am—” She took a sudden suck of air. “I am a bit worried. He’s a grown man and all, and he goes off sometimes. But this feels different. Not like him to walk out on his work, even with what happened to Elise. You find him, you tell him to call, okay?”

“I’ll look for him,” I promised.

We were silent for a short time while I thought about what Gentry’s absence could mean.

“Grams, that man Ma killed, Wallace Cooper?”

She threaded the needle. Had me sit on the counter so we were eye to eye.

“What about him?” she asked. “Tilt your head up.”

“You believed her when she said she did it in self-defense? That he was trying to hurt her?”

The needle bit. “She was my daughter-in-law. I believed whatever she believed. Sometimes self-defense isn’t as obvious as someone having a knife to your throat or a gun to your head. Sometimes people got to take a wider view.”

“What if Wallace Cooper had been family? What then?”

A distant tugging as the thread went through. “What is it you’re saying, Sydney Rose?”

“What I learned in Iraq is that sometimes there’s a higher truth than what we know. Or what we think we know. And sometimes—maybe all of the time—you’ve got to go with that higher truth.” I rolled my eyes from the needle, let my gaze follow the trail of posies on the wallpaper up to the ceiling. “No matter what it costs.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“I’m talking blood and water. Blood may be thicker, but that doesn’t mean you have to choke on it.”

The needle found a raw place. “You choke on it if you have to. Family is family. That
is
the higher law. Short of God’s law, it’s the only one that matters.”

“How does that explain my dad?”

“Nothing explains your daddy.” The prick of the needle vanished as Grams worked her way back to where my skin was numb.

“What if it’s family
against
family?”

“Then you go after the furthest kin. It’s how we’ve always done it. Now shut up and let me work. You’re going to give yourself a scar, you keep yapping.”

Afterward, Grams led me to Gentry’s room, gave me some sweats to sleep in and more Vicodin, pulled the blinds against the growing morning, and left, closing the door behind her. When I climbed into bed, Clyde curled up next to me as if he sensed my pain and my need. I knew a lot of dogs slept in their owners’ beds, but Clyde had always refused. The fact that he’d slept close to my bed the night we’d brought Tucker back had been a huge milestone.

And now this. Maybe not something we wanted to make a habit of. Or maybe we did. Today wasn’t the day to figure it out.

Deeply grateful, I rubbed his face and his ears and gave him long strokes, head to tail, the way he loved. He licked my face.

“Easy boy. Grams just fixed that.”

At last I lay back, my hand on his ruff.

“I won’t die on you, boy. I promise. Third time’s the charm. Maybe we both just need a little faith.”

As if reassured, a minute later he was snoring, his weight warm and solid, pressed tight against my right side.

But I lay awake, wired and exhausted, seeing Liz curled up on that picnic table. I reached out my arm for the Vicodin on the nightstand then pulled it back. Later, I told myself.

Outside the room, the floor creaked. Clyde lifted his head. I closed my eyes as someone opened the door and the smell of cigarette smoke and winter trailed into the room. Nik. Needing the quiet of my own thoughts, I feigned sleep until he closed the door again.

“She’s tough,” I heard him say.

“Maybe not tough enough.” Ellen Ann. “Lot of weakness in that family. I love her. But that girl will always be nothing more than middling.”

“She just needs time,” Nik murmured.

They moved away from the door. Clyde lowered his head.

But I opened my eyes, stared into the gray dimness.

Nothing more than middling.

Was Ellen Ann right? Were my parents and I the weak ones? My father abandoned his wife and daughter. Shortly after that, my mother threw me away when she murdered Wallace Cooper. At age thirteen, after a long period of furious, wounded rebellion, I’d buried my demons and set out to prove I was nothing like them. I became the good girl. In school. In sports. Good friend. Good granddaughter. Good worker. Trustworthy, reliable, obedient.