Secrets to the Grave

74

Oakwoods Park held special memories for Dennis. He had grown up playing in the woods away from the playground and picnic area where everything was neat and tidy. The wooded, wild part of the park was way more fun. He had spent hours in there playing war, and Indians, and pirates, and pretending he was a kidnapper. That was his favorite. He would kidnap some other kid and tie them up and scare the crap out of them. That was fun.

Out in these woods was where they had found the dead lady last year. Him and Cody had been chasing Tommy Crane and Wendy Morgan, and they had gone tumbling down a bank. Tommy had practically landed right on her. She was mostly buried, but her head was sticking out of the ground, and one hand with a finger almost chewed off by a dog.

When nobody was looking Dennis had snapped the finger off and stuck it in his pocket.

He walked through the woods now, looking for, and finding, a good spot to stash his stuff. He would camp there tonight, but he was going to have to steal a blanket because it was fucking cold and the ground and all the dead leaves on it were wet. He wouldn’t complain, though. He was a man now. He would suck it up.

The next thing he needed was a disguise. His picture was going to be all over the news, and the cops were going to be looking for him. With his red hair, he was going to be easy to spot.

He picked his way through the woods to the edge of the playground where a couple of kids were kicking a soccer ball back and forth. They looked like they were maybe fifth graders. Both of them were smaller than he was. The one was wearing a black baseball cap with the Raiders logo on the front.

“Hey!” he said, walking up to the boys. “Can I play?”

The kid with the cap looked up at him. “Who are you?”

“I’m the guy that’s gonna kick your ass. Gimme the ball.”

The other kid snatched the ball up off the ground and held it, ready to run.

“You better gimme the ball,” Dennis said. “I killed someone last night. I can kill you too, you little dick.”

The kid’s eyes got big and he took off running.

Dennis grabbed the other one by the arm with one hand and smacked him upside the head with the other.

The kid screamed like a girl. Dennis took his ball cap and knocked him to the ground, then turned and ran for the woods before somebody’s parents showed up.

That had been easy. But of course it was. He was a badass stone-cold killer now. Taking a hat off a kid was nothing.

With his new prize shoved down on his head, he went walking. He needed a weapon. He wished he could get a gun, but nobody was going to sell a gun to a twelve-year-old boy, even if he had killed somebody.

Knives were better anyway. He had really liked the way it felt when he had stuck his pocketknife into Cody’s guts. He had relived that moment over and over in the year since. It made him get excited thinking about it, and thinking about how it would feel when he stuck it in Miss Navarre.

It was kind of like fucking, he thought. If he was fucking her, he would stick his thing in her over and over and make her scream. When he stabbed her, he would stick his knife in her over and over, and she would scream.

Cool.

He cut through the alleys in the neighborhood near his old school. The houses here were old and most of them had garages that weren’t attached, which was good because no one inside the house would hear him looking around. And a garage would be a good place to find a weapon. People left all kinds of shit in their garages.

He picked a garage that had a small side door that wasn’t locked, and let himself in. There was all kinds of cool stuff hanging on the walls and piled on a workbench. Power tools, garden tools, regular tools.

A screwdriver might be good, he thought. He picked one up and felt the weight of it in his hand, and practiced stabbing with it. Not bad.

Among the garden tools was a machete, which was the coolest thing, but it was too big. He couldn’t go around town carrying a machete and not have people notice.

Then he found it. Hanging on a pegboard at the back of the workbench were some woodworking tools—chisels and gouges and stuff. Most of them were four to six inches of blade with a curvy wooden handle that would feel really good in the hand.

Dennis stood on a cooler to reach them and selected two—one for each hand. One was thin and sharp and had a groove running down the center of the blade. The other one was straight and pointed.

They fit perfectly in the pouch of his sweatshirt.

Happy, he let himself out the side door and continued on his way. Miss Navarre’s house was only a couple of blocks away.

Dennis had been to her house before. Not because she had ever invited him, but because he had come in the night to try to look in her windows. It was a really nice house with a big porch on the front and roses in the yard.

Dennis’s heart was pounding as he went up the sidewalk with his hands stuffed in the pouch of his sweatshirt. He didn’t really have a big plan. He figured she would maybe invite him inside depending on whether or not she had seen the news about him being a killer. She would be surprised to see him. That was for sure.

He almost got the giggles as he thought about the things she might say to him.

You shouldn’t kill people, Dennis. That’s not nice.

How can I give you your surprise if you started the fire with your homework?

She was going to be sorry she hadn’t come to see him.

Dennis rang the doorbell and stuck his hand back in his pouch, his fingers touching the handle of his weapon. His heart was beating fast. His palms were sweaty.

The door opened and a skinny old man scowled down at him. He had to be a hundred, and he was dressed like a golfer.

“Who are you?” the old man demanded.

Dennis swallowed hard.

“I’m Dennis. Is Miss Navarre home?” he asked, trying to crane his neck so he could see inside the house.

“My daughter doesn’t live here anymore,” the old man said. “She finally got married.”

“She was my fifth-grade teacher,” Dennis said. “I just wanted to see her ’cause ... she was the best teacher I ever had. And ... I mow lawns now and she told me that maybe I could mow her lawn.”

“Well, she doesn’t live here. She lives over by the college. This neighborhood wasn’t good enough for her,” he said bitterly. “I’m well rid of her, though. She wasn’t much of a housekeeper.”

Dennis didn’t know what to say about that.

A short, plump lady with black hair piled high on her head came up then from somewhere inside the house.

“What you doing standing there with the door open? You let in all the cold. You catch your death,” she said with a funny accent. She looked like maybe she was Chinese or from an island someplace or something. Dennis wasn’t sure.

“You should be so lucky,” the old man snapped at her.

“You catch your death, I don’t get paid,” the woman said. “Why you think I keep you alive, old man?”

“For the witty repartee.”

The woman zeroed in on Dennis. “What you want, little boy?”

“He wants to visit Anne,” the old man said, waving a hand at Dennis as if to dismiss him. “Write down her address for him.”