Adam's Woods (25 page)

His greatest regret and source of pain had been allowing the town to believe that the murderer still ran free and perhaps stalked their sons and daughters: from within a shadow, from the woods, under a ballcap pulled low, or behind a smile. He took consolation in knowing that there was no danger, and that the fear would pass, and that they all might even emerge stronger for it in the end.

He told the police that Isaac had left a month earlier, after erasing the proof of his recent existence from the house. Paul corroborated the story. Arnie would have if necessary, but the authorities needed no further convincing. Isaac's car rested at the bottom of the duck pond on Paul's property.

And so began their new lives as jailers when not preaching, milking cows, or cutting and selling lumber. Each, Burroughs knew, had expanded their job description for different reasons: he to save Isaac's soul, if it could be salvaged, and save him from the brutality of prison that would destroy him. Isaac was not built to live with those kinds of men. Paul participated out of loyalty to his friend, respect for his Pastor, and some fear of Arnie. Burroughs suspected - could never prove it, never asked and didn't want to - that Arnie knew something about Paul that Paul wished he didn't, and used it to ensure cooperation and as insurance against the long nights of doubt ahead.

Arnie wanted to protect his town. He refused to let Lincoln Corners become known to the wider world as a place where a pastor's son kills a child, when the concealment of that truth lay within his grasp. Burroughs never entertained the notion that his personal reputation meant anything to Fisk, but the damage to the collective reputation of the town did. By building the cabin, he denied the media the right to shame them with sensational stories until someone opened fire in a schoolyard or in their own living room somewhere else, and they were finally left alone, but left with a new identity: to customers and neighboring townships, to teachers that taught their children, to fellow tradesman and union members. There would be words of consolation, but also the questions, spoken or unspoken, without ready answers, and a taint to conversations stained with the knowledge. Too many times, the sign that defined the boundaries of Lincoln Corners would prompt the comment or the thought
That's the place where the pastor's son killed that kid.
They might as well add it on beneath.

Arnie was the only one that never expressed misgivings; if not for him, it might have fallen apart. Burroughs didn't believe he ever experienced them either, at two in the morning when the cadence of the seconds ticking by from a clock in another room chattered incessantly of mortality and choice and consequence. But they all knew that despite their secure prison, they had crossed the line of what the state considered proper, and were now criminals themselves.

But only if someone found out.

He thought a hunter would stumble across the cabin, but the posted signs and fallen trees dragged across the paths kept most away. Paul and Arnie confronted several trespassers that needed further convincing, but not anywhere near the cabin. He thought Isaac could become unmanageable, or even violent, but his son never complained, accepted their decision and sentencing as though it was always done this way. He extended a cold politeness to them all, thanked them for food items or an extra blanket or time in the clearing outside the cabin. But there was a vacant quality to his speech, and if anything lay behind it, scheming or plotting or more murder, Burroughs couldn't tell. Isaac never tried to escape, and they trusted him eventually with a can opener and the potential weapon created by the sharp edges of the lid from a can of green beans. And then the propane to heat his food. He never attempted to harm any of them, or himself - in all, a model prisoner and therefore a windfall for the amateur part-time warden and his prison guards. For over time, it became clear that Arnie ran the show.

Months became years, and the unthinkable became unremarkable and even tedious with no more import than walking the dog or taking out the trash. They hauled food, buried waste, repaired a leaking roof, made extra trips in the winter to ensure the kerosene heater still blazed. It helped that neither he nor Paul had a spouse, and Arnie's wife, a diminutive, furtive woman, had never questioned her husband's actions before and wouldn't start now. Arnie didn't allow it. Paul had volunteered for most of the duties, could move easily on his own property without suspicion, and Burroughs knew that over time he and Isaac had resumed a friendship of sorts. They played checkers and chess together, held discussions on news stories and books that Paul provided. Burroughs had heard about guards crying when leading an inmate down the hallway to the death chamber, and could place those tears in Paul's eyes had it come to that. Isaac never claimed to be innocent, but never spoke of his crime again. Burroughs had given up reading to him from the Bible, although Isaac wore out several of his own, so held out hope that God was doing his own work.

And he would never tell any of them what Burroughs wanted most to hear. The reason that he had killed Adam.

Arnie visited Isaac, often when there was no need. Burroughs believed he simply fed on the power held over another human being, and thought that his personal hatred had started here. But Arnie never physically abused him, and whatever they spoke about, neither Isaac nor Arnie would say. When the jailors realized the need to allow Isaac time outside, Arnie stood by the shackled prisoner with a shotgun. Paul and Burroughs doubted they could personally shoot him if need be. No one, including Isaac who needed to be the one true believer, doubted Arnie.

Arnie's personality deteriorated. Or rather his natural traits became augmented: more demanding in church meetings, throwing away any pretense of deference to the pastor as church leader. Some others noted this and Burroughs' inability to force him down, and a faction developed. But then when rumblings came about forcing Burroughs out altogether, Arnie had been instrumental in putting down that rebellion. He confronted neighbors with things that he personally didn't approve of. Complained about a new garage even though the proper zoning permits had been secured. Physically threatened the owner of a barking dog. Gave an unsought opinion on how often a yard should be mowed and at what height. He was feared by some, a nuisance to most, an embarrassment to his own sons, who left when of age and only occasionally looked back. Burroughs believed that Arnie felt the people owed him for saving them all, even though they would never know from what and he would never tell them. But he would collect their tribute regardless.

There were things not given enough, if any, thought. But then who could foresee every potential crisis in the haste and urgency that the initial plan required? Isaac becoming sick, for one - Paul had to administer antibiotics meant for livestock to combat pneumonia, guessing at the diagnosis and dosage; Isaac dying, or severely hurting himself (they never needed to deal with an injury, and would bury him in the woods in an unmarked grave in case of the former, they had eventually decided); one or all of them dying, Paul losing the farm, Burroughs' losing his job as had nearly happened, Isaac escaping. They had no answers for these things. He easily could outlive them all, and unspoken were the choices of bringing another into their conspiracy, setting him free, or converting his sentence to death and performing the first execution in Pennsylvania in decades.

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, they said, and carried on, with madness or mercy they couldn't say; if pressed, each might answer differently, in varying percentages of a mixture of the two, or with another label entirely. But they didn't ask each other, just carried on.

When Burroughs suspected, at last, after Eric and Mary had visited his office, that he had harbored a monster responsible for many deaths, everything had changed.

Adam not the first, but the last.

He had come to hope that during the years of Isaac's sentence, whatever had possessed his son in the woods that day had gone. And though Isaac couldn't know freedom again on this side of the veil, he still might on the other. Now Burroughs wondered if his son had been possessed, or had gone missing entirely and a new resident had found a vacancy to occupy, had been there all along, was there still. He believed in demonic forces working through men, and believed too that a brain could malfunction and blow a vital fuse. But their prisoner didn't require restraints past the single one on his ankle, took care to exercise, played brilliant games of chess with Paul, kept up on current events. Not the mind of one possessed. And Burroughs had spent time in a psych ward as part of his seminary training. He didn't see Isaac in what he remembered there. He seemed horribly normal. Burroughs would prefer to blame an agent of Satan or a mental disease than accept the third explanation. That Isaac had chosen his actions. And that perhaps his good behavior was the gratitude of a man that knew he'd gotten off easy and knew better than to rock the boat. Burroughs didn't know and didn't care anymore. He had come to the cabin to confirm his suspicions and then turn in a murderer and his accomplices-after-the-fact. To go to prison himself if required. But somehow Arnie had found out.

But it was over. Arnie and Paul would need to face it on their own. His son was free, and he was dying. Whatever happened next - what Isaac would do now - would happen without him. But God already knew. And he, Pastor Patrick Burroughs, would face those consequences very soon.

He felt the life draining from him, faster now. His tale was finished, but he had one more thing to say. "Eric. God did not do this. We did this. Isaac did this. But never God. Forgive me. Someday. If you can. But think of it. What if Adam hadn't been killed, but had done the killing. What then?"

He allowed his muscles to relax, stopped fighting against the swift current. There was pain, but from a distance and receding, no longer his concern, damage to a body that belonged to the dust now; life blood drained from a life no longer in need of it. He fell into darkness, then rose up, thought, "forgive me, I am so blind" and then knew only light.

Eric watched his chest fall and waited for it to rise.

"How dare you?" he said to the corpse. "How dare you?" But he was gone. He wanted to breathe life into him again, just to make him answer.
What if Adam had done he killing?
How dare the pastor turn this back on him?

He needed to get away from this place, far away these men, but wondered if any place he went was far enough. He tried to stand up but his legs felt heavy and awkward. His heel slid in the pastor's blood and he fell to the floor again, landing hard on his tailbone. He glanced at his watch, noting the time of nearly four in the morning, the Pastor's confession taking nearly an hour. Eric believed he had willed himself to live until the end.

He made it to his feet and turned to leave. Arnie blocked the doorway, breathing heavily, his hands clenched into fists. They locked eyes and then each regarded the shotgun on the floor. Before Eric could clear his mind enough to act, Arnie had entered, stooped and picked up his weapon.

"I told you coming back here was a bad idea, Eric. Now look what you've done."

"What I've done? You bastard."

"Your brother was dead. Nothing we did caused that, nothing we did changed that. There were others to think about."

"Others to think about, Arnie? Others that you lied to. Others that you let live in fear. My parents. The parents of those kids. Were you thinking about them too, Arnie?"

Arnie flinched, but held the gun steady. "I didn't know about those kids until tonight. None of us did. But way I see it, it doesn't make any difference. They were already dead. Isaac was here, locked up tight. Wouldn't have been a problem. Until you showed up."

Eric took a step towards him. "Let me by, Arnie."

"Can't do that, Eric. No, I'm sorry. Can't do that."

"Then shoot me. Like Pastor Burroughs."

A look of genuine pain passed over his face. "That wasn't my fault. I was going to kill Isaac and be done with it. Should have done that a long time ago, but knew those two would never have let me. He deserved to die for Adam alone. But the Pastor was going to bring it all down tonight, figured I didn't have a choice. He grabbed the gun, it went off. I panicked and ran. It's a big mess, Eric."

"Well, you have a choice now. Let me go. It's over. We need to get to the police. He killed Adam and those kids, and he's free." He took another step, testing Arnie, needing to know if he'd stop at this new line drawn or cross over. The jumble of thoughts and emotions were settling, his mind once more his own.

"That's enough, Eric." He wasn't sure if Fisk would shoot in cold blood, but read the signs in his eyes and posture well enough to keep from rushing him. So he stopped, and they stared at each other. Arnie's eyes flicked past him to the Pastor's body on the floor.