Disembodied Bones (12 page)

•

Roosevelt found the two bodies in the room
with the carousel. From the amount of blood he could only assume
that both were dead. One was a larger man with brown hair and brown
eyes, blood streaming from a broken nose and from the corner of his
mouth. His strangely gored body was lying across a great horned,
carousel beast that Roosevelt couldn’t identify. Two horns had
pierced his back and one had burst through his throat, fixing him
in place like a skewered chicken. The other had broken off before
it could go all the way through. There was another wound in his
chest with a broken off shaft of gilded wood sticking out. This was
Monroe Whitechapel, who Roosevelt barely recognized from his
driver’s license photograph and it was obvious that he was
dead.

The little girl was lying on top of him, her
blood-soaked black hair hanging down his side. Somehow she had
ended up on top and the body of the older man had cushioned her
fall. However, it didn’t seem to matter because her head was
covered with blood and she was as still as night.

Jacques Simoneaud burst into the room and
stared dumbfounded at the sight before him. His eyes were fixed
firmly on his daughter’s still form. He stepped forward with a
trembling hand outreached and Roosevelt held up a warning arm,
saying, “I don’t think she’s...”

There was a small groan of pain that made
Roosevelt a liar, and the little boy yelled imperiously from above,
“She’s alive! I heard her! Call an ambulance!”

Roosevelt was motioning at Louis Padeaon to
do just that and Louis swiftly turned away to find a phone. Jacques
cradled his daughter in his arms, gently pulling her away from
Monroe Whitechapel, cupping his hand over the wound on her head.
Roosevelt couldn’t help but stare for a long moment, and then he
glanced up and said, “Douglas Trent?”

“Yes, that’s me,” called Douglas from the
skylight. “Can you call my mom? And please get me down from here. I
don’t want to go through the attic again.”

Roosevelt looked at the blood covered little
girl in Jacques’s arms again and hoped she would make it. “Sure,
kid. You hurt?”

“No. I’m not hurt.” Douglas stared down at
Leonie. “She saved me from him.”

“I know,” Roosevelt whispered. He stopped to
ensure that Whitechapel was dead by putting his index and middle
fingers to the pulse point at his neck. “I just don’t know how.
I’ll be right up there.”

There didn’t seem to be anything else to
say.

-

One where none should be,

Or maybe where two should be,

Seeking out purity,

In the king’s trees.

What am I?

I am a unicorn.

A box without hinges, key, or lid,

Yet golden treasures inside are hid.

What is it?

The other child had a television set with
full cable hook-up. It received twelve channels including PBS. The
small TV had been welded to a little platform, which in turn had
been welded to the rebar that constituted the walls of solid cement
that made up the place that he spent most of his days inside. It
was six feet wide, ten feet long, and barely tall enough for him to
stand inside. There was a toilet in the back and a little sink with
running water. A simple single bed with an iron headboard and
footboard was covered with cartoon character-infested blankets and
pillows and sat in the corner farthest away from the facilities.
The entire area was big enough for the child to pace back and forth
inside, but his left hand was handcuffed to a chain that was
attached to another plate in the wall that had also been welded to
the rebar inside the cement. He knew it very well because he had
tried to pry himself free on more than a dozen occasions, leaving
him with bloody, aching fingers and agonizing failure.

If he looked up he could see the cement block
that was set in place above him, that which kept him from escaping
his cell. The child had watched Monroe Whitechapel move it many
times, using this dungeon-like place to hide children, who he
called his toys, when he was faced with possible discovery. Or when
he had other things to do.

As soon as Douglas Trent’s name was mentioned
on the evening news the night before, the child in the cell knew
what Whitechapel had done. He had done it before. He had even told
the child about it. Once he had described to him in detail about
two boys he’d kidnapped and murdered in Mexico, all the while he’d
left the child in the cell for a month, with only tap water and
dried foods to survive on. The child had been deathly afraid that
Whitechapel would never return, that something would happen to him,
that he would get caught or killed, and the child would be left to
starve to death inside the compact hell-hole.

Whitechapel used to tell the child many
things, things that were secrets, all because the older man knew
the child would never be able to tell anyone else. He’d stay above
and whisper them down to him and include some insane riddle with
the same proviso, “If you answer it, I’ll let you go.” But the
child never came up with the right answers.

Then it had happened. The child saw it on a
breaking action story from channel 5, WAFB news, his very favorite
with blonde-haired anchorwoman Raquelle Turner. She appeared
dressed in a red suit-dress with matching lipstick and a
marvelously white smile. A serious look came over her beautiful
face as she stood in front of Whitechapel’s home at the front
gates, pointing inward to indicate the large house. The bronze
nameplate was visible over one of her lovely shoulders and made no
bones about what house really was behind her. After all, invasion
of privacy rules didn’t matter much because Monroe Whitechapel was
dead. It was a fact that both appalled and elated the child.

Film footage showed paramedics taking away a
little girl on a stretcher, IVs attached to a skinny arm,
blood-soaked bandages wrapped around her head, and people who
followed with anxious faces and batted reporters aside like they
were vermin. Then a man-sized, closed black bag was carried out by
the coroner’s office. The reporter relayed that preliminary
information indicated that this was the body of Monroe Whitechapel,
age 35, a Shreveport native and local philanthropist known for his
charitable actions. Apparently, he had been guilty of the
kidnapping of the missing ten year old boy, Douglas Trent, who had
been found alive and in good condition inside the house.

The child watched with horrified
fascination.

The story became more interesting as it was
suggested that a local psychic was responsible for locating Douglas
Trent and reporters were obviously dying to sell their souls for
more information about the injured little girl. But then Douglas
Trent was escorted outside by a large black police detective and
his parents ran helter-skelter across the lawn to fiercely hug the
boy who had been missing less than twenty-four hours.

Pressing his face almost against the screen,
the child stared at Douglas’s image. One close-up was used for the
rest of the story and the child reached out with eager fingers to
follow the lines of his face on the TV. With brown hair and brown
eyes he could be the child’s younger brother. They resembled each
other and the child knew exactly why Whitechapel had been unable to
resist the child he’d coaxed from the mall’s arcade.

The child knew that Whitechapel had meant to
kill him and keep Douglas Trent in his place. The child was getting
too old for Whitechapel’s tastes. He realized he had been confined
in the cell more often for longer periods of time and the countdown
of futility had begun.

The child had some food in the cell and he
lasted as long as he could. He was at first fascinated by the news.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off the TV screen; he couldn’t bear to
turn the set off. Then as more news came out about the little girl
who had located Douglas Trent the child became angry. Her condition
was critical; she was in a coma and they weren’t sure if she would
live or die. Brain damage was mentioned. They didn’t know how bad
it was.

If she could find him, then why can’t she
wake up and find me?

Then as days passed, the child knew that no
one was coming for him. Not his own mother. Not the police. Not the
other little boy who had been freed. Not Leonie.

And for the first time in his young life, he
knew what it meant to hate. The child hated Leonie because he knew
he was going to die and she hadn’t rescued him.

The child looked at the handcuff around his
wrist and knew what he had to do.

-

A box without hinges, key, or lid,

Yet golden treasures inside are hid.

What is it?

It is an egg.

Chapter One

Saturday, July 20th - Buffalo Creek, Texas

Bound by age, comfort and zest,

The inquiring hand could not rest.

But given to her heart’s desires,

She gave to us - our worst quagmires.

And so now we wallow in our grief,

And seeking to close the box we weep.

While famine, plague, and other woes,

Best ourselves - and our foes.

What is it?

Buffalo Creek lay southeast of the
Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, a tiny little black dot on Rand
McNally’s map. With only twenty-thousand people in residence it
wasn’t a big place but it had a colorful history. Tonkawa,
Kickapoo, and Waco Indians once called the banks of the creek that
gave the town its name home. The Shawnee Trail ran directly through
the town and heralded thousands of cattle being driven north to
Kansas City and was the first impetus for settlement. Then the
county blossomed with the growth of cotton and made rich men out of
the ones willing to work hard at enhancing that image. The black
soil was a heartfelt godsend to the agricultural missions of those
men and its enhanced fertility gave birth to a boom of wealth.

As time passed, tourists began to make use of
the automobile, and the town became something else. A town full of
homes with elaborate wood ornamentation on Victorian homes, it
became a tourist Mecca, the home of people who loved to restore
that which is old and broken. Bed and breakfasts appeared in the
form of gingerbread-clad houses full of remembrance and dripping
with stories of vibrant characters who roamed through the town
through every era of American history. Once the infamous outlaw
Bayou Billy rode into town in a model-T to visit with his
curvaceous mistress, the equally iniquitous Rosalita, and ended up
shooting up the bordello before escaping lawmen and fleeing back to
Louisiana. A dozen movies had been filmed in the town ranging from
directors such as Hitchcock to Frankenheimer who exalted the
authentic settings. It was picturesque, beautiful, and the jewel of
the county.

The highlight of the town and the center
point was the intricate county courthouse which was the fixture of
the city. Nine stories tall with a majestic clock tower, and
featuring red and pink granite as well as red sandstone, the
courthouse’s most intriguing characteristic were the ornate
Romanesque faces fashioned by German stone carvers a century
before. Each of the four porches corresponded to an ordinal compass
point and had decorative foliage and face carvings adorning the
archways, which stare upon their visitors with varied expressions
of scorn, peacefulness, and madness. No two were the same and some
were said to howl at night.

Buffalo Creek was also the place where dozens
of antique stores sold their wares daily, especially grateful to
day traffic from Dallas and Fort Worth, but visited by people from
many states as well as international buyers who wandered in,
seeking spectacular antiquities to purchase and carry back to their
respective homes.

It was a town where some people came to
escape their pasts and explore the history of collectables and
antiques without giving up their souls.

•

“It’s a nineteenth century Pennsylvania Dutch
blanket chest,” the young woman said, a slight accent evident in
her voice. With black hair as straight as an engineer’s plumb bob
falling down to her waist and slender delineated face, she was as
striking as any exquisite antique in the store. Her skin was the
color of the full moon and her lips were the color of freshly
picked raspberries. Her gold eyes glittered with interest she
observed the fine turn of the furniture in front of her. Simply
staring at it wasn’t enough, however, and one thin hand went out to
it, ready to caress it like a tender-hearted mother.

She couldn’t help running her fingers over
the faded paintings on the front. Effervescent, vivacious shapes of
hearts and circles once popped out of the simple chest with its
dove-tailed ends and carefully fitted sides. It would have been an
object made by hand for a newlywed wife to store her prized linens
and quilts within and lined with cedar to prevent moths from
destroying the delicate beddings. Now the simple box was a
representation of a bygone age when men and women worked vigorously
to make a unique piece of furniture that would be prized as long as
it was in their possession. It would have been much treasured,
lovingly taken care with soft rags and oiled when the drying wood
cried out for nourishment.

“I thought it was, Lee,” said the Hispanic
woman standing behind the first, peering down at her prize. The
standing woman’s name was Dacey Rojas. She was in her middle
thirties with dark hair that tumbled down to her shoulders, curling
at the ends in a sophisticated bob. She had creamy brown skin that
showed her love affair with the sun, a woman who didn’t hide under
a hat and sun screen when she cut flowers from her garden. Her
brown eyes were as welcoming as her demeanor and her smile was
often a beacon for the single men who did business with the
Gingerbread House. These were the same men who found the younger
woman equally attractive, but with a somewhat cold and distinctive
hands-off attitude. “That guy from Fredericksburg tried to outbid
me but I flashed the auctioneer and he ignored the other guy.”