Iron House

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Some things are best done in the dark, and alone. This is what Michael told himself, and it was almost enough to wash the taste of betrayal from his throat as he slipped from the covers and swung his feet to the floor. The clock read four twenty; in the bed, Elena lay still. Michael watched her as he dressed, and as the gun came silently from the bedside table. It was loaded-full clip, one in the pipe-and he considered how quickly she had become accustomed to its presence. One day it was an unknown; the next it was merely part of the scenery. In a strange, sad way, the thought gave him hope. He would change what he could to make her happy, but knew, deep down, that violence was more than a stain on his soul.

He tucked the gun into his belt, eased open the door and slipped out. Windows were dark in the far mansion, the night very still under high clouds and a slash of moon. Michael was in the drive when Elena called his name. The open doorway framed her perfectly, shadowed face and wild hair, the ghost of her shape beneath a sheet pulled tight. A catch in her voice made his name a desperate sound. “You’re leaving?”

“There’s something I have to do. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“I won’t be gone for long.”

Her eyes looked black and damp and slick as glass. “I want to come with you.”

She was shaking, and Michael understood. Her world had gone dark, and she was hanging by a thread. “You don’t even know where I’m going.”

“I don’t care. I want to be with you.”

“You’re safe here.”

Crescents cut the swell of her bottom lip: white teeth and dry skin. “What if something happens to you?”

Michael crossed to where she stood. He kissed her cheek. “I guess, you’d better get dressed.”

“You won’t leave?”

One eye twinkled. “How could I?”

She slipped into the house. A light winked on, burned for a few minutes, then clicked off. When she came out, she wore jeans, dark shoes and a dark shirt. A clip gathered hair at the base of her neck.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I go where you go.”

She was determined; as far as answers went, it was a good one. So, Michael told her what Julian had said and where they were going. She thought about it long enough for Michael to doubt the wisdom of telling her. This was about instinct and trust, about knowing that something bad had pushed Julian over the edge. His brother’s fears were textured and complex, but they were real, and Michael knew every nuance. Elena might claim to understand, but at the end of the day she was just a normal person.

“Why would Julian say that?” she asked. “It doesn’t even make sense.”

“That’s what I hope to find out.”

“But you saw him. He’s a wreck. It could mean anything or nothing. This could be pointless.”

“I know my brother, and there was a second there when we connected. The confusion disappeared and it was Julian. He knew me. Whatever he’s dealing with, whatever hideaway he’s made for his mind, he wasn’t crazy when he said it.”

“But I thought Hennessey was dead.”

“Trust me, he’s dead.”

“Then why would Julian say that?”

Michael replayed the moment in his mind, the sweat on Julian’s face, the moment his pupils constricted and the madness fell away.

Hennessey is in the boathouse…

“All I know is he believed it, and he was scared.”

“That’s why we stayed, isn’t it? Because Julian is scared, because he said this thing that makes no sense.”

Michael shook his head. “It’s more than that.”

“Then, tell me Michael. Why can’t we go far away, have this baby, and be safe? Why must we stay in this place?”

“Because he’s my brother, and because helping him is what I do. Because when I see him again, he needs to know that I’m still looking out for him. I need to tell him that I checked, that I made sure. You saw him, baby. He needs to know that people care.”

Elena stared into the damp, dark night. “Is there even a boathouse on this property?”

“Northeast corner of the largest lake. You can just see it; stone, I think. It’s built out over the water, three large doors, wooden decking along one side. There’s a trail along the water’s edge.”

Her eyes locked on the stain of dark water. “Did he say anything else?”

“Yes.”

Michael pictured chalky lips, the knotted muscle of Julian’s shoulders.

Please, Michael…

“He begged me.”

Michael knew the smell of death like he knew the scent of Elena’s hair. He caught the first whiff when they were still fifty feet out. “Hang on a second.”

“What?”

“Just hang on.”

He put a hand on her arm and pulled her down in the dark. The smell was elusive, a light drift of tainted air. Beneath their feet, the trail ran thin and soft around the lake’s edge, a footpath between black water and a stand of forest that pushed down from a far ridge. Ahead, the boathouse made a dark lump against the curving shore. Michael took another deep breath and caught a stronger scent. “I need you to stay here.”

“Forget it.”

He squeezed her arm, one hand finding the pistol wedged at the small of his back. “Don’t argue with me, Elena. This is serious.” He rose to a crouch and checked the trail behind them, the water with its dull, rippled surface. He stared long into the woods as a finger of warm air slipped along the trees and carried more of the scent.

“I’m not staying here, Michael.”

“I can’t let you come further.” She opened her mouth, but Michael spoke over her. “Don’t you smell it?”

“No.”

“Wait for it.”

Another eddy stirred the air, the same warm finger that brushed once against his face, then stalled and came again. It was a flicker, a taste, and when Elena tilted her head, Michael knew that she had it. “What is that?”

“Something dead.”

“You mean like an animal?”

“Stay here. Stay quiet.”

“You do mean, like an animal? Right?”

Michael said nothing. No way was this a raccoon.

“You can’t leave me in the woods.”

“We’re alone,” he said, then immediately questioned his own words. A sound carried across the water, a scrape that could have been stone on stone. He cut his eyes right, where the lake curved into a shallow cove. Distant light touched the water: pale white of the high moon, a few bold stars. On the far shore, pastureland rolled to the water’s stony edge, the grass more purple than black.

“Michael, this-”

“Shhh.”

Michael listened but heard no other sounds that seemed out of place. The far shore was empty and still, a long spill of shadow and mottled grass. He stared up the trail, and felt the boathouse solidify: the hard edge of roof, the jut of wood decking on the closest side. The structure was low and broad, with stone walls that grew darker as they neared the waterline. The building extended thirty feet into the lake, and Michael could make out three curved doors for the boats, dark squares that were shuttered windows. “Here.” He pushed the gun into her hand. “Same as before. Remember? Safety’s off. Don’t shoot me.”

“I don’t want a gun.”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t you dare leave me.”

But the last thing he wanted was for her to see what he suspected he’d find in the boathouse, so he denied her the chance to argue. He turned and loped along the trail, the death-smell growing stronger with every foot he moved. Twenty feet out, the scent was thick enough to catch in the back of his throat. Another ten, and the last doubt vanished. Whatever was dead, it was in the structure or near enough to make no difference. Michael cast a quick glance behind him, but Elena was lost in the dark. He hesitated, knowing she was frightened and confused, but risks were mounting with every step he took-the risk of being caught, the risk of making a mistake-so he built compartments in his mind and pushed Elena from his thoughts as the boathouse rose before him, taller than he’d expected, longer. At its rear edge, the woods fell away, and he saw hints of gravel where a roadbed slit the grass. He paused, and then made for the back corner, stooping as he hit a final stretch of open grass. He reached the structure, and stopped. Beneath his fingers, the stone felt damp and cool.

Edging around the corner, Michael saw an empty parking area that was overgrown with weeds. Beyond it, pastureland rose to forest on a high ridge. The grass was cropped short, but brush-choked swales snaked down slope to the water’s edge.

Turning back to the boathouse, Michael stepped onto the decking that ran along the wall and extended over the water. Moss grew on stone, and the wood was soft with rot so that whole place smelled not just of death, but of decay. A shuttered window appeared and Michael touched feathers of paint that flaked under his fingers. Ten feet farther, he came to the door. The smell was stronger here, unmistakable. A heavy lock hung from a broken hasp, the steel twisted, a half-dozen screws bent by whatever force had torn them from the wood. The door itself stood open several inches, a line of black in the gap. Like the shutters, the door’s paint was flaked and thin, adding to the pall of neglect that hung over the place.

Michael eased open the door and a wave of heat and stench welled out, so strong it would have gagged another man. He gave his eyes a moment to adjust, and then stepped across the threshold. Inside, it was quiet, but for the sound of water. Michael eased right to avoid being outlined in the door. His hand found a light switch, but he was reluctant to turn it on. The lake itself was so dark that the light would show for miles. Instead, he pulled a match from his pocket and lit it. When it flared, he caught a vague impression of a vast, largely floorless space. Most of it was shadow and darkness, but he saw hints of black water and canoes on racks. Sailboats lay in a jumble against the far wall. A wooden motorboat rested on slings. It was dusty, and half-covered with a tarp; cracks showed in the once-fine varnish. On the back wall was a workbench littered with ropes and sails and dusty tools.

The match burned out.

Michael lit another and stepped gingerly toward the back. On the bench, he’d seen a gooseneck lamp next to a toolbox and a spill of faded, orange life jackets. He bent the neck until the bulb pointed back and down, then threw a filthy rag across the top of it and turned it on. Yellow light burned through the rag, so muffled and low that Michael doubted it would carry. It lit the boathouse, though-and the body. All Michael saw at first were legs. Protruding from behind one of the sailboats, they were thick and swollen, one straight and the other twisted beneath it. Leather work boots covered the feet. Blue jeans. A tooled leather belt.

Michael stepped over a pyramid of varnish cans, then moved around the stern of the boat. It was eighteen feet long, fiberglass. It looked as if the body had been jammed behind it; perhaps it had fallen that way. He saw hints of the body but the shadows were deep, so he dragged the sailboat away, its keel grinding on the wood, ropes shifting, a coil sliding off the hull. Returning to the body, Michael saw a middle-aged man who’d been dead for some time. The torso was distended, the skin mottled and gray. The face had the slackness peculiar to death, the utter loss of humanity that Michael knew too well. One eye showed, milky-pale, and whiskers were stark on the skin of his face. He was four inches over six feet tall, maybe two hundred and sixty-five pounds, a large man, but unfit. Calluses thickened the pads of his hands; the nails were dirty. Beneath the jaw line was a denim shirt stained black with blood. A knife handle protruded from his neck, and it was the knife that made pieces shift and click. It was the knife that made the picture whole.

“Ah, shit.”

Michael rocked back on his heels. The blade had not entered the dead man’s neck at the precise place and angle of the blade that killed Hennessey, but it was close. Right side. Just below the ear. More than the wound was familiar-there was something about the face, too. Michael felt hair lift on his arms. He studied the face for long seconds, then checked the shirt pocket, the front pockets of the dead man’s jeans. Finding nothing, he shifted the body. It moved loosely, so he knew that rigor had come and gone. A few days, he guessed, probably three, based on when Julian showed up a gibbering wreck. The body was cold and loose and Michael’s fingers sank into the fat. He grunted once, and the dead man flopped onto his side, one arm striking a second boat, dried blood making a slight tearing sound as the body rolled. Michael used a rag and two fingers to remove the wallet from the man’s back pocket. He saw a few bills, some credit cards. The driver’s license confirmed what he already suspected. Michael knew the guy, and so did Julian.

Fuck-head from juvie.

Ronnie Saints.

His features had roughened with age, but Michael had a remarkable memory for faces, especially for those he considered enemies. After Hennessey, few kids had done more to wreck Julian’s life than Ronnie Saints. At the age of eleven, he’d pulled three years in juvenile detention for beating a neighborhood kid half to death in a fight over a stolen pistol. When he finally got out, his parents were gone, either dead or lost in some hillbilly meth trailer in the mountains of north Georgia. Speculation had lasted a week or two when Ronnie first rolled into Iron House; after that, nobody really cared. He was just another fuck-head in from juvie.

Michael studied the driver’s license. Saints was thirty-seven years old and lived in Asheville. Michael memorized his address, then rolled him onto his back. Keeping the rag over his hand, Michael put one finger on the handle of the knife, right at the end. The blade was utilitarian, the handle stained wood with brushed, metal rivets. A fishing knife, maybe. Something similar. He put pressure on his finger, but the blade barely moved. It was jammed in deep, wedged against bone and gristle. Michael took his finger off the knife and checked the body. He saw no other defensive wounds, no signs of struggle. There was spatter, but beyond that there was no blood except where he’d found the body.

When it happened, he thought, it happened hard and fast.

Michael wasted no time thinking about the whys of it; the old patterns rose as if never forgotten. Julian was in trouble, and Michael was going to fix it. It’s what brothers did, what family was all about. He stood and thought of the steps he would take in the next three minutes. He laid them out in his head, mechanical and precise. He needed a boat that wouldn’t sink, something heavy enough to drop a body and keep it down. The floorboards were heavily grained, and the blood had soaked too deeply to be scrubbed out, but the place was a mess and clearly unused. He could shift boats, spill some varnish.

He found a pair of old gloves on the workbench and slipped them on. The first canoe he checked was wooden and decayed beyond his willingness to trust it. The second was aluminum. He heaved it off a rack and lowered it to the water, where it settled with a splash and loud clunk against the wooden slip. A canoe would be tough for heaving bodies in and out. It was narrow and easy to tip, but also light and fast through the water, quiet. Michael bent low, caught the dead man’s boots and dragged him across ten feet of floor. He stopped at the edge. The canoe rocked two feet down; the water beyond was burnished black. From a shelf on the far wall, Michael retrieved a twelve-pound anchor and a coil of heavy line. Bending, he placed the anchor on the dead man’s chest and cinched it tight with multiple loops around the torso and waist. It was hard work; the man was heavy and loose. A final loop went around his ankles, and Michael lifted the legs to cinch the knot tight. That’s when he saw Elena.

She stood in the door, one hand over her mouth, her face so pale it was translucent. How long she’d been there, Michael couldn’t guess, and under the circumstances he didn’t care. The sun was rising half a state away. They had forty minutes, maybe less.

“Help me,” he said.

She bent at the waist, overcome by the smell. She gagged twice, then said, “I don’t understand.”

“There’s chain there.” Michael pointed. “I need it.”

Her eyes drifted down and right, settled on a mound of filthy chain in a hollow space beside the door. She looked back at the body as Michael tore the knife from its neck and tossed it, clattering, into the canoe. “Did you…”

“Chain. Elena, please.”

“Did you kill him?”

Michael dragged the body another six inches, lined it up with the edge of the canoe. “He’s been dead for a while.”

“What are you doing?”

“Fixing a thing that needs fixing. I really don’t have time to explain. Will you give me the chain, please?”

She didn’t move. Part of Michael understood her struggle, and part of him was angry. He’d told her to stay put for a reason.

“You knew you’d find this?”

Michael crossed the space between them and scooped up the chain. “The smell’s hard to confuse with anything else.” He took the gun from her limp hand, tucked it into his belt. “I wish you had listened to me, baby. I’m sorry you have to see this.”

She stared at the body, her throat pulsing as she swallowed whatever bitter emotion the sight conjured. “Who is that?”

“It doesn’t matter. Now, come here, please. I need you to do something.” Michael began to loop chain around the body, looked up, impatient. “You don’t have to touch it. Just hold the canoe.”

“Hold the canoe,” she repeated. “Why?” The question hung in the air between them. Michael found her eyes, and saw the moment she understood. “You’re going to sink him in the lake?”

“It’s not my mess, Elena, but it has to be cleaned up. It’s important. Trust me. The canoe, please.”

She shook her head. “This is wrong.”

“It’s what has to be done.”

“We need to call the police. This is…” She trailed off. “This is…”

“All you have to do is hold the canoe. Baby, please…”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“There are reasons.”

“I’m not going to sink a dead man in the lake.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Please don’t tell me that.”

“Sun’s coming, baby.”

She shook her head. “I can’t be here.”

“Elena…”

“No.” She stumbled through the door, wood slamming once on the wall outside. For an instant Michael saw the hint of her, a flash of black cloth and skin, then she was gone. He looked once at the empty door, then at the body. For half a second, he debated; then he went after her.

“Elena.”

“Stay away from me.”

Her feet were loud on the wood, then quiet when she hit grass. She was running, but blind in the dark. Michael caught her by the water’s edge, her arm hot and dry between his fingers. He pulled her to a stop. “Settle down. Come on.”

She jerked her arm, but he held on. “Let me go, Michael.”

“Just listen.”

“Let me go or I’ll scream.” One second stretched to three, then Michael released her arm. For an instant more, there was total silence, then she said, “What the hell are you?”

“I’m just a man.”

“I can’t be with you.”

Her head moved in the dark, and Michael knew she was about to run. She took a step, and he said, “It’s not safe, baby. I need you to stay with me.”

“No.”

“Elena…”

“I need to think. I need time. I need…”

But she didn’t know what she needed; and the sky was growing lighter. Michael reached for her hand, but she stumbled back. “Don’t touch me.”

“It’s still me…”

“Don’t follow me. Don’t call me.” She stepped back, and Michael moved forward. “Take one more step and you’ll never see me again. I swear!” She threw up a hand, her palm pale in the dark.

Michael froze, said, “Trust me.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I won’t.”

And there was such disgust in her voice, such fear and loathing that when she turned to run, Michael declined to follow. He watched her fade along the shore-the moment an agony of indecision-then turned slowly for the boathouse. She needed to think, needed time. So, he poured varnish on the bloody floor, dragged a boat across the stain and rolled the body into the canoe. It was heavy like his heart, cold and broken; so, he sank it in the lake, in the deep, black water surrounded by silent woods and purple hills. For an instant, the face shone as it fell, then, Michael was alone with the choice he’d made.

Back at the house, he was unsurprised to find the car gone and Elena with it. He looked at the place it had been, then stood on the porch, tall and still as the night gathered its last breath and a new day crowned. He wanted to call her, but minutes passed and red light spilled across the valley floor. She would understand or not, return or keep running. So, he went inside and took a shower. He put his duffel bag near the sofa, then stretched out and let sleep take him deep and dreamless, so that he woke long hours after the sun had filled the sky to bursting. He opened the door-felt scorching heat-and standing on the porch, saw two things at once.

Elena had not returned.

Cops were dragging the lake.