The Whole Truth (31 page)

As he's coming through behind me, I step aside.

And that allows retired deputy Jack Lawrence to shoot him.

"I came to Florida to track Donor Miller," Jacks says, when he learns who he has killed, "and I guess I found him. Kimmie let me in."

My phone rings a third time, and I have a choice of either running to answer it, or embracing Katherine Kepler. I take Katherine in my arms, and Kimmie wraps her arms around us, too, and after one more ring, my phone stops.

Hours later, Johnnie Kepler dies in a hospital bed, his mom at his side. His sister is holding his other hand, and I am standing with Jack in a corner of the room. There was never a chance that Johnnie would live after he was found with a massive wound in his chest. It was a miracle that he survived long enough to hear his mother say she loves him. I'm praying there really are such things as souls, and that he has one. If he does, I know that it is still as innocent and unchanged as the day he was taken from his family, and that now it will be given back to him, sweet and whole again.

The Little Mermaid By Marie Lightfoot

CHAPTER TEN

Detectives Flanck and Anschutz started with Donor Miller's claim that Fred Kepler was the dead man in the swamp, and tracked backward from there. With the bounced check in their hands, they went to the address listed on the front of it, and traced it to a condominium on which the mortgage had not been paid for the last two months.

"I haven't seen Fred in ages," a neighbor told them.

"Does he have any next of kin?" they asked her.

"Why, is he dead? What happened to old Fred?"

None of the neighbors knew him well enough to provide any useful information, but the bank that held the mortgage showed them his loan application on which he had listed two job references and an ex-wife as a personal reference.

The ex-wife wasn't Katherine Kepler, but a woman named Ellen.

When they found her, Ellie Kepler turned out to be a pleasant, middle-aged woman with two teenaged children, neither of them Fred's. She invited them into her small home, and cried when they told her that her ex-husband had been murdered. When she asked them who did it, and they said Donor Miller, comprehension flooded her eyes.

"That man," she whispered.

"You've heard of him?"

"He kidnapped Fred's little boy, years ago."

"You know about—"

But she interrupted them, asking as if the whole world depended on their answer, "Did Fred get to see his son?"

"His son?" Robyn parried.

"Ray Raintree, the man who killed that little girl."

"What do you know about that, Mrs. Kepler?"

"Fred came over one day to see me, and he was so upset. It was all over the papers, about how a young man named Ray Raintree had been arrested for murdering a child. Fred was practically hysterical. He said that his son who got kidnapped used to have an imaginary playmate named Raymond Raintree, just like that murderer's name. He said he was scared to death that was his son. He was the right age, and the worst part of all was that he was employed by a man who used to teach music to Fred's older boy."

"How'd he know that?"

"It was the name, a really unusual name."

"Why was he scared about it?"

She frowned, trying to figure it out. "It was guilt, I think, and shame. It killed him to think his own child could have turned out like that, and suffered so much. It was so strange. You'd think that if you found your long-lost child you'd get to be overjoyed. But this was terrible. Fred was just a basket case when he came over."

"Did he do anything about it?"

"Well, I know he was going to. He read in the paper where Ray Raintree had public defenders, and he told me he was going to make sure that at least he had decent defense lawyers. Fred never had much money, but he was going to give the boy every penny he could scrape together. The last time I talked to Fred, he hadn't decided if he actually wanted to see his son. I think he was scared of the boy, of the whole thing. I know that sounds terrible, but Fred wasn't a very brave man, I hate to say. He was always running away from things, from responsibilities."

"Did he say anything about the other man?"

"The music teacher?"

"Yeah."

"He was really upset about that. He was in a rage. I've never seen Fred behave like that, I thought he was going to have a stroke. He claimed he was going to find that man, and accuse him of stealing his child, that he was going to beat him up, kill him . . ." She stared at them. "I didn't believe him. I didn't think Fred was brave enough to do that, I thought he'd end up going to the police, and letting you arrest that man."

Paul said, "But instead, Miller killed him."

"Oh, my god," she said, and put her face in her hands.

"If we put what you're telling us together with what we already know," Robyn said, "it looks as if your ex-husband went out to the Checker Crab marina to find Donor Miller. Some of Miller's employees heard him in a shouting match, and that was probably your ex-husband. Miller was a tough man, Mrs. Kepler. I doubt most normal men would have had a chance in a fight with him. I think Miller killed your ex-husband, dumped his body in the Everglades, and then assumed his identity."

Before they left the neat little house, she asked them again, "Did Fred ever get to see his son?"

They had to tell her no, he never got the chance.

"Mrs. Kepler?" Robyn asked, on her doorstep. "Your ex-husband tried to keep his first wife from finding out about their son's identity. Do you have any idea why he would do that?"

Ellen nodded, as if the answer to that was easy. "He was a weak man, Detective. He was always afraid to face the truth, and he assumed everybody else was, too. It was really very brave of him to go out there to see that man. As far as I'm concerned, Fred died a hero, not a coward, and I'll always be proud of him for that, even if it was a foolish thing to do. Will you tell her that? Tell her how he tried to help their son. Tell her how he died."

Robyn promised to do that.

As they drove away, Paul remarked, "I'll say one thing for Fred Kepler. For a worthless son-of-a-bitch, he had good women."

"Like you," Robyn joked, meaning herself as his partner.

"Who you callin' worthless?"

There were other things they knew now, too.

The three baby teeth they had found in one of Ray's backpacks were his own teeth, which he had saved all those years, like a little boy still waiting for the tooth fairy to put a dime under his pillow. The medicines he stole and saved were his own strange way of taking care of himself. He wasn't allowed to see doctors, and there was nobody to tend him when he got sick.

"You got to be prepared," he told Katherine, in the woods, "because you never know what can happen to you."

He was just cruising the canals, like Donor told him to.

It was good, getting to take one of the taxis out, which Donor didn't let him do very often. Anybody who took one out was supposed to tell Donor, or sign a chart. Ray hadn't felt like doing that tonight. He'd just taken a boat. Donor would be mad, but these days it seemed like Donor was always mad.

Most of the time, Ray was supposed to stay out in the woods, take care of himself, not come in unless he was starving, or something. Donor had softened a little bit in the last few years, and let him spend nights on the empty boats fairly frequently. But Ray wasn't as comfortable in a bunk, in small spaces, as he was outside in a lean-to he'd built himself. Donor had taught him how, Donor had taught him everything he knew, from playing the guitar, to survival in the wilderness, and especially how to hide from the view of any kind of authority at all.

The Intracoastal was choppy, so he turned down a side canal.

For so many years, he'd been living like this, and he was used to it. He didn't know how people could stand to live in houses, go to jobs, although sometimes he watched them coming and going inside their houses and their cars, and he wondered, What would that be like?

"You're an imbecile," Donor told him, had drilled into him. "You're retarded, you're a moron, and morons don't get driver's licenses. They don't go to school, they don't have friends, and nobody wants to know them. You're damned lucky I'll take care of you. Don't you ever forget that I'm the only person who will ever help you. You come to me if you need anything. Don't ask anybody else, or they'll lock you up in a loony ward, or throw you in jail for the rest of your life. I won't be able to help you then. You'll never see me. I'll pretend I never knew your ugly face."

This was a residential canal, with houses lining its banks.

Ray puttered down to the end of it, and pulled up to a dock to get the taxi in position to turn back around again. He was startled to see a little girl come running down the yard of the house toward him. She looked excited, at seeing his black-and-white checked boat. And suddenly, Ray knew this was who Donor had sent him to get.

He had a bag of popcorn in the boat, and he held it out to her.

"Want some popcorn?"

With his other hand, he grabbed a post to steady his boat.

She took a handful of popcorn, not even looking at him, she was so entranced with the checkered boat. And before he even knew it, she had hopped in with him.

Damn, this was going to be easy.

"Get me a little kid," Donor had instructed him. "You're too damn old for me, I want a little kid like you used to be when you were little and cute. You go get me one, Ray."

It sounded crazy to Ray, but Donor was crazy these days.

Donor'd always been crazy mean, but now he was just crazy some of the time, and meaner than ever. Ray was seriously considering staying out in the woods more and more, and not coming in, except that Donor would find him, and beat him up if he did that. Donor always found him. Things always hurt like hell around Donor.

"You like boats?" he said to the little girl.

She didn't seem to hear him.

"Hey! You like boats?"

She still didn't look up. Instead, she kept staring at the houses.

"You deaf, kid?"

Jesus, she was deaf, he decided, and with that thought, something began to go weird in his body and his mind, like it was filled with a sadness that he couldn't stand to feel, and vague memories came flashing to him, as if from somebody else's life. But it was his life. It was his life with Donor that was coming to him, and he looked at the child and realized that was going to be her life now, too.

They swung out into the big Intracoastal channel.

In his mind, Ray screamed, No, no no!

She didn't know, didn't even notice him in the back of the boat.

He kept steering in the direction of the river, as if he couldn't stop the boat, couldn't stop what was going to happen to her. But he could! He could! He could save her from dying a little more every day until she was a walking dead person like he was, and like he had been for more years than he could remember. Sometimes he felt dead, other times he felt like he was other people in his own head, and they had memories different from his, and feelings different from his. And sometimes he got all fuzzy and things got blank and black—those were the worst—and later he couldn't remember anything he had done, or anywhere he had been.

The water taxi turned into the mouth of the New River.

It was darker in here, and the little girl turned around.

Ray saw the fear dawning on her face, and it ate at his heart, and he couldn't stand to look at it a second longer. He had to save her from that fear. He had to save her from dying every day. He turned off the motor, and let the boat drift. And he began to drift as well, into a place that he wouldn't remember later.

When he pulled up to the docks, she was lying in the bottom.

Ray didn't know what was the matter with her.

Donor was coming from the office, walking toward him. There wasn't anybody else around. The marina was dark except for a couple of dim dock lights.

"Ray, you stupid shit, what are you doing taking one of my boats out without me telling you to? I thought somebody stole it, you moron! I called 911 on it! What have you done now, you dumbshit?"

"You told me to get you a kid!"

"Hey! You did it already?"

"You shouldn't do this, Donor!"

"Don't you tell me—"

"You shouldn't hurt kids like you hurt me."

"Hurt you? How can you say that? I've been nothing but good to you—"

"Don't hurt any more kids!"

"I'll show you a world of hurt, you moron. Come here!"

Ray took off running for the woods, and didn't look back.

He didn't know how long it was before he got up the nerve to peek out again. There was nobody down at the docks. Donor wasn't there. Ray ran down, and untied the boat, and took it out again. There was a tarp in the bottom of the boat, and he knew she was under it.

Donor would tell him to go get another one.

If Donor couldn't have this one, he'd want another one.

Ray couldn't do it. He didn't know why he couldn't, he just knew that he couldn't. But if he didn't, Donor would hurt him again and again. He needed to make sure that Donor couldn't make him go get another little kid, and he needed to be safe from Donor. But how could he do those things? Where in the world could he be safe from Donor?

Jail. Donor wouldn't touch him there.

Donor had always told him that if he got caught and put in jail, that's the last he'd ever see of Donor.

He had to get caught, he had to go to jail, he had to show the world what Donor was doing, so Donor couldn't do it again.

He started the engine of Boat Six, and slipped away from the marina. Once he reached the Intracoastal, he slipped down a side canal with a bridge at the end of it.

When he returned the boat, Donor said, "What did you do with her?"

"I got rid of her."

Donor said, "Good. Wash out the boat. Get rid of any evidence."

But Ray didn't feel like doing that, not if he wanted to get caught and go to jail, and be safe from Donor.

He waited until Donor left for his apartment, and then Ray wandered off into the woods to wait for the sun to come up.