The Last Child

CHAPTER SEVEN

Levi waited with the broken body as the sun sank. The flies bothered him and his finger hurt so bad he wondered if God was testing him. He’d been to church and knew that God did that kind of thing; but Levi was nothing special. He swept floors to make money. The world confused him. But God’s voice had been with Levi for seven days. It came like a whisper and was a comfort when the world seemed dark and tilted left. A week of whisper left a huge hole in a man’s head when the whisper stopped, and Levi had to wonder why God was silent now. He was an escaped convict sitting in the dirt ten feet from a dead man. He’d been wandering loose for seven days.

I made the world in seven days.

The voice gushed into Levi like a flood, but it sounded different. It flickered in, faded out, and the thought felt unfinished. Levi held his breath, turned his head, but the voice didn’t come again. Levi knew that he was not smart-his wife had told him that-but he wasn’t stupid, either. Convicts and dead bodies looked bad together. The road was just above his head. So Levi decided that God would have to wait.

Just this once.

He knelt by the dead man and went through his pockets. He found a wallet and took the cash because he was hungry. He asked God to forgive him, then dropped the wallet in the dirt and straightened the man’s body. He pulled the broken arm from behind his back and crossed his hands on his chest. He dipped a finger in the tacky blood and made a cross on the pale, smooth forehead, then he closed the open eyes. He prayed to God to take the dead man’s soul.

Take it.

Care for it.

He saw the flash of white when he stood.

It was in the dead man’s hand, a scrap of fabric that poked between two fingers. It came out easily when Levi pulled. Pale and ragged, it looked like a piece of shirt that had been cut free or torn. It was as long as a baby’s shoe, faded and dirty, with a name tag sewn into it. Levi couldn’t read, so the letters meant nothing, but the fabric was kind of white and just the right size. He twisted it around his bleeding finger and used his teeth to tie it off, pull it tight.

In the shade of the willow, he stopped beside the heavy package wrapped in plastic. He ran one of his massive hands along the top of it, then hoisted it onto his shoulder. To any other man, it would have felt heavy, and the thought of it might have oppressed. But that’s not how it was for Levi. He was strong, he had a purpose; and when the plastic rustled against his ear, he heard the voice of God. It told Levi he’d done good, and it told him to walk on.

He was fifty minutes gone when the cops showed up.

Detective Hunt’s car rolled to a stop on the bridge. This far out, there were no street lamps, no houses. The sky above was black, with a deep purple line on the horizon to the west. Above them, storm clouds pressed low, and a hard, dry light thumped twice before the thunder came. A line of marked cars, lights flashing, pulled in behind Detective Hunt’s car. Spotlights clicked on and lit the bridge. Hunt turned to Johnny, who sat in the backseat with his mother. Their faces were blacked out, and he saw strands of hair that stood out against the bright light from the cars behind them. “Are you okay?” he asked. No answer. Johnny’s mother pulled him tight. “This the place, Johnny?”

Johnny swallowed. “This is it.” He pointed. “That side of the bridge. Straight down.”

“Tell me one more time what he said. Word for word.”

Johnny’s voice sounded dead. “I found her. The girl that was taken.”

“Nothing else?”

“He told me to run. He was talking about the guy in the car.”

Hunt nodded. They’d been through it six or seven times. Everything that had happened. “Nothing else to make you think he was talking about your sister? He didn’t mention her name or description or anything like that?”

“He was talking about Alyssa.”

“Johnny-”

“He was!”

Johnny’s head tipped in the harsh glare, and Hunt wanted to touch the boy on the shoulder, tell him that it would be okay; but it was not his place to fix every broken thing, no matter how badly he might want to. He glanced at Katherine Merrimon. She sat, small and immobile, and he wanted to touch her, too; but those feelings were complicated. She was beautiful and gentle and damaged, but she was a victim, and there were rules about that. So Hunt stayed focused on the case, and his voice was hard when he spoke. “The odds are against it, Johnny. You should prepare for that. It’s been a year. He was probably talking about Tiffany Shore.”

Johnny shook his head, but remained silent. When his mother spoke, she sounded like a child herself. “I know Tiffany,” she said.

She’d said that twice already, but no one mentioned it. Johnny blinked and saw an image of the missing girl. Tiffany was small and blond, with green eyes, a scar on her left hand, and a stupid joke she’d tell to anyone that would listen. Something about three monkeys, an elephant, and a cork. She was a nice girl. Always had been.

“The man on the bridge,” Hunt began. “Do you remember anything else? Could you identify him?”

“He was just a shape. A sense of movement. I didn’t see his face.”

“What about the car?”

“No. Like I said.”

Hunt peered through the windows as other cops began to exit cars and throw shadows against the stark concrete wall of the bridge. He was unhappy. “Stay here,” he said. “Do not get out of this car.”

He climbed out, shut the door behind him, and absorbed the scene. Heavy, damp air carried the scent of the river. Darkness welled up from beneath the bridge, and Hunt glanced north as if he could see the great swath of rough country that pushed down on Raven County: the stony woods and, at the foot of those hills, the twenty-mile stretch of swamp that vomited out the river. A drop of cold rain touched his cheek, and he gestured at the nearest cop. “Put a light over the side,” he said. “Down there.” He moved to the abutment as the cop pulled a light from the cruiser and shot a spear of light out into the night. It cut ragged patterns as the officer walked to the edge of the bridge, and when he put the light on the riverbank, it pinned the body on the dirt.

Johnny Merrimon’s bicycle lay on the ground five feet away from it.

Jesus.

The kid was right.

Hunt felt his people move around him. He had four uniformed cops and Crime Scene on standby. He heard a staccato burst on the windshield, felt more drops spatter on the top of his head. The rain was coming, and it was coming hard. He gestured with an arm. “Get a tarp over that body. Move. I also want tarps over the railing, right here.” He was thinking of paint scrapings, and of the glass shards that winked on the blacktop. “Somewhere around here, there should be a motorcycle. Find it. And somebody call for a tent.” Thunder crashed and he looked up at the sky. “This is going to get ugly.”

In the car, Johnny felt it when his mother began to shake. It started in her arms, moved to her shoulders.

“Mom?”

She ignored him and dug into her purse. It was dark in the low part of the car, so she held the bag up until headlights struck it. Johnny saw one eye when she tilted her head, then he heard the rattle and click of pills in a plastic bottle. She shook pills into her hand, tossed back her head and swallowed them dry. The bag fell back into darkness and her head hit the headrest hard enough to bounce once. Her voice, when she spoke, was devoid of emotion. “Don’t ever do that again,” she said.

“Ditch school?” Johnny asked.

“No.”

A difficult pause. Ice in Johnny’s chest.

“Don’t make me hope.” She turned her head. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

They got the tent up before the bottom fell out of the sky. Hunt squatted next to the body as the tent rattled and shook. The material snapped so loudly that he had to shout to be heard. Two uniformed officers held lights; a CSI tech and the medical examiner knelt on the other side of the body. Over Hunt’s shoulder, one of the uniforms said: “Water will be running under soon.” Hunt agreed. Thunderstorms in late spring rolled in hard and left fast, but they could drop a lot of water. It was a bad break.

Hunt studied the blood-streaked face, then the splinter of bone where the arm bent at right angles. Grime caked the dead man’s clothes; it was black, almost green, ground into the cloth and into the treads of his shoes. A smell lingered, something organic, something that went beyond river water and recent death. “What do we know?” Hunt asked the medical examiner.

“He’s fit. Well muscled. Mid-thirties, I’d say. Wallet’s with one of your men there.”

Hunt looked at Detective Cross, who held a wallet in a clear plastic evidence bag. Cross was a big man whose face looked seamed and heavy behind the bright light. He was thirty-eight and had been a cop for over ten years. He’d made his reputation as a hard-nosed patrol sergeant who showed great courage under fire. He’d been a detective for less than six months. Cross spoke as he handed over the wallet. “Driver’s license says his name is David Wilson. Organ donor. No corrective lenses. He lived on an expensive street, carried a library card and a stack of restaurant receipts: some from Raleigh, some from Wilmington. No sign of a wedding ring. No cash. Two credit cards, still in the wallet.”

Hunt looked at the wallet. “You touched this?”

“Yes.”

“I’m lead detective on this case, Cross. You understand that?” His voice was tight, forcibly controlled.

Cross drew back his shoulders. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re new at this. I understand. But being lead on this case means that I’m responsible. We catch the killer or not. We find the girl or we don’t.” His eyes remained fierce. A finger came up. “However this ends, I have to live with it. Night after night, it’s on me. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t ever touch evidence at my crime scene without permission. Do it again and I will fuck you up.”

“I was just trying to help.”

“Get out of my tent.” Hunt shook with anger. If he lost another girl…

Cross left with a guilty step. Hunt forced a deep breath, then returned his attention to the body. The shirt was just a T-shirt, gray and stinking of sweat and blood and green black filth; the belt was plain brown and nondescript, with a brass buckle that showed heavy scarring. His pants were made of tough, worn cotton. One eye was partially open, and it looked flat and dull in the bright light.

“Hot as hell in this tent.” The medical examiner’s name was Trenton Moore. Small and sparely built, he had thick hair, large pores, and a lisp that grew more pronounced the louder he had to speak. He was young, smart, and dynamite on the stand, even with the lisp. “I think he’s a rock climber.”

“I beg your pardon.”

Dr. Moore gestured with his chin. “Look at his hands.”

Hunt studied David Wilson’s hands. They showed calluses, scratches, and abrasions. The nails were clipped and even but dirty. They could belong to any construction worker he’d ever met. “What about them?”

The medical examiner straightened one of the fingers. “See that callus?” Hunt looked at the fingertip, a thick pad of tough skin. Dr. Moore flattened out the other fingers; they all had the same callus. “I had a roommate in college, a climber. He’d do fingertip chin-ups from the doorjamb. Sometimes he’d just hang there and chat. It was sick. Here, feel that.”

Dr. Moore offered the hand and Hunt touched the callus. It felt like shoe leather. “My roommate had fingertips just like that.” He pointed. “The upper body musculature is consistent. Overdeveloped forearms. Significant scarring on the hands. Of course, we’re just shooting the shit here. I can’t make any official comment until I get him on the table.”

Hunt studied the placement of the hands, crossed over the dead man’s chest. The legs straight and side by side. “Somebody moved him,” he said.

“Maybe. We won’t know anything for certain until the autopsy.”

Creases appeared in Hunt’s forehead. He gestured at the body. “You don’t think he landed in that position, do you?”

The medical examiner grinned, suddenly looking all of twenty-five. “Just kidding, Detective. Trying to keep it light.”

“Well, don’t.” Hunt gestured at the shattered arm, the crooked leg. “You think those were broken when the car hit him or when he came over the bridge?”

“Do you know for a fact that he was struck on the bridge?”

“His motorcycle was definitely moved postimpact. Somebody pushed it down an embankment. A couple of branches broken off a tree and tossed on top. Somebody would have found it eventually. We found paint scrapings on the bridge that match the color of the gas tank. I suspect that chemistry will match. And there’s the kid. He saw it.”

“Is he here?” Dr. Moore asked.

Hunt shook his head. “I sent him home with a uniform. Him and his mother. They don’t need to be here for this.”

“He’s how old?”

“Thirteen.”

“Reliable?”

Hunt thought about it. “I don’t know. I think, maybe. He’s a sharp kid. A little messed up, but sharp.”

“What’s his time line?”

“He says the body came over the rail two, maybe two and a half hours ago.”

The examiner rolled his shoulders. “That’s consistent. No lividity yet.” He returned his attention to the body, bending low over the dead man’s face. He pointed at the bloody cross on the forehead. “Don’t see that very often.”

“What do you make of it?”

“I deal in bodies, not motives. There’s blood on the eyelids, too. You may get a print.”

“How do you figure?”

“Just a hunch. Right size, right shape.” Dr. Moore shrugged a final time. “Whoever killed this guy, I don’t think he’s very smart.”

When Hunt emerged from the tent, the rain soaked his clothes, his hair. He looked at the bridge and tried to imagine the crunch of metal, the arc of the body, and how it must have been for the boy chosen by fate to bear witness. Hunt stooped for Johnny’s bike, which had been cast aside when the tent went up. It made a sucking noise when he pulled it from the mud. Brown water ran off the pocked metal and Hunt walked it to the dry space beneath the bridge. A handful of cops sheltered there, some with cigarettes, only one of them looking very busy. Cross. He stood apart from the others, a light in one hand, Johnny Merrimon’s map in the other.

Hunt walked over, still angry about the wallet, but Cross spoke first.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and looked it.

Hunt thought of the year since he’d lost Alyssa: the nightmares, the futility. It was not fair to take it out on Cross. He was young at this, and he’d have his own black nights, given time. Hunt forced a smile. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had. “Where’d you find that?” He pointed at the map.

Cross had a square jaw under brush-cut hair. He lowered the map and stabbed his flashlight downriver. “It was with the kid’s bike.” Cross flinched. “It’s not evidence, is it?”

It was, but Hunt told himself to relax. “I’ll need that back.”

“No problem.” Hunt turned to go, but Cross stopped him. “Detective…”

Hunt stopped and turned. Cross looked tall in the gloom, his skin olive green, his eyes intent.

“Listen,” Cross said. “This has nothing to do with nothing, okay, but you probably should know about it. You know my son?”

“Gerald? The ball player? Yeah, I know him.”

Cross’s mouth drew down at the corners. “No, not Gerald. The other one. Jack. My youngest.”

“No. I don’t know Jack.”

“Well, he was out here today with the Merrimon kid. He ditched school, too. But look, he was long gone before any of this happened. The school called me after the lockdown. I found the kid at home, watching cartoons.”

Hunt thought about it. “Do I need to talk to him?”

“He’s clueless, but you’re welcome to talk to him.”

“Doesn’t seem relevant,” Hunt said.

“Good. Because he tells me that your boy was out here, too.”

Hunt shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Lunchtime or thereabouts. Your boy and a couple of his friends.” Cross’s face remained inscrutable. “Just thought you should know.”

“And Jack is certain-”

“My son is lazy, not stupid.”

“Okay, Cross. Thanks.” Hunt began to turn, when Cross stopped him again.

“Listen, speaking of relevant. This guy who assaulted the Merrimon kid, the black guy with the scars on his face.”

“What about him?”

“You’re assuming that he had nothing to do with what happened here? With this victim? Is that right?”

“With this murder?”

“Right.”

“No,” Hunt said. “I don’t see how he could. He was a mile or more downriver when it happened.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Your point?”

“We’re assuming that three men came into contact with Johnny Merrimon. The dead man, Wilson, whoever drove the car that ran Wilson off the bridge, and the big black guy with the scarred face. Is that accurate?”

“That’s our working theory, yes.”

“But the kid didn’t see the driver of the car. He saw a shape, a shadow, but he can’t actually identify the driver, he can’t say if it was the black guy or not.” Cross raised the map. “This is a tax map for this side of town, and that’s where the detail is. In town. Streets, neighborhoods. But here, top right, just on the edge. This is the river and this”-he pointed-“this is where we are. See the bridge?”

“I see it.”

“Now follow the river.”

Hunt saw it immediately. Just south of the bridge, the river bent into a tight loop; it wrapped around a narrow finger of land that was over a mile long but couldn’t be more than a quarter mile across. Hunt felt a hard spike of anger, not at Cross, but at himself. “The trail follows the river,” Hunt said.

“If the Merrimon kid stayed on the trail, he would need to cover a lot of ground to reach the place where he was grabbed, say ten or fifteen minutes at a dead run.” Cross tapped a finger on the map. “If I left the trail and cut across here, I could walk to that same place in five minutes.”

“Cut through the woods, and it’s close.”

“Really close.”

Hunt looked out at the tent, a blur in the drumming rain. The man had been run off the road, crushed. “If David Wilson was killed because he learned something-”

“Knew something about the missing girl…”

Hunt bit down. “The man that killed him would want Johnny dead, too. And if he knew the way the river runs-”

“He could cross here and wait for the boy. Johnny runs for twelve, fifteen minutes. The killer walks for five, and there he is when Johnny comes around the corner.”

“Damn.” Hunt straightened. “Get on the radio. I want an all-points on a large black male, forty to sixty, with severe scarring on the right side of his face. His car will have visible damage, probably to the left front fender. Inform dispatch that he’s wanted in connection with the homicide of David Wilson but may also be linked to the abduction of Tiffany Shore. Use caution in apprehending. We need to question him. Get that out now.”

Cross pulled out his radio and called it in.

Hunt waited, and another wave of anger rolled over him. The past year had worn him thin, made him sloppy. He should have seen the river issue-the way it bent like that-not heard it from some rookie detective. But it was done. The girl was what mattered, so it had to be done. He let it go, drilled in on the matter at hand. Tiffany was missing for less than a day, eight hours, almost nine. This time, he would bring the kid home. He clenched his fists and he swore it.

This time it would be different.

He looked at Johnny’s bike, heard the boy’s voice in his head.

Promise?

Hunt reached for the large, brown feather that hung below the seat of Johnny’s bike. It was tattered and sad looking, gritty between his fingers. He stroked it smooth.

Promise.

Behind him, Cross lowered the radio. “Done,” he said.

Hunt nodded.

“What do you have there?”

Hunt let the feather droop back on the cord that secured it. It swung once, then stuck on the wet metal. “Nothing,” he said. “A feather.”

Cross stepped closer and lifted the feather.

“This is an eagle feather.”

“How do you know that?”

Cross shrugged, looked embarrassed. “I was born in the mountains. My grandmother is half Cherokee. She was into all that totem stuff.”

“Totem stuff?”

“You know. Rituals and sacred plants.” He lifted a hand toward the river. “The river for purity. Snakes for wisdom. Stuff like that.” He shrugged. “I always thought it was kind of bullshit.”

“Totems?” Hunt repeated.

“Yeah.” He gestured at the feather. “That’s good magic.”

“What kind of magic?”

“Strength. Power.” Lightning thumped and he let the feather fall. “Only chiefs carry eagle feathers.”