The Last Child (47 page)

His lips moved in silence.

Never too late.

Hunt watched his son sleep, and his lips moved again.

Repeating it.

A prayer of his own.

It took Allen twenty minutes to wake up, and they were the longest twenty minutes of Hunt’s life. Twice he rose, but twice he stayed, until light, pale and pink, touched his son on the face. His eyes were very innocent when they opened. “Hey, Dad. What’s going on?” He scrubbed at his face and sat up against the pillows.

“You know I love you, right?”

“Yeah. Sure. What—”

“If you were ever in trouble, I’d do everything in my power to help you. You know that, too. No matter how bad things are, I’m your dad. I’ll help you. You know that, don’t you, Allen?”

“Sure. Of course.”

Hunt kept himself still. “Are you in trouble, son?”

“What? No.”

Hunt leaned in. “Is there anything you need to tell me? Anything at all. I’m on your side. You and me. Okay?”

“No, Dad. Nothing. What’s going on?”

Hunt was dying on the inside. He put a hand on his son’s arm. “I’m going to lie down for a while.” He stood, looked down. “It’s a big day, Allen.”

“What do you mean?”

Hunt stopped in the door. “I’ll be awake if you need me.”

Hunt crossed the hall and stretched out on his own bed. For a moment, the room spun, but he fought it.

The knock came sooner than he’d dared to hope.

Johnny slept for seven hours, woke briefly to eat, then went back down. He heard his mother, once, talking to Hunt, but it felt like a dream. He heard angry voices and the sound of something breaking. There was talk of Alyssa and of Hunt’s son.

“I don’t know what to say, Katherine.”

That was Hunt.

A long silence. “I need to take a walk.”

“Katherine…”

“Will you stay with Johnny?”

The door closed and Johnny woke. It was not a dream. Hunt stood at the window watching her walk away. Johnny sat up and the dream came back to him. “Was Allen really in the car with Gerald?”

“You heard?”

“Is it true?”

“Allen wasn’t driving.”

“But he knew what happened and didn’t tell.”

“Gerald’s dad was a cop and Allen was scared, but I can’t make excuses for him, Johnny. He was wrong.” A pause. “He turned himself in voluntarily. He’s in custody. He’ll be punished. So will Jack.”

“Punished, how?”

“It’s up to the juvenile courts. They may go away for a while.”

“Prison?”

“It’s not like that.”

Johnny got out of bed. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

“Okay, Johnny.”

The water was weak but hot. Johnny washed twice, then studied the stitches in his chest. The skin was red and puckered; the scars would last forever. He combed his hair with his mother’s comb. Hunt was still in the room when Johnny came out.

“Better?” Hunt asked.

“She’s still gone?”

“She’s trying to decide if she hates me.”

Johnny nodded. It was a very grown-up thing for Hunt to say. “May I ask you a question?”

“Yes.”

They sat side by side on the edge of the bed. Johnny’s fingers were shriveled from the long shower. His palms peeled where a blister had burst. “Jack believes that some things happen for a reason.”

“Are you asking about Alyssa?”

Johnny wasn’t sure he could say what he meant, so he shrugged. He felt Hunt tense, then relax, like he’d made a decision.

“We found seven bodies buried in the woods behind Jarvis’s house. Children. Did you know that?”

“Mom told me.”

Hunt hesitated again, then pulled a photograph from his coat pocket. It was Meechum’s autopsy photo. It showed him from the chest up, undressed on a metal table. “Is this the man you saw with Jarvis?”

His face had hollowed out in death and he had no color at all, but Johnny recognized him. He nodded.

“Why did you think he was a cop?”

“He carried handcuffs and a pistol on his belt. That’s what cops do.”

Hunt put the photo away. “He was a security guard at the mall. He and Jarvis served together in Vietnam. Both got dishonorable discharges at the same time. There were rumors—”

“What kind of rumors?”

“Bad ones.”

Johnny shrugged. He’d heard the stories anyway.

“They were bad men, Johnny. They did bad things for evil reasons and they would have kept on doing them if you hadn’t come along when you did.”

“I didn’t save Tiffany. I told you that.”

Hunt stared through the window. “If Jarvis had not been busy with you on the street, Tiffany would not have made it past the house. He’d have caught her and he’d have killed her. She’d be in the woods with the rest of them. Jarvis and Meechum would have kept on killing. Maybe they’d have killed a few more. Maybe they’d have killed a lot more. What I do know is that they were stopped because you were on that street when you were.”

Johnny felt Hunt’s eyes on the top of his head, but he could not look up.

“You would not have been on the street if Alyssa hadn’t died.” Hunt laid a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “Maybe that’s the reason, Johnny. Maybe, Alyssa had to die so other kids would not.”

“Jack thought Freemantle came because God sent him.”

“Jack has problems no kid should have.”

“He thought God sent crows to scare him, and sent Freemantle to make him face the truth of what he’d done.”

“I know nothing about that, Johnny.”

“The last time I prayed, I asked God for three things. I asked him for an end of pills, and for my family to come home. Those things have happened.”

“That’s two things.”

Johnny looked up, and his face was marble. “I prayed for Ken Holloway to die. I prayed for him to die a slow and terrible death.” He paused, dark eyes shining. “I prayed for him to die in fear.”

Hunt opened his mouth, but Johnny spoke before he could say anything. He pictured Ken Holloway’s eyes as the light died in them. He saw the crow shadows rise, the flicker of dark. “Levi Freemantle gave that to me,” Johnny said. “I think
that’s
why God sent him.”

Hunt had a late meeting with his son’s lawyer, then found himself parked in front of the jail, a blunt, graceless building that filled a full city block not far from the courthouse. Allen was in there, somewhere. He’d handled it well, Hunt thought; tears as he told his father—regret and shame and guilt—then courage as they’d gone to the police station together. Hunt’s last memory was of his son’s face as a steel door swung shut between them.

He turned off the engine and walked to the jail’s main entrance. He checked his weapon and was buzzed in. He knew the guards, and the guards knew him. He got a pat on the back, a few sympathetic nods, at least one cold stare. “I need to see him.”

The guard behind the desk was square and soft-spoken. “You know I can’t do that.”

Hunt knew it. “Can you give him a message?”

“Sure.”

“Will you tell him that I’m here?”

The guard leaned back. “I’ll make sure he gets the message.”

“Tell him now,” Hunt said. “Not that I
was
here. Tell him that I
am
here.”

“It’s that important?”

“There’s a difference,” Hunt said. “I’ll wait.”

When Hunt left the jail, he sat on a bench two blocks away. The sky was high and starless. Home was a shell. After a few minutes, his phone rang. It was Trenton Moore. “Did I wake you?” he asked.

“Not much chance of that.”

A pause. “I heard about your son. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks, Doc. I appreciate that. Are you calling for some other reason?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.” He cleared his throat and seemed strangely reluctant. “Umm. Do you have a minute?”

The medical examiner worked out of the hospital basement. Hunt had never liked going there, especially at night. Lighting was sparse on the long hall in. The concrete seemed to sweat. Hunt passed the viewing room, the refrigerator banks, the quiet rooms, and the silent dead. Dr. Moore was in his office, dictating, when Hunt tapped on the door frame. Moore looked up, and excitement kindled in his eyes. “Come in, come in.” He put down the Dictaphone and reached for a coffeepot on the credenza behind him. “Coffee?”

“Sure. Black. Thanks.”

He poured coffee into short Styrofoam cups, handed one to Hunt. “First of all,” Moore said, “I should give you these.” He pulled a plastic evidence bag from a drawer and tossed it on the desk. It landed heavily and metal gleamed.

Hunt picked it up and saw that it was sealed and dated, signed by the medical examiner. He rolled the bag on his palm and counted six bullets with stainless casings and divots in the tips. “Let me guess, .32 caliber hollow points?”

“From Mr. Freemantle’s right front pocket. Other than his clothing, that’s the only property he had on his person at the time of death.”

“Well, that answers a question.”

“Which is?”

“Why a certain ex-cop is still breathing, and more important, maybe, why his thirteen-year-old kid’s not charged with murder.” Hunt slipped the evidence bag into his coat pocket. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” They sipped coffee and the silence spooled out. “Speaking of questions.” Moore rolled forward in his chair. He was small and compressed, so full of energy he could barely sit still. “There are very few mysteries in what I do, Detective. Unanswered questions? Yes, all the time. But no mysteries. The human body, alas, is a very predictable instrument. Follow the damage and it leads you places, leads you to conclusions, determinations of cause and effect.” The energy flared again in Moore’s eyes, the excitement. “Do you have any idea how many autopsies I’ve performed?”

“No.”

“Neither do I, but it’s a lot. Hundreds. More, maybe. I really should count them up some day.”

Hunt sipped his coffee. Normally, he’d be irritated, but he had nowhere to go.

Moore drummed fingers on the desk, eyes alight, skin flushed. “Do you believe in mysteries, Detective?” Hunt opened his mouth but Moore waved him off. “Not the kind of mysteries that you deal with every day.” He leaned over the desk and cupped his hands as if holding a small world between them. “Big mysteries, Detective. Real ones. Large ones.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“I’d like to show you something.” Moore lifted a file folder and rose. He crossed the room and flipped a switch on the X-ray viewer. Light flickered, then steadied. “Beyond a small note in the report, I debated sharing this.” A nervous laugh. “I have my reputation to think about.” Moore took an X-ray from the folder and snapped it into the viewer. Hunt recognized the structure of a human torso. Bones that seemed to glow. Amorphous hints of organs. “Levi Freemantle,” Moore said. “Adult male. Forty-three years of age. Heavy musculature. Massive infection. Borderline malnutrition. See this?” He touched the image. “This is where you shot him. Bullet entered here. Fractured scapula at the exit wound. See?”

“I didn’t mean to kill him.”

“You didn’t kill him.”

“What do you mean?”

Moore ignored the question. “This.” He traced a rough white line with his smallest finger. “This is a tree branch, a hardwood of some sort. Oak, maple. Not my area. The subject impaled himself somehow. The limb was brittle, not rotten. Jagged. See these sharp edges. Here and here. It’s hard to tell from this image, but it’s about twice the diameter of your index finger. Maybe a thumb and a half. It entered here, just below the lowest rib on the right side, then angled in such a way that it pierced the liver through and through. It did damage to multiple organs and tore a three-centimeter perforation in the large intestine.”

“I don’t understand.”

“This is massive trauma, Detective.”

“Okay.”

Moore stepped away, then back. He raised both hands and Hunt sensed his frustration. “This—” He moved his hands over the X-ray, then stopped. “This is a fatal injury. Without immediate surgery, this is fatal. He should have been dead days before you shot him.” Moore raised his hands again. “I can’t explain it.”

A cool finger touched Hunt between the shoulder blades. The hospital pressed down. He pictured Moore’s eager eyes, his questions about large mysteries. “Are you saying it’s a miracle?”

Moore looked at the X-ray, and the light put a cold white sheen on his face. He lay three fingers on the line of jagged wood that pierced Freemantle’s side. “I’m saying that I can’t explain it.”

Social Services came for Johnny the next day. He held his mother’s hand as two case officers stood by the car’s open door. Heat rolled off the parking lot. Cars flew by on the four-lane. “You’re hurting my fingers,” Johnny whispered.

His mother loosened her grip and spoke to Hunt. “Is there no other way?”

Hunt was equally subdued. “With all that’s happened. The violence. The media. They have no choice.” He stooped and looked Johnny in the eye. “It’s just for a while. I’ll speak on your mother’s behalf. We’ll make this right.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

Johnny looked at the car and one of the ladies offered a smile. He gave his mother a hug. “I’ll be okay,” he said. “It’ll be like doing time.”

He got in the car. And that’s how it was for the next month. Like doing time. The family they gave him to was kind but detached. They treated him like a hard word might break him, yet conspired to act as if nothing unusual had happened. They were unfailingly polite; but he caught them at night, watching the news reports, reading the papers. They’d shake their heads and ask each other: “What does something like that do to a boy?” Johnny thought they probably slept with their door locked. He thought of the looks they would give if, just once, late at night, he rattled the knob.

The court ordered Johnny to see a psychologist, and so he did, but the guy was an idiot. Johnny told him what he needed to hear. He described made-up dreams of domestic boredom and claimed to sleep through the night. He swore that he no longer believed in the power of things unseen, not totems or magic or dark birds that steal the souls of the dead. He had no desire to shoot anyone, no desire to harm himself or others. He expressed honest emotion about the deaths of his father and sister. That was grief, pure gut-wrenching loss. He loved his mother. That, too, was truth. Johnny watched the shrink nod and make notes. Then he didn’t have to go anymore.