Death Falls (32 page)

He noted their location in the hall, right in front of Charlie’s dust-filled bedroom. The door was still open. The key remained in the lock.

He took a step, forcing his father to take one backward. After another step, Ken was standing in the doorway of Charlie’s room. One more, and he was inside.

“What are you doing?” Ken asked.

Eric lunged for the doorknob. Soon the door was closed and he was fumbling with the key. The knob twisted in his hand—his father turning it on the other side. Eric held it steady and turned the key.

Ken was now locked inside.

“For Christ’s sake, Eric, let me out!”

The door shimmied as his father jerked the handle. Eric leaned against it, listening to his father’s angry huffs on the other side.

“I’m not going to let you out,” he said. “Not until you tell me what you did with Charlie.”

Nick sat in the waiting area outside the emergency room, watching TV. On the screen, he saw a pockmarked expanse of gray surrounded by a sky as dark as death. Accompanying the visual was the voice of a news anchor who sounded as awestruck as Nick felt.

“You are looking at a live picture from the surface of the moon,” he said. “Just minutes ago, the three Chinese astronauts who blasted off early Wednesday touched down in the Sea of Tranquility. They plan to exit their lunar module in an hour or so for the first moon walk in almost thirty-nine years.”

Somewhere in the depths of the hospital, a medical team was trying to keep Craig Brewster alive. Outside the hospital, some of the cops who had been at Camp Crescent milled about the parking lot, smoking, laughing, and generally shooting the shit. The rest of them were still at the camp, looking for clues about what Craig might have done with the other boys.

The only person near Nick was a fresh-faced nurse sitting behind the check-in desk and reading a tattered paperback. Nick couldn’t help but notice the name of the author—Eric Olmstead. He chuckled when he saw it, prompting a sweet smile from the nurse. Nick could tell she thought he was cute. He chalked it up to the cane. Women seemed to love men with a weakness.

Nick pulled out his phone and dialed Kat’s number. He immediately got her voice mail. He had tried calling her once on the way to the hospital and again after he arrived. Both times he had left messages. Kat’s failure to call him back was worrisome.

The nurse piped up. “You can’t use cell phones in here.”

Nick tucked the phone back into his jacket. “Sorry. My bad.”

He was about to turn back to the TV and those unreal images of the moon, when Tony Vasquez emerged from the hospital’s inner sanctum. As a member of the state police, he was allowed to go back there. Nick was not.

“Craig’s still critical,” Tony told him. “Completely unresponsive. We’re not going to be able to question him for at least a day or so.”

“When you do,” Nick said, “ask him why he decided to use me for target practice.”

“I’d rather find out what he did with the bodies of those kids.”

Nick nodded in agreement. “You’re right. That’s a better question.”

The automatic doors leading outside slid open as a man entered the emergency room. He wore the gray, oil-stained uniform of an auto mechanic. In his early fifties, he looked wan and worried as he made a beeline to the check-in desk.

“I’m here to see about my father,” he said. “I was told he had a heart attack.”

Nick and Tony both stood. At the desk, the nurse asked, “Patient’s name?”

“Craig Brewster.”

They approached the man quickly from behind. He was stating his name—“Kevin Brewster”—when Nick tapped him on the shoulder.

The man turned around, confused. He had a pale face, small nose, ears that jutted from the sides of his head. His eyes were sad. His smile was slightly lopsided. It was a face Nick had seen before, only in black-and-white and printed on newspaper.

And although its owner had just said he was Kevin Brewster, Nick knew without a doubt that he was standing face-to-face with Charlie Olmstead.

Tony asked the questions. The man who called himself Kevin Brewster answered them. Nick’s job was to listen.

“What is your name?”

“Kevin Brewster.”

“Was that the name you were born with?”

“I want to know what happened to my father.”

The three of them were in an examination room just off the waiting area. Kevin sat on the examination table, hands in his lap, legs swinging beneath him. Tony paced the room as he tossed out his queries. Nick was in the corner, scribbling everything down on a prescription pad he had flirted from the hands of the nurse at the check-in desk.

“He had a massive heart attack,” Tony said. “He’s in ICU as we speak.”

“Will he survive?”

“We don’t know.”

“Can I see him?”

“Not right now.”

“But soon?”

“If you answer some questions,” Tony said. “Now, is Kevin Brewster the name you were born with?”

“No.” A slight hesitation. “I once was known as Charlie.”

“Charlie Olmstead?”

“That’s right.”

“When did Charlie become Kevin?”

“The night I met my real father.”

Nick halted his pen, leaving a skid mark of ink across the page. “Maggie and Ken Olmstead weren’t your parents?”

Kevin shook his head. “Craig Brewster is my father. He said the Olmsteads stole me when I was a baby.”

“Who was your mother?” It was Tony, whose stern gaze in Nick’s direction indicated that he’d be the only one asking questions.

“I don’t know.”

“Mr. Brewster never told you?”

“He said she died. That was all.”

“When was this? Right after he abducted you?”

“He didn’t abduct me. I went willingly.”

“Willingly?”

“Yes.”

What Kevin told them—and what Nick furiously wrote down—was that on July 20, 1969, he went to Sunset Falls. On his way back to the house, a man in the street stopped him.

“He told me his name. He then said he was my real father.”

“And you believed him?”

“Not at first. But he showed me a photograph. It was of him on a beach. He was with a woman and the Olmsteads. He told me the woman was my mother and that she died soon after giving birth to me. Then he said Mr. and Mrs. Olmstead stole me. That’s when I started to think he was telling me the truth.”

“Why?”

“Because I looked nothing like them. But I looked like the woman in the photo. The woman I was told was my real mother.”

“So you left with him? Just like that?”

“No.”

“Then he took you by force?”

“I didn’t say that,” Kevin snapped. “He asked me if I believed him. I said maybe. He asked if I wanted to spend some time with him to see if it was true. Again, I said maybe.”

While Tony seemed content to let the man formerly known as Charlie Olmstead draw out the story, Nick was getting impatient. “Tell us why you left with him.”

“He said the Olmsteads didn’t want me anymore.”

“And you bought this?” Nick asked.

Kevin glanced in his direction. “I know it’s hard to understand. But imagine you were in my shoes—a ten-year-old boy in a family that was falling apart. Ken and Maggie Olmstead were fighting all the time. There was a baby. I’ve forgotten his name, I’m afraid to say.”

“Eric,” Nick said.

“That’s right,” Kevin said with a fond smile. “Eric. I knew that Ken and Maggie seemed on the verge of divorce and that the baby was caught in the middle. I remember being worried about him.”

“What about you?” Tony asked.

“I seemed not to matter. I spent a lot of time outside, playing alone or bothering the neighbors. They didn’t seem to miss me. So when my father—my real father—said the Olmsteads didn’t want me, it had the ring of truth.”

“So you left with him that night?” It was Tony, back to being the sole interrogator.

“I did, but only after he said the Olmsteads knew that I’d be with him.”

“Did you realize he was lying?”

“No. Was he? I never found out.”

“Where did he take you that night?”

“To some land he owned in the woods. Next to a lake. It was beautiful there. He had built a cabin and we slept in sleeping bags on the floor. He asked me about my likes and dislikes. What I dreamed of becoming. How I was doing in school. We talked the entire night. In the morning, he asked me if I wanted to stay another night.”

“Did you ask about the Olmsteads?”

“I did. He told me I had their permission to stay the entire week if I wanted to. I told him I did.”

“What did you do there?”

“We fished a lot. We roasted marshmallows and he told me ghost stories. And we worked. He told me he was in the process of building a camp on that land and that he’d appreciate my help. We cleared brush. We built more cabins. It was hard work, but I didn’t mind. I enjoyed being with my real dad. So when the week was over, he said the Olmsteads allowed me to stay another week. And then another. Then he said they wanted me to stay the rest of the summer.”

“Didn’t you miss them?” It was Nick again. He knew he was pissing Tony off, but he just couldn’t help it. “They did raise you, after all.”

“At first I did. In the back of my mind, I always thought they’d eventually come to the camp and get me. When they didn’t, I actually got angry. It was proof that my father was right and that they didn’t want me anymore. So I stayed.”

“But what about school?” Tony asked. “Didn’t you think about going back in the fall?”

“No,” Kevin said. “Because by that point, my father told me that the Olmsteads had moved.”

“Did he say where?”

“No. Just that they were gone. So I went to live with him. He gave me a new name. To signal a new start, he said. It was weird at first, but I eventually got used to it. Especially after going to a new school. Everyone there called me Kevin. No one knew I had once been Charlie. After a few months, it was like Charlie had never been my name.”

“So you spent the rest of your life as Kevin, Craig Brewster’s son?”

“I did.”

“And he was good to you?”

“He was.”

“No abuse? No sexual assault? Nothing like that?”

“No. Never. He’s a good, kind man.”

“Did you ever see him with any other boys?”

“What do you mean?”

“At any time, were there other boys living with you? Maybe identified as distant cousins or the children of friends?”

“No. It was just the two of us.”

Nick had another question. Instead of blurting it out, he wrote it down on the prescription pad, tore off the page, and handed it to Tony to read. He did, with mild annoyance.

“Did you ever try to find the Olmsteads?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I had no reason to. At some point after I went to live with my father—I can’t remember if it was a few weeks, a few months, or a few years—he told me that they were dead.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. Ken and Maggie. Even the baby. I didn’t ask for details and he didn’t give me any. He said that there was a tragedy, they all died, and I was now officially his son.”

“How did this make you feel?”

“Sad, of course.” Kevin looked to Nick again. “Like you said, they raised me. And they were good to me. I cried when I heard the news. I wanted to go to their funerals, but my dad said they were already buried. Instead, he took me to the lake. I painted their names on three rocks and dropped them into the water. I had my own burial.”

Nick tried to stop himself. He really did. But as he listened to Kevin talk about his former family, the urge to speak expanded in his chest until it had to burst out.

“They’re not dead,” he said. “Maggie Olmstead is, but just recently. The others, Ken and Eric, are still alive.”

The news stunned Kevin Brewster. What little color there had been in his cheeks drained away and his mouth dropped open.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’ve met Eric,” Nick replied. “He’s looking for you right now. Your mother spent her whole life trying to find out what happened to you.”

“Maggie Olmstead is not my mother.”

“She was,” Nick said. “Once upon a time. And your father, this Craig Brewster, he lied to you.”

“Prove it.” Kevin hopped off the table. Tony intercepted him and edged him back in place. “My father wouldn’t lie to me like that.”

Nick left the room. Back in the waiting area, he headed straight for the nurse. She was on the phone, the paperback at her elbow. Nick picked it up and mouthed four words, “May I borrow this?” When the nurse smiled and nodded, he took the book into the examination room and handed it to Kevin Brewster.

“Who wrote this?”

Kevin read the cover. “Eric Olmstead.”

“That’s the same Eric Olmstead who was your brother. In his mind, he’s still your brother. He always has been and he always will be.”

Nick flipped the book over, revealing an author’s photograph on the back cover. It was a black-and-white image of Eric, who seemed to stare out at his former brother. “He’s alive, Charlie.”

“It’s Kevin,” the former Charlie said.

“Yes. Kevin. But you were once Charlie Olmstead. You were once part of a family that loved you. When you left, they missed you. They still miss you. And they’d love to see you again and know that you’ve been safe all this time.”

Kevin Brewster started to cry. Nick didn’t know what actually prompted it. Maybe his words. Maybe the picture of his long-lost brother. The cause didn’t matter. The important part was that he realized he had been lied to all those years ago, and that clarity made him weep until his body was wracked with sobs.

“Where is Eric now?” he asked, trying to stop the tears.

“Perry Hollow,” Nick answered. “Probably a half hour away.”

Kevin Brewster, who seemed to be changing back into Charlie Olmstead with each passing second, wiped his eyes.

“Take me to him,” he said. “I want to see him.”

One hour.

Kat couldn’t dislodge the number from her head. Sixty minutes of discussion about James’s problems, although the conversation had been pretty one-sided. Jocelyn Miller barely let Kat get a word in edgewise, which made her feel both angry and foolish. And duped, of course. She couldn’t forget about feeling utterly duped by her son.