Opening Moves (9 page)

I had a feeling that last criterion would make it a short list. At least I hoped it would.

Detective Corsica motioned toward Ellen. “We can review open kidnapping and missing persons cases in the Midwest. Look for any connections. The FBI will have a lot more on those than we do here.” Ellen nodded.

Ralph stood. “Good, let’s see what we can get done on this thing, meet up again after lunch, say one thirty, unless any solid leads come in before then.”

If we met again at one thirty, it might not give me the chance to catch Dr. Werjonic’s three o’clock lecture and I began to prepare myself for the eventuality that I wouldn’t make it today.

As important as my grad classes were, from the start I’d put my work here at the force first. Most of my professors were more than happy to provide me with printed copies of their lecture notes if I missed class. I hoped Dr. Werjonic wouldn’t mind doing so as well.

The rest of the team went their separate ways while Ralph joined me at my desk to talk through the files he’d brought with him concerning the two unsolved homicides.

And as he outlined the cases, the uncomfortable thought scratched around in my head that a cannibal in the vein of Dahmer might be visiting, or possibly be operating out of, my city.

14

The training took place in the barn on the edge of their property at the base of the Rocky Mountains.

The lessons started when Joshua was eight years old. At the time, some of the things his father told him and did in front of him and taught him were frightening.

At the time.

And sometimes still.

He didn’t know how old the barn was, but it’d looked old ever since they first moved to the property when he was five. That much he knew.

The rusted metal roof had probably been painted red at one time, but to him it looked like it might have been covered in dried blood. The tall wooden slats that made up the sides of the barn had mostly been bleached by the sun. The paint that was left was cracked and peeling or flaking away.

His father had been careful to keep the doors working, though their natural tendency was to tilt awkwardly and groan from their huge rusted hinges. Sometimes Joshua had helped with the important job of oiling them.

“Everything dies, Joshua,” his father told him one day. They were walking through the field that ran alongside the barn. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Everything dies.”

“It’s the way of the world, the way things have been since the beginning. Trees, grass, animals, people. Even rivers can die. And mountains. Did you know that?”

Joshua stared long and hard at the mountains rising wild and rugged against the horizon. Of all the things he would have ever guessed could die, he never would have thought of mountains.

“Can mountains really die?”

“Yes.”

“But how?”

“Sometimes they’re killed by wind and rain, sometimes by people, sometimes by God.”

“God kills mountains?”

Despite the recent oiling, the barn door gave a weary creak as his father leaned against it. “Over time he does. He wears them out with the years. He destroyed some and formed others in the Great Flood.”

As the door opened, Joshua smelled the familiar scent of old hay and dried manure and a hint of leather from the saddles hanging on the boards near the horse stalls. The barn was mostly quiet, except for the tiny scuffling of mice beneath the hay. The air tasted dusty and dry.

“God kills mountains and rivers, animals and people,” his father went on. “Even planets. In the Old Testament, the book of Deuteronomy, God says, ‘I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal.’ Everything dies in the end, son, and since God is in control of life and death, he could stop it, but he doesn’t. This universe started in the dark and it will end in the dark and until then, we breathe, we live, we do our best to love each other. We try to cherish what we can.”

Joshua had never heard his father speak like this and it felt like he was becoming a part of something very special, a part of his father’s grown-up world, almost as if he was being let in on a great secret, and he found it thrilling to know such big and hidden things.

His father led him toward the far side of the barn and Joshua thought he might have heard another sound in addition to the mice, but he wasn’t sure. He was old enough to know that barns, even when they’re empty, always seem to whisper, as if the animals that have lived and died inside them have never left.
Animal ghosts,
he thought to himself,
that never sleep.

Sunlight crept through the narrow cracks between the boards on the sides of the barn. Shafts of light, cutting through the darkness. The streaks of sunlight were filled with dust motes and wandering flecks of hay disturbed by their movement as the two of them passed through the barn.

“Even the sun?” Joshua asked.

“The sun?”

“Will God kill the sun?”

“Yes. Someday far in the future. Even the sun. There will only be darkness at the end of all things.”

Joshua thought about that. “But what matters then? I mean, if everything just dies? What we build or make or learn, if it’s all just gone?”

His father didn’t answer right away. “This moment matters.”

“And I guess it’s okay, though, if we go to heaven, right? To be with Mom?”

His father didn’t reply and Joshua took it as some sort of rebuke, that mentioning his mom or heaven was somehow something bad and he did not bring them up again.

He stood beside his father, half in the sunlight that would one day die, half in the shadows that would not.

“Son,” his father said, “I’ve never shown you the place beneath the barn. The cellar. You can keep a secret, can’t you?”

Another secret.

“Yes, sir.”

His father paced across the stale, dry hay. Tiny slivers of straw dusted up in small clouds around his feet as he walked.

Joshua followed him to the corner of the barn.

It lay mostly in shadows. Joshua watched as his father swept his boot across the straw and, instead of simply hearing the crinkle of it brushing aside, he also heard the rough clatter of a wooden plank.

And then he heard something else. A muffled sound, somewhere beneath the boards.

“This is a very special place, Joshua. No one knows it’s here.”

Joshua wondered if his mother had known about it before she died three years ago. Wondered, but said nothing.

“But,” his father went on, “I want you to know about it. You’re the only one.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’re big enough to keep a secret?”

“Yes, sir.”

Joshua’s father brushed some more of the straw away, revealing a wooden trapdoor about three feet wide and three feet long. He uncovered a latch that had been padlocked shut, then removed a key from his pocket and slipped it into the lock. “I’m bringing you here because it’s time you learned about the special things. You’re old enough now.” His father clicked open the lock and set it aside. “Aren’t you, Son?”

He looked at Joshua expectantly.

“Yes, sir.”

His father slid the last bits of straw aside, revealing a large metal ring attached to one of the boards. Then he grasped it firmly, yanked open the trapdoor, and stepped to the side.

A black square gaped open in the ground before Joshua. Wooden steps descended and then disappeared into the cool darkness.

The sounds Joshua heard were coming from somewhere far below. They were louder now. At first Joshua thought they might be coming from some kind of hurt animal. He took a step back. “What’s down there, Daddy?”

“I’m going to show you. This is where we’re going to have the lessons.”

“Is it an animal?”

“Death is natural,” he replied, and Joshua knew that was not an answer, but he said nothing. “You understand this, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Everything dies.”

“Yes, sir. Everything dies.”

“We have to kill to stay alive, Joshua. That’s the way it is in the world. We kill cows and pigs and chickens to have meat, we kill plants to have fruits and vegetables. Just to stay alive. The life of one being depends on the death of another. This is natural. This is the way of the world.”

Joshua had never thought of it like that before. It seemed to make sense, but it also made him feel sad, almost guilty, as if he’d done something wrong just by being alive. Killing so many things.

His father drew a heavy flashlight out of his jacket pocket, clicked it on, and directed it into the darkness. “In the Bible God says, ‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.’”

Joshua didn’t quite know what that meant, but it sounded important—it had to be important or else his father never would have mentioned it, or else it wouldn’t be in the Bible. He didn’t want to sound dumb, so he stayed quiet, acted like he knew what his father was talking about.

Atonement for the soul.

The blood.

They started down the steps.

His father held out his free hand to Joshua. The dark air of the barn seemed to wrap around them, surrounding them like a quiet blanket. And those shadows, that eternal darkness that would last as long as God, held Joshua for a moment. Then he took his father’s hand as he walked beside him to the cellar.

The sounds continued.

Joshua was starting to get scared.

They reached the floor of the secret place.

Dirt. Packed down and trampled. In different places there were dark splotches on the ground. Wooden beams were propped against the walls to support the earth, kind of like in the mines his father had taken him to once in the mountains west of Denver, not far from their home.

From behind them, sunlight slid down the steps and filtered through the air, but the darkness didn’t seem to want to let any of it into the cellar itself.

Only after his father directed the flashlight beam across the cellar did Joshua see the man. He was standing with his back against the support beams about fifteen feet away. Some kind of metal chains had been attached to the wood and the man’s wrists and ankles were locked in the chains. There was something in his mouth to keep him from making too much noise. He was fat and extra folds of skin rolled out from beneath his shirt.

“Who is he?” Joshua’s voice caught.

“His name is Kenneth.” His father drew a long hunting knife out of a sheaf on his belt, then held the knife’s handle toward Joshua. “Take the knife, son.”

But he didn’t take it.

The man named Kenneth stared at them wide-eyed, shook his head frantically.

Joshua’s father went over, removed a black hood from his jacket pocket, and tugged it over Kenneth’s head. “This is your first time, Joshua. It’ll be easier if you don’t have to look at him.”

Beneath the hood, the man was making sounds that Joshua did not like.

Joshua didn’t move, didn’t accept the knife, which his father brought back to him now.

His father spoke softly. “Take the knife, Joshua. This is very important.”

“But sir, it’s…I’m scared.”

Kenneth shook and rattled his chains, trying to pull himself free from the wall. But he couldn’t do it. Joshua thought he wouldn’t ever be able to do it.

“I know, Son. Don’t be frightened. Just take the knife.”

At last his father gently positioned the knife in Joshua’s hand, as if it were a precious gift, and that’s what Joshua thought of in that moment—a gift, and of course, his upcoming birthday.

A gift.

And Joshua thought of what he wanted. Instead of something like a shiny knife, it was something childish and embarrassing: a stuffed animal like he used to have when his mom was alive.

And he thought of going to sleep with it, holding it close, deep beneath the covers where his father wouldn’t see and would not find it and be disappointed in him for turning to a stuffed animal for comfort.

The handle of the knife was well-worn and leather. Soft to the touch.

A gift from his father.

“Now, take the knife over to the man.”

Joshua hesitated. He smelled bathroom smells and saw that the man’s pants were stained wet in the front. Joshua wondered how long the man had been down here in the cellar, in the special place.

“Go on, Joshua. Go closer.”

He took two steps.

“I want you to take the blade of the knife and push it into his belly.”

The sounds coming from the man named Kenneth grew louder, more desperate.

“You need to learn how to do this, Joshua. You need to be able to do this yourself. Remember when I told you that everyone dies?”

Joshua didn’t answer. He was too busy looking at the man.

“Son?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Everything dies.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The life is in the blood. You remember that.”

Joshua was silent.

“Say ‘Yes, sir,’” his father told him.

“Yes, sir.”

But Joshua didn’t move any closer to the man and at last his father knelt beside him. “It’ll feel kind of soft and springy. It might be a little difficult at first because the knife needs to push through his skin.” He pointed to the end of the knife. “But, once the tip is inside, it’ll get easier. See how it’s curved here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s so it’ll poke in better and slide out easier when you’re done.”

His father walked to Kenneth, and then pulled up his shirt, revealing his round, white belly. Kenneth shook violently, and the fat in his stomach wobbled in a strange way.

“I want you to push the knife in and then move it back and forth. Like this.” In the air in front of him, Joshua’s father demonstrated the way he wanted him to wiggle the knife back and forth in the big man’s belly. “See? You can slide it in and out too. It’ll get easier each time.”

Joshua said nothing. His heart squirmed in his chest.

“Go on, now.”

Joshua stared at the man who was struggling so hard to get free.

Everything dies.

Yes, everything dies.

Joshua approached him.

“You can do it.” His father reassured him, but when Joshua didn’t raise the knife, his father wrapped his hand around Joshua’s and bent over. “Here. This is your first time. I’ll help you.”