The Innocence Game (4 page)

“Sorry,” she said, when she finally caught up. “I think I’m running into every thornbush in the place.”

I nodded to a faint line of light on our left. “If I have my geography right, the path is just over there, close to the river.”

“And the crime scene?”

“I figure he’s taking us to the grave.”

The word sucked the life from the air between us and drained the color from Sarah’s face. She was a child again, staring up at me out of her own dark hole of fear.

“It’s all right,” I said. “He’s not going to know we’re around. And if he does, big deal.”

“You should lead the way.”

We pushed on. Twenty yards later, I stopped. There was a scratching up ahead. Sarah couldn’t hear it, but I could and pointed.

“Someone’s in the trees. I’m gonna check it out. You circle back and find the trail. Walk down it until you see me.”

Sarah seemed happy with the plan, especially the part that got her back on the walking path. After she’d gone, I sat up against a tree and slowed my breathing. The scratching was still there, low, insistent. Someone digging maybe. I let myself soften. Melt. When I was loose and limber, I eased to my feet. The ground was sloping away from me. I picked a path through the tangle of underbrush. Not a scrape of sound. I’d always been pretty good moving through the woods. Even as a kid. I didn’t know why, but everyone was good at something.

I could see a glimmer of light and stopped again to listen. The scratching wasn’t there anymore. The digging had stopped as well. Nothing now but crickets. There was a sudden thrashing in the trees to my left. A grunt, and then a scream. A woman’s scream. Sarah’s scream.

A twist of thorns whipped across my face, drawing fresh blood I could feel on my cheek and taste on my lips. I pushed through the thicket and heard the scream again. I weaved between the dark trunks of trees, keeping my legs high so I didn’t get caught in the tangle. Suddenly, the ground dropped away completely. I caught myself and navigated a small, steep incline, stepping out of the tree line onto a hard-packed trail. The smell of the river was strong now, but it was dark enough that I couldn’t see the water. I could see Sarah, however. She lay a few feet from me. Jake Havens stood over her. He had a knife in his hand.

“Easy,” I said.

Havens flashed the knife, then clicked it shut and slipped it into a pocket. His movements were quick and sure, designed for places like the deep of the Cook County forest preserve. He reached down and touched two fingers to Sarah’s throat. I noticed for the first time that her eyes were closed. There was a small egg rising under the thin skin near her temple. Havens lifted her off the path and carried her to a patch of grass. He disappeared and returned with a bandana, soaked in cold water. He bathed her face and wrapped it around her neck.

“She fell down the embankment.” Havens kept his back to me and pointed to the drop-off. I guess I could have picked up a rock and hit him. He didn’t seem too worried about it.

“Is she all right?” I said.

“Pulse is strong. Give her a minute.” Havens turned, his features cut fine by the final shards of the day’s light. “You’re bleeding, Joyce.”

“Thornbush.” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. Sarah moaned lightly and began to stir.

“How you feeling?” There was a tenderness in Havens’s voice that surprised me. Sarah smiled at the sound, and my surprise blossomed into jealousy.

“Hey, Sarah. You okay?” I moved closer and knelt down beside her.

“I’m fine. Just a little dizzy.”

Havens produced a flashlight and checked her eyes. “Pupils are constricting. Can you stand up?”

He helped her to her feet.

“I’m fine.” Sarah felt the lump on her head. “Bet that looks great.”

Havens smiled. “You wear it well, Gold.”

“Thanks.” She took his bandana off, wrung it out, and held it against her cheek.

I grabbed Havens by the sleeve and turned him around. “You want to tell us what we’re doing out here?”

Havens threw a hand to his left. “The Chicago River is fifteen feet that way.”

“So?” I said.

“So that’s where he killed him.”

“Who?” Sarah said.

Havens stepped a little closer. “Who do you think? Skylar Wingate.”

Havens took us to the grave, nothing left to mark it but a small, dark depression in the ground. Still, in the failing light, I could see it all. The boy’s body, coming up and out of the water, glistening and wet, then cold and hard as it dried on the riverbank. Heels digging twin furrows in the mud as he was dragged to the place. He lay there, mouth open, limbs tangled, one palm half closed as the hole was dug…or maybe just some last-minute depth added to it. Then down he went. A soft thump when he hit bottom. And the dirt went in, over his face first because of the eyes. After that the rest, covered over with soil, wet and heavy, alive with the woods. I could hear him now, fists beating against the soft cover. Felt him, too, up and down the back of my neck. Stiff fingers. Cold, pimpled flesh. I looked over at Sarah and saw the little girl again. Only this time, she screamed without making a sound.

“He’s gone,” I said.

“I know.”

I took her hand in mine and tried to coax some warmth into it. Havens had wandered back down to the river. Left us alone to wake a boy we never knew. Now Havens’s voice beckoned through the screen of trees. We turned from the grave. Skylar Wingate’s memory floated and followed.

Havens was perched on a large boulder, jutting up like an angry tooth out of the riverbank. Sarah and I found spots on the grass at his feet. Just the way he liked it, I thought.

“Police think he was pulled out of the water right here.” Havens pointed to the river behind him. The night was almost full now; the water rippled under fresh strokes of moonlight.

“That was fourteen years ago,” I said. “I still don’t understand why you’re down here.”

“Big picture, Joyce.”

“What does that mean?” Sarah said.

“There was something I didn’t tell Z. A fresh case. Less than a week ago.”

Sarah struggled to her feet. I motioned for her to sit.

“Where?” I said.

“A kid went missing on the North Side. They found a sneaker and what they believe to be his backpack maybe a mile along this trail.”

“No body?”

“They searched for three days and came up with nothing. The kid was a runaway so it wasn’t a big story. Anyway, it was close to Wingate and I wanted to take a look.”

“It’s an active crime scene,” Sarah said. “You can’t just go barging in.”

“Chicago PD finished up last week. The site’s been fully processed for evidence.” Havens climbed down off his rock and began to walk. Sarah and I followed.

“The boy’s belongings were found in a small clearing, at the foot of some rocks.” Havens took out his flashlight and began to play it along the riverbank.

“And you think you’ll know the place when you see it?” I said. “In the middle of the night?”

“I was hoping to get here earlier, but I got held up by some classmates.” Havens turned. “Seems they got lost in the woods. Come on. I got a feeling it’s just up ahead.”

Havens never found the scene. Sarah did. Or rather, she found a scrap of police tape flapping yellow in the night. Sarah pulled it off the branch of a tree and showed it to Havens.“ This what you’re looking for?”

Havens stuffed the tape into his pocket and pushed deeper into the woods. Sarah held her hand high and I slapped her five as I went by. It took another ten minutes of fumbling before we broke into the actual clearing, bordered by a dark outcropping of rocks on one side and the river on the other. I edged ahead of the group and drifted toward the water. Havens warned me to be careful. He was right. I took a false step and felt the bank give way. My footing went and I was suddenly underwater, breathing in black mud. I came up blowing gusts from my mouth and nose. Havens’s light bobbled in the darkness. I grabbed for it. There was a hand there. It gripped my forearm and pulled. The mud gave a sucking sound, unwilling to give up its prize. But Havens wouldn’t be denied. Sarah watched without mercy as I was saved from myself and laid out on the bank. Cold, wet, and humiliated. So much for being good in the woods.

“Sorry,” I gasped.

“It happens,” Havens said and dismissed my fall with a shrug. For the first time I felt a tingling of “like” for my classmate.

“You need a minute?” he said.

I shook my head and got to my feet. Carvings of mud fell off my pants and shoes.

“This has to be where they found the pack,” Havens said, eyes fixed on mine. I took the flashlight from him. My jeans and boots squeaked and squelched as I moved. Something was crawling down my neck. I knocked it away with the back of my hand and crouched to study the terrain.

“What are you looking for?” Sarah crouched beside me.

“I don’t know.” I dug at the dirt. My fingers went in less than an inch. “Soil’s thin. If he killed the boy here, he couldn’t have buried him.” I flicked the light up into the tree line. “I guess he could have dragged him into the woods.”

“But he didn’t.” Sarah trickled a stream of pebbles through her fingers. “The police already checked.”

“Why did they stop searching?” I said, turning the light in Havens’s direction.

“According to the
Herald
, the cops now believe the kid might have just left the area,” he said. “They’re pursuing ‘other leads,’ whatever that means.”

I got up and began to walk along the riverbank. Carefully this time.

“Where are you going?” Sarah’s voice crept quietly beside me.

“There might be a place…” I tracked the curve of the river. After about thirty yards, I cut away from the water and climbed partway up a slope of crumbling granite. I touched a finger to my lips. A ruffle of breeze tickled the tops of the trees and licked at the water’s edge.

“He took the boy off the street?” My voice hovered just above a hush.

“That was the theory,” Havens said.

I peered up the slope. “He still might need a place.”

“A place for what?” Sarah said.

I looked back at her. “To be alone with the body.”

I turned to climb again. Havens followed. Sarah came last.

It was Havens who found it. A small cleft in a wall of rock, something you’d never notice in the dark, unless that’s exactly what you were looking for. We stopped at the mouth of the cave.

“I don’t like this.” Sarah’s voice was high and strained.

“We’ll just take a quick look,” Havens said.

I ran the flashlight back down the slope, toward the purring black river. To my left, I heard a crack, a step in the woods.

“Animals,” Havens said.

I cut the light and listened. Another crack. Then two more.

“Relax,” Havens said and grabbed the flashlight before disappearing through the opening. Sarah’s face shone under the moonlight. I gestured for her to follow. Then I ducked my head and went in.

The cave was bigger than its entrance suggested. I took the flashlight back from Havens and stretched it along one wall.

“Anybody home?” Havens said.

I moved toward the back of the cave. My eye caught a glint of silver. I nudged a Coors Light beer can with my foot. Two more were crushed and tossed nearby.

“Check it out.” Sarah was just inside the entrance, reaching for a garbage bag someone had cut down the side and spread out on the ground.

“Don’t touch it,” I said. Sarah kicked the bag aside. Underneath were fast-food wrappers, the remnants of someone’s dinner.

“Looks like someone made a fire here as well,” Sarah said.

“Probably used the garbage bag as a poncho or blanket,” Havens said, sliding to the ground to examine her find.

I moved along a long, narrow passage, away from my friends’ voices and the thin threads of light leaking in from outside. Sarah called my name once. Then I was alone. I let the light play over the walls, patterns of rock drifting and moving. I actually smelled him before I saw him.

A single eye. Cobalt blue.

Snapshot.

His body. Small. White. Naked.

Snapshot.

A gray T-shirt, torn into strips and wrapped tight around his neck. Hands and feet bound with dirty pieces of twine.

Snapshot.

Snapshot.

The boy’s mouth was stretched open as if to scream. But it wasn’t he who screamed. To my surprise, it was me.

Havens got to me first. “You okay?”

What I thought was a scream had turned out to be more like a gasp. Havens waited for me to speak, but I just looked at him. Sarah picked up the flashlight I’d dropped on the floor of the cave. That was when they both saw him.

“Holy shit.” Havens moved closer. Sarah remained rooted where she stood.

“Don’t touch anything,” I said.

“We need to make sure he’s dead.” Sarah’s voice seemed to grow smaller by the syllable.

“He’s dead,” Havens said and took a step back. “Looks like the animals have been at him.”

I took Sarah’s arm and guided her back down the passage. “Move out the way you came. Exactly the way you came. And don’t touch anything.”

We backed out of the cave and huddled by its mouth. After what we’d found inside, the air felt cool and fresh on my face.

“Think we contaminated anything?” Havens said.

I looked at Sarah. She shook her head.

“How about you, Jake?”

“Didn’t touch a thing.”

“Let me see your shoes,” I said.

They were both wearing sneakers. Sarah, Nike. Havens, New Balance.

“Generic enough,” I said. “We’re probably fine.”

Havens looked at me with curiosity and, maybe, a touch of respect. Off to the left, another branch popped. We fell silent, considering one another in the dense light. A creak followed, like someone was shifting his weight, settling. I gestured for Havens and Sarah to stay where they were. Then I eased into the scrub to the right of the cave. The moon was cut off on this side of the rocks, plunging the slope into a world of purples and blacks. I slipped down, this time disturbing nary a pebble, then looped to the left. Inside the tree line, I found a trail and began to work back toward the cave. Along the way, I picked up a rock, as large as my fist, smooth, and heavy. It felt good in my hand.