Following Christopher Creed (15 page)

He went back into the office. We read silently and slowly, as Danny Burden's penmanship was a mess and I wasn't as good as the chief was at interpreting it.

"
So here is the hard part. She threatened to off herself and even though I promised to help her get in rehab or to go see a doctor for some depressed pills she would not listen. On Sunday night, December 29, you guys were at church and she was over and I couldn't stand to listen to her complain and feel sorry for herself anymore so I shouted GO AHEAD THEN! GET IT OVER WITH!

"
It was the worst mistake of my life because she knew where Dad's gun was. I had told her once and now she took it and ran and I ran after her and she fired it into her own head in the shed at the back of the property. The one with Dad's motorbike in it, so she is in there and I am so sorry to have to tell you that. Just call the cops and don't go in there, it is a bloody mess and I am a crazy person.

"
I could not have called the cops, however. I had just screamed at her and I know the Baldwins were home and probably heard that and she had Dad's gun and I have touched it so many times and they would think that I killed her because I didn't want to marry her or something. Remember when Chris Creed disappeared and everyone
automatically assumed that someone down here did him? Well I didn't think I should end up in jail just because Darla made a bad mistake on our property and with Dad's gun.

"
I came out here just to run run run. I didn't get to Darla in time. I could have stopped her if I had been faster or smarter or something. I could not hug or kiss her goodbye because if I touched one thing in that shed it would have looked even more like I did it and I didn't want you guys to ever deal with any suspicion that I did something bad. I am sorry about the mess, totally sorry, I should have called the cops and not run.

"
I did love her. I know most people don't understand that because they think she was a loadie and any one of them could have thought she made me so crazy just from her constant yelling to get out Dad's gun. But I did love her and I could never kill her and now I can't stop seeing her head blow open and that stream of blood running down the side of the wall back behind Dad's bike. I want to be with her even if it sounds crazy. It will be better than being in jail. She didn't want me to get blamed, she's not that evil. She just didn't think. But who will believe me? Nobody, so I'm going
on to Darla. She knows the truth. I love you all and especially you Wiley.
"

I almost had a charley horse from shifting my head every half line to read it. Sad, sad, sad. Bad, bad frequency. Like most people who are well liked, Danny Burden was unaware of it, unaware of the gifts it can hold. Between the neighborhood's word and the evidence, the police would probably have believed him.

"So, Danny Burden is saying he committed suicide because he missed Darla and he was afraid he'd get blamed for it," I summarized tentatively. The kid was a massive run-on sentence.

"Essentially, yes." Chief Rye had emerged from his office and took back the fax. "You need a copy?"

"Yes, please," I said, sensing his anxiety. "You're obviously not taken in by this. Any specifics?"

"At first glance, only that the body was dropped in acid to speed up the decomposition. The clothes were thrown in with a semi-decomposed body to keep all potential evidence together."

The answer to my number one question.

"And if she committed suicide, why burn the body?" Rye asked. "And how did she get into that grave?"

W
E LEFT THE POLICE STATION
with plans to come back in a couple hours for some confirmations, including the formal ID of the body. Authorities were at the Burdens', looking to see what evidence they could still find in the shed. Rye had said the property was irregular, narrow enough to have close neighbors in the front but proceeding backwards and out for four acres. The shed was at the back, which might help explain why the neighbors never heard a shot fired. I was especially interested in the results of that search.

But not enough to ask RayAnn to head over there. I was thinking of Claudia's stance, which was correct: The town was my business; the body was not, except in how the town was responding to it. Having visited the Adams homestead today, I was ripe to speak to Mrs. Adams.

But as we got into the car, I spouted, "I'm worried about Justin."

"He didn't look good when we left him," RayAnn agreed. "Do you want to stop by the Lightning Field?"

Walking for ten minutes at least into the Lightning Field and back out seemed like a waste of precious time, but my heart had hooked in to Justin more than I cared to admit. I wanted to make sure no druglords had found him, and I also wanted to frame out this place in the daylight. It had been nothing less than crazy at night.

We parked as close as we could, and RayAnn led the way, with me encouraging Lanz to keep up with her. Only twice did he turn his nose to stop me, both times from puddles of rainwater from yesterday's deluge.

The field was just as eerie in daylight, but in a different way. The trees still glistened, a pasty color at the tops of the burned-out trunks, some ending thirty feet up, mixed with black trunk nearing the bottom. Whatever fire ripped through here probably left the ground bald, but now there was a nice bed of soft foliage resembling the wintergreen that grew around tree trunks near my childhood house. Ex
cept the flowers were white instead of purple. It was a very white place, between the endless tiny blooms and the weird dead trees. The eeriness, I suppose, came from the silence. The trees in the distance, when I focused long enough, bore a slight shade of green, implying that the summer leaves indeed were in bud stage. But there were no leaves yet to rustle in the breeze.

"Justin!" RayAnn shouted it over and over, and I did, too.

No answer.

"He wouldn't do anything stupid like jump in the freezing bay," I said. "Right?"

"I don't know him," RayAnn replied. "But crying over your life and taking your life are a mile apart. Let's hope."

RayAnn searched over by a pile of large jetty rocks down near the water, as it was the only place big enough to conceal a person. She came back alone but with something in her hands. She held up Justin's prescription bottle and shook it.

"Leaves his charger at home, leaves his medication in the field," she said. "I don't think he's very organized."

"He's got a lot on his plate," I said, holding my hand out and taking the bottle.

"Yeah. Maybe we should just put it back where I found it. He'll probably think of where he left it and come back. I'm guessing he sat down there for a while, then decided to charge his phone at Mary Ellen's. The rocks are kind of shaped like a giant seat, like a throne."

We could try to give it to him, but I had no idea where Mary Ellen lived, or even if he'd actually been there.

"What are you doing?" RayAnn asked.

"Just..." I pushed hard on the cap, turned it, and popped it off. "...making sure he isn't supplementing."

"Nosy, aren't you?" she asked.

"I'm a little too emotionally involved," I confessed. "You're supposed to stop me from feeling like..."

I stared into the container, and instead of fussing at me, she looked, too. I think she heaved a sigh along with me. But there was only one type of pill in it. I put the lid back on top.

I suddenly sensed bad energy wafting around the back of my neck, what with energy so mysteriously easy to sense in the Lightning Field. Like a psychic, I flashed to my dream last night of Chris Creed and sign language: L-O-O-K O-U-T B-E-H-I-N-D Y-O-U. Lanz whined.

"Tell me it's not Miss Gulch," I said. But I just knew, as if any meager ESP talents I possessed had gotten supercharged with lightning-tree energy.
What in God's Almighty name is she doing here?

RayAnn's smile crept back, as she watched with intrigue over my shoulder. "There's no picture of her on Adams's site. And you said last night in the rain she looked like the Grim Reaper."

"Guess I should pick one film character and stick to it," I muttered, but refused to turn around. The Mother Creed came slowly around in front of us. There actually
had
been a photo of her on Adams's website early on, but it was taken down almost as quickly as it was posted, leading me to think she'd managed to harass Torey and threaten him with libel or something. She'd aged ten years instead of four. My heart melted maybe one ounce before hardening up again when she spoke.

"What are you doing here?"

I almost choked on her lack of boundaries, but RayAnn was pretty solid.

"Ma'am, this is public property," she said. "We're within our rights to be here."

The woman chuckled down at her shoes and said softly but haughtily, "Okay, let's try this again. I
asked
you a
question. What
are you
doing
here?"

Jeezus,
I thought.
My nightmares are materializing.

RayAnn sensed my phobia exploding out of its shell, I suppose, because she went into attack.

"Ma'am. This property belongs to the state."

"You. Didn't. Answer. The question." The Mother Creed stepped within two feet of RayAnn, and I put my hand out, saying, "Whoa. Ladies..."

But they locked eyes, and RayAnn took it so easily, I was amazed. "I'm not answering your question, lady, until you give
me
some answers. What were you doing back there? Spying on us? That's a little creepy."

"I'm waiting for someone." Mrs. Creed broke down first, which made me want to 'five RayAnn.

"Well, obviously there's nobody here but us," she said evenly.

"Whom are
you
waiting for?" The woman wasn't barking or yelling, so her voice alone was not galling. It was her sense of entitlement, as if she had a perfect right to information. "Did I not just hear you calling for someone? Might that person have been my
Justin?
"

She hissed and spit a little on the
st
in Justin. RayAnn blinked as it hit her eyelashes, but she held her ground.

"Ma'am, we're reporters, not that it's any of your concern." That we were professionals and not high school kids seemed to take her aback a little, and she looked at me, probably to confirm. RayAnn went on, "We'll be here, there, and all over town. If we need to speak to you,
we
will approach
you,
though it's not on our schedule for today."

"And what are you reporting on?" the woman continued to press.

"You ready to go, Mike?" RayAnn ignored her and turned to me. I wished she hadn't. It turned the woman's attention on me full force.

"You're blind," she noted.

You're fucked up.
I tried to walk around her, but she stopped me, pointing to the prescription bottle in my hand.

"I'll take that."

I could have kicked myself seconds later, but I simply went into domineering-mother-syndrome autopilot. I handed it to her. That caused RayAnn to nudge me hard, and the woman shot her a victorious glance.
One pushover out of two would satisfy her.

"Um ... that's not yours," RayAnn said.

"It's my
son's
. I
think
I can
have
what belongs to my
son,
" she said.

RayAnn was in a quandary. If she insisted that the woman leave it where we intended to for Justin, it would also confirm that Justin would be coming back. Instead she made a suggestion, not that the woman seemed open to them. "Fine, take it. I suggest you go home now."

"Oh, you do, do you? What do you know about my son? Where
is
he?"

RayAnn unleashed, leaving me half amused and half petrified. "Mrs. Creed. I know what most people have enough sense to know: Spying is not very endearing. If you spy on your son, he's not going to like you. If he doesn't like you, he's not going to stay around very long. How many sons do you plan on losing?"

Whoa!
The comment would have driven through most any parent like a sword—especially if that parent already had one missing child and one that moved out. The Mother Creed's eyes did flicker, but beyond that, her expression never changed. This time as we stepped around her, she didn't try to stop us. I could feel her eyes all over us as we departed down the trail. I prayed to God she wouldn't follow us.

"I think her behavior's gotten worse over the years," RayAnn said with a shudder. "Remember in Adams's story the plea she gave in church when Chris first disappeared? She could sound half normal in public. If you weren't listening too closely."

"She drinks. That would eat brain cells..."

RayAnn sighed. "You may have seen the last of Justin. If she catches him? How's he supposed to get out of the house?"

"I don't know. What's worse is that Justin implied last night that she's in denial about his illness," I reminded RayAnn. "What if she keeps his medication from him? I can't believe I just gave his pills to her."

W
E PAID A VISIT
to the Adamses' quaint Civil War farmhouse. I wasn't hopeful, figuring it was now noon and that on Saturdays comfy women like Mrs. Adams play tennis, go to the gym, go to club meetings for charities. After knocking twice on the door and not seeing any cars, I was ready to leave.

Then suddenly there were sounds from inside. It was a light, womanly step, and suddenly the door was open and she was staring at us. Her eyes were dark brown and round, whereas her son's were blue and that sort of a triangular shape, wide on the inside and coming to points on the outside. Even before the door opened I was anticipating this would be quite a switch from the mother we'd just met.

"Hi. May I help you?" She opened the door wide.

We gave her our creds, and she remained calm and polite to tell us that her son avoided media, didn't grant interviews without being told to by his agent, and in fact was not here in Steepleton.