The Last Time She Saw Him (9 page)

“Don’t talk about my child suffering.”

“I’m going to help you find your child, but I need you to tell the parole commission how helpful I was to you during this most difficult time and that I provided you the spiritual strength you needed to carry on. I know you’re close to the chief of police and that detective who arrested me. You need to make them write letters on my behalf as well.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I lie. “Now give me what I want.”

“You’re only as good as your word, so God will hold you to that,” Cahill says. “Now that we have an agreement, to the matters of your interest. The letters came to me on blue stationery, unsigned and unaddressed. The handwriting was so lovely, just like my mother’s own beautiful script.”

“Stop wasting my time. Tell me about the letters.”

“Your manner is most defiant,” Cahill says. “But I have to deal with you, so I will do just that. About a month ago, I started to get letters from a stranger. The letters said you were a sinner who crucified me with your stories. They filled me in on your tragic past about your poor brother and they said you deserved what happened to him.”

Cahill stops suddenly and looks up at the ceiling. “Would you like to pray with me?”

“Cut the shit or I’m leaving,” I answer. “What did the letters say about Will?”

“The letters said you were selfish. They said you were a dirty, selfish little girl. ‘Julia Gooden is a dirty, selfish little whore. Selfish is as selfish does.’ That’s what the letters said.”

Gooseflesh begins to creep up my arms. Logan said one of the kidnappers used those same exact words as they stood over his bed last night.

“What did the letters say about my brother? He was taken thirty years ago. Nothing has been in the news about him for a long time.”

Cahill turns his head to the side and looks at me as though he is humoring a silly child.

“Time is an illusion, Miss Julia, but you think it’s real. Time is your personal prison. What you think you see if you look backward may seem far behind, but it has come full circle again. The clock keeps ticking on the wall, but nothing has changed. That is because God is karma, He is all, and you will never stop suffering. You’ve got darkness on the edges of your soul and the stain will never leave you, no matter how much time passes or how far you try to run.”

“Tell me what the letters said.”

“That you needed to be punished for what you did, that it is your turn to suffer again, just like when you were a little girl.”

“If you’re screwing with me, I’ll come back for you personally. The police will be here to collect those letters into evidence. Expect to be questioned, too. If you withhold any information, forget about your parole hearing.”

“The letters are with my attorney, of course.”

I dismiss Cahill and hurry to the visiting room’s exit to call Navarro. I am almost to the door when Cahill jumps up from his chair and walks briskly to my side. He leans in quickly before I can move out of the way, buries his face into the back of my hair, and inhales deeply.

“It’s so nice to smell something sweet and clean again. I’ll see you next week,” Cahill says pleasantly, as though we’ve just enjoyed a cup of sweet tea together on his front porch.

I hold back as hard as I can so I don’t punch Cahill in the face.

“You’re disgusting. Don’t ever touch me again.”

“I was just being friendly,” Cahill answers. He leans against the visiting room wall casually, steeples his fingers together, and looks as though he is studying me with amusement. “You appear to be so tough. But it’s all an act, isn’t it? Deep inside, you’re a scared little girl who is afraid of everything. I can see through your wall. It’s a thin façade. This concept of time that you believe in so fervently froze you thirty years ago. You’re still that little girl, left all alone and haunted. The darkness is following you, child, and you can’t escape.”

I hold Cahill’s gaze so he won’t notice the gooseflesh on my arms.

“If you get another letter, you call me personally, understand?”

I hurry out of the visiting room, feeling shaken and like I need a shower to cleanse myself from Cahill and make my way through the confines of the prison’s sterile concrete hallways.

I hurry to my car and snatch my cell from the glove compartment. One new message. I steel my nerves and press the play button.

I smack my cell phone against the steering wheel in frustration. Navarro’s got nothing, and now he’s wasting precious time bringing in a psychic.

CHAPTER 6

I
used to love the drive to the lake house. When I returned to what was then a weekend-only retreat after an intense Friday at the paper, the stressors of the day gradually dissipated as red-and-white striped barns and slow-moving tractors replaced Detroit’s crippled high-rises and the aggressive commuters leaning on their horns as they snaked their way through the buckled freeways, which were torn up from too many Michigan winters and not enough money to fix them. In recent days, the boys and I took leisurely drives past the single-room brick schoolhouse with its cast-iron bell and then over to the wooden Shaw Mill covered bridge by the south side of the lake and watched the fly fisherman in their rubber waders try and reel in a walleye or big mouth bass.

But since Navarro and his psychic friend are about to descend on my house without invitation, I tear through the country roads to get home before their arrival. I punch the gas hard as I check the speedometer, clocking in at ninety-five miles per hour. I glance back up for a fleeting second and spot something large and green spilling over the yellow dotted line in the lane in front of me. I slam on the brakes just in time and narrowly miss rear-ending a slow moving John Deere tractor lumbering painfully along at ten miles an hour, tops.

“Come on,” I yell. “Get off the road.”

I veer into the left lane to pass, and spot a pickup truck speeding right for me. I instinctively jerk the wheel hard to the right and just miss a front-end collision with the oncoming vehicle.

“Damn it,” I yell and pound the car horn with my fist. The farmer operating the John Deere gradually pulls into the adjacent cornfield and gestures me to go around him.

I suppress a strong urge to give the farmer the finger and hit the gas hard as I pass him. My speedometer races back up, and the tractor quickly becomes a tiny green dot in my rearview mirror.

“Please let me make it home before them,” I pray as I bank the turn into my driveway. No psychic, but David is perched on the top front porch step with his head buried in his hands.

I push my pulsing anger toward Navarro and the psychic aside and surface back up into the horror of my reality. I race toward David with a sense of foreboding panic. As I approach, David raises his head. His green eyes are moist and bloodshot.

“Jesus, what the hell happened?”

“There’s nothing new. I just feel so helpless,” David answers. “I’m usually the alpha dog, the one who’s always in control. But I’m completely powerless right now. I keep seeing this image of Will crying out to me, but I can’t save him. I’ve never thought of killing anyone before, but I swear, when the police find out who took our boy, I’m going to slit their throat. I don’t care if I go to jail. They’re going to pay for what they’ve done to our baby.”

I feel the ache of relief move through me, realizing there is no immediate bad news that elicited David’s emotional response.

“Keep it together,” I say softly. “We have to keep fighting and believe Will is all right and he’s coming home soon. Make that your focus. Thoughts of revenge are like an opiate. They’ll consume you if you let them.”

David breathes out hard as if exorcizing a demon.

“I guess you should know that more than anyone,” David answers and rubs his hands across his eyes like he is erasing the dark image of Will from his mind and regains his composure. “Okay. We have the eleven a.m. press conference. That’s going to help get the word out about Will.”

“And a useless psychic before that. Navarro is about to show up here with some big-haired floozy he worked with on a couple of cases. This is a colossal waste of time.”

David does his typical lawyer reaction and lets the news sink in for a second before he weighs in on his official opinion.

“I don’t think paranormal investigators are necessarily a bad idea,” David finally answers. “The officers are looking at every angle to find a suspect and this couldn’t hurt. The psychic isn’t that Burton woman who is always featured on TV, is she?”

“That’s exactly who it is. Anita Burton, the charlatan psychic who always has a camera-ready smile for any member of the media. I was surprised Navarro bothered with Burton until I met her a few times at the police station and saw her flirting with every officer that crossed her path.”

“What’s her story? Has she ever been accurate?” David asks.

“Burton gained notoriety when a young mother of three went missing. She claimed it was her tips that led the cops to discover the remains of the missing mother deep in the woods, buried a few miles away from her ex-husband’s home. Navarro swore Burton’s input was dead-on, but then again, I’m pretty sure he and Burton were sleeping together at the time.”

“That can skew a man’s judgment,” David concedes.

I stare down the driveway to search for Navarro’s car and feel the prickly annoyance of Burton’s pending arrival. Personally, I never gave Burton an ounce of credibility or coverage. Burton called once, asking if I would write a story about her, but I never returned her call. I never trusted psychics. And with good reason. Desperate to find Ben, I foolishly sought the help of a psychic when I was sixteen. She had a tiny storefront along the boardwalk that was dark on the inside except for some suffocated light that somehow made its way through thick purple drapes that hung across the shoebox of the room’s only window. In one hand, the psychic asked me to show her the hundred-dollar bill I’d brought along as payment for our session. She told me to close my other hand into a fist and make a wish. I didn’t make her guess. I was naïve and blurted out my only heart’s desire: to see my brother again. That was all the bait she needed. The psychic swore my reunion with Ben was imminent. In the end, I was out an ill-afforded hundred dollars and I learned never to believe in anything I couldn’t back up with facts.

“You’re back. How did things go at the prison?” Kim asks as she opens the screen door of the house. Her hands are covered with flour, and she wipes them across the apron I never wear.

“It was fine. I’ve been to the prison plenty of times. Where’s Logan?”

“He’s resting in front of the TV. I made him some sugar cookies. I tried to coax him into icing them with me, but he just wasn’t interested. Logan is just fine though, I promise. I found some clothes of David’s in the closet. I ironed a white shirt and a pair of his blue dress pants for the press conference. I laid them out on your bed and picked out a matching tie. And Aunt Alice just got here to help.”

“You don’t need to iron for us.”

“I put some fresh cut flowers on the kitchen table,” Kim continues. “They’re beautiful apple blossoms from the tree in your backyard. I thought they might make you feel better. I know these are probably absurd gestures at a time like this, but I want to help, and I don’t know how.”

“I appreciate everything you’re doing,” I answer. “Do me a favor though. If Detective Navarro shows up with some big-haired, big-busted woman, don’t let them in until I talk to Navarro privately, okay?”

“You’re the one who said we had to pull out all the stops to find Will, so let’s go through the process at least,” David urges me.

“Oh, a psychic. How fascinating,” Kim responds with keen interest. “I’ve read about psychics who’ve been able to help break cases the police couldn’t.”

I roll my eyes and head to my bedroom to change out of the same pair of jeans and shirt I’ve been wearing since yesterday. En route, I pass by Logan and Kim’s cousin, Aunt Alice, who are parked on the living room couch. Logan is transfixed by an episode of
SpongeBob SquarePants
playing on the TV, while Alice clicks her knitting needles with precision as she works on something that looks like the makings of a rainbow scarf.

I try and pass by unnoticed, but Alice sees me and jumps up from the couch. Kim said Alice was from Berkeley, California, and she wears the look of a still attractive, aging hippy. Alice is probably mid-fifties, with long grey-blond hair parted in the middle that hangs down to her waist. Alice’s Rubenesque figure is almost camouflaged under a shapeless lavender caftan. She approaches me with an uncertain, tight smile and an outstretched hand, and a waft of patchouli oil reaches me before she does.

“I’ve heard so much about you from Kimmy. I’m sorry about your baby, I hope my being here isn’t an intrusion,” Alice says in a nervous rush.

“It’s fine,” I lie and shoot Kim a look.

“Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. My daughter, Leslie, should be here soon. It takes her forever to get dressed. You know how teenagers are, but once she gets here, Leslie will do whatever you need. Now please tell me the police have a suspect in custody already.”

“Thank you and no. The police haven’t arrested anyone,” I answer.

“Do they have any idea who would want to take your child?” Alice continues. “I’ve read about these kinds of things happening, but it’s just so unbelievable to meet someone who is living such an unthinkable tragedy. I called my women’s group at my Methodist church back home, and we have you and your family on a prayer chain.”

“That’s nice. If you’ll excuse me . . .”

“Let me make you a sandwich, dear. I bet you haven’t eaten anything since your little boy was taken,” Alice says, oblivious to the fact I am trying to escape.

Alice heads toward the kitchen, her plump backside swishing back and forth behind her.

“Aunt Alice, don’t you worry. I know you’re trying to help, but let’s just let Julia get changed. We’ll give her a little space,” Kim suggests.

“Oh dear. I’m being a nuisance instead of a help, aren’t I? Tell you what, I’ll just make you that sandwich and I’ll leave it on the counter if you want it later,” Alice answers and begins to scour my pantry for bread.

“David said a psychic from television is coming here to help find Will,” Kim says.

“When I was a girl, a psychic came to town with the carnival,” Alice answers while slathering two pieces of wheat bread with mayonnaise. “We lived outside of Grand Rapids then. Kimmy’s mother was visiting for a week that summer. We snitched a dollar from my mom’s pocketbook to sneak out to the carnival and have the psychic read our palms. My mother caught wind of my thievery and what I’d done with her hard-earned money, and she took a belt to my backside, she did. To this day, I never forgot what she said.”

Logan unglues his gaze from the television and looks back at Alice curiously.

“What did your mother say to you?” Logan asks in a small voice tinged with intrigue and just a hint of fear.

“She said psychics were things of the devil, trying to connect the dead back to the living and that I’d opened a door to let the devil slip on in. She scared me so much, I couldn’t go to sleep at night without the light on for years after that,” Alice recalls.

“Aunt Alice!” Kim responds and motions her head toward Logan.

“Sorry. I’m just a bugger today messing up, aren’t I? Leslie is older now and I don’t have to watch what I say around her so much anymore. Sorry, Logan.”

Logan looks to me for reassurance, his eyes round and worried.

“Why don’t you come and visit with me for a minute,” I say and grab Logan’s hand in mine as we retreat into his bedroom.

Once the door is closed, I sit down on the side of Logan’s bed and pat the space next to me.

“How are you doing, buddy?”

Logan casts his eyes to the floor, and I brush a tuft of his dark hair behind his ear.

“Is the devil real?” Logan asks.

“No. Well, I mean, I don’t know for sure. I do know there are bad people on this earth, and I’ll do my best to protect you from them, but when I’m not around, you need to be very, very careful, especially around strangers.”

“Will is dead isn’t he?” Logan whispers and looks back at me with eyes that look much older than they did just the day before. “That’s why the police are bringing a psychic here.”

I grit my teeth and silently vow to throttle Navarro when I see him.

“No. That’s not why. Look, I don’t really believe in psychics, but I trust Detective Navarro and if he thinks this person can help us find Will, then I guess we better give it a shot. Is that okay by you?”

“You don’t think people can talk to the dead?”

“No, I don’t.”

Logan nods, seeming satisfied with my answer and pops something into his mouth. In his right hand is a bright yellow wrapper with a red stripe down the center and an old-fashioned picture of a little girl wearing a short dress and a bonnet in the corner.

I snatch the wrapper from his hand. The wax paper still smells like peanut butter and molasses taffy, and a once familiar and pleasant memory comes flooding back. The wrapper is from a Mary Jane candy. Ben and I used to buy Mary Janes for a penny at the Lewes Dairy when we were kids. They were my favorite, but after Ben was taken, I never ate one again.

“Where did you get this?”

Logan holds up his index finger to let me know he is still chewing. Finally, he swallows.

“I found it. It was in my treasure box underneath my eagle feather and my magnifying glass. I’ve never tasted one before. It’s really good,” Logan says, licking his lips. “I thought Daddy put the candy in the treasure box. He always brings me home surprises when he comes to see me on the weekend.”

“Whoever took Will could have planted it. Jesus, let me see your treasure box,” I shout.

Logan rushes over to his bookshelf, where he purposely stashes his treasures, high away from Will’s curious grasp. I dump the box on his bed and carefully analyze its contents: an eagle feather, a smooth skipping stone, a silver dollar, and what appears to be a dried-up ladybug.

“Do you feel sick?” I ask, satisfied that I didn’t find anything else suspect and that Logan is still breathing.

“No. Geez. You scared me,” Logan answers.

My paranoid episode is interrupted by a polite knock.

“Sorry to disturb you, but someone named Sarah is on the phone,” Kim calls out from the other side of the door. “She says she’s your sister? She heard about Will’s kidnapping and says she needs to talk to you right away. You never told me you had a sister, Julia.”