The paper is grayed. Darkened by soot, slush, city smog. Carved into the bottom right hand corner of the wood is a date — October 17, 1973—a date currently forty-one years, one month, and fourteen days in Walter’s past.
The image: A clown in whiteface, black crosses over his eyes, tilted slightly so they resemble Xs. A conical hat. Pompoms in black against the whiteness of his baggy uniform. The clown cradles an infant’s skeleton in his arms.
The skull is human, but subtly wrong, enlarged. There is a hair-thin fracture, widening and darkening as it runs back toward where the skull meets the spine. Out of the camera’s view, one can only imagine the clot of darkness where the fissure disappears, the fragments of bone, caved in beneath a terrible blow. The rib cage appears human as well, but unnaturally small in comparison to the skull.
Below the waist, the skeletal remains are not remotely human.
Walter Eckert has investigated almost everything in his time— domestic violence, cheating partners, insurance fraud, arson, petty theft, and even murder. He has never encountered anything quite like this before. Cold case. Two parents, one child. House, abandoned. Cups half-filled with coffee. Beds, immaculately made. Clothing, neatly hung. Refrigerator, humming and full. Television, left on.
The house remains; the evidence of daily life remains. The Miller family is simply gone.
Walter isn’t certain what motivated him to look up the case. It wasn’t even his, back when he was on the force; he inherited the file from his partner, Don. Walter should be actively pursuing new clients, sleazily patrolling social media for rumors of infidelity and foul play. But there’s something about the poster, something about the date. They remind him of something, two seemingly disparate events that lodge in his mind and refuse to let go. So instead of seeking new business, Walter chases down the cold trail of business over forty years old.
A carnival enters town in the fall of 1973. The Millers are a seemingly happy family, living the American dream. The carnival leaves town, and the Millers are gone.
Their house is left in perfect condition. The only remarkable thing is thirteen-year-old Charlie Miller’s room. The posters of his favorite baseball players have been turned to face the wall; his baseball cards have been removed from their plastic sleeves and dealt out across his bed, face down. In his closet, his stuffed animals — artifacts of a younger age — have all had their eyes removed.
Three days after the Millers disappear, a group of kids gathers in an empty lot to play. Midway through the game of tag, the dust in the lot blows slightly to the west and uncovers the remains of two complete adult skeletons. The bones are aged, colored faintly as though with years buried under desert sands. The remains, lying side by side, holding hands, are eventually identified through dental records as Jasper and Anita Miller.
Charlie Miller is never found.
The second piece of evidence comes into Walter Eckert’s possession much as the first: Appearing in his locked office, part of his life as though it has always been there. It is a flat, gray canister, holding an old reel of film. Walter is at a loss until he remembers the storage locker in the basement of the building. He finds the key in his desk, descends into the chilly, ill-lit space, and digs out the old film projector left behind by his former partner, Don. The man never threw anything away, and it seems Walter has picked up his habit.
The film is black and white, jittery, and popping in the way old movies do. The camera fixes on an empty room, which contains only a surgical operating table. A man enters the room, walking from the left side of the frame toward the right. He strips out of his clothes, folds them neatly upon the floor, and lies on the table, face up. He wipes his palms against his legs, licks his lips, and blinks.
His fingers twitch restlessly at his sides; his eyes are open, staring at the ceiling. He never looks at the camera. The film continues to skip and pop, phantoms skating through the scene, flaws in the medium or deliberate splices, Walter can’t tell.
Another man enters from the left of the frame and stops in front of the table. He looks at the camera full on and smiles. He wears a white surgeon’s robe, but no mask or gloves. His motions are jerky and exaggerated, like any actor in a silent film. He reaches to his left, just beyond the frame. His arm returns with a scalpel held in his hand. He shows it to the camera, letting the blade glint as much as it can in black and white. This done, he makes a single, precise incision in the chest of the man on the table. He draws a line, in stark black against gray-white, from the man’s clavicle to his pelvic bone. And so the surgery begins.
For the next fifteen minutes of film, the surgeon dissects the man upon the table, who appears conscious the whole time. His fingers twitch once more, drumming the table before he clenches them still, and with their stillness, holds his whole body rigid. The cords of his neck strain, his mouth set in what might be agony, or a wild, delirious grin, but he makes no attempt to leave. The surgeon slits open the man’s arms, his legs, his cheeks, and each one of his ten fingers and toes. The movement of the blade is straight and true every time. Blood is wiped meticulously away after each pass of the knife. The skin is peeled back, pinned. The surgeon’s eyes gleam and the crook of his mouth never wavers. There is no soundtrack, but one can imagine the movements set to a jolly tune.
When there is only bone left, the skin and muscle vanishing by degrees between the lapses in the film, the surgeon once more reaches to the left of the camera frame, and returns with a silver mallet. This too gleams in the lack of light. The bones of the man lying upon the table are systematically and utterly shattered, one by one.
The surgeon leaves the frame, but perhaps not the room. It is impossible to tell. Perhaps he waits, breathing, just out of the camera’s view.
Another minute passes with the camera fixed securely upon the ruins of what was once a man.
After that minute is done, the surgeon reenters the frame backward. From there, the film proceeds as though it is being run in reverse, though when Walter checks, the projector is still running as it should. The surgeon raises the mallet and the bones are restored; he runs the knife up from pelvis to clavicle and the skin is healed.
At the end of the film, the dead man stands up from the table. He does not reclaim his clothes, but he takes the surgeon’s hand. Together, one smiling, one shaking, they face the camera and bow. Still holding hands, they exit the frame.
The camera remains steady on the empty room for an additional thirty seconds. Within the last five seconds of film, a date flashes across the screen: December 14, 2015—a date three months and seven days in the future of Walter Eckert, who watches the scene over and over in a small, poorly lit room smelling of stale coffee and cigarettes, smelling of noir cliché and whiskey, smelling of, above all, fear.
The pieces of evidence don’t match. Walter isn’t even certain they are evidence yet. Only Walter’s mother insists they are and they do.
Walter’s mother is psychic, or claims to be. She even had her own 1-800 number once upon a time. His childhood memories are littered with phone calls landing like exotic birds at all hours of the night, lost souls seeking counsel and hope, weeping and giddy, desperate to be told exactly what they want to hear.
Holding his breath so it wouldn’t be heard, Walter listened to his mother listen to Jeannie from Paramus asking about her job. He listened to John from Denver worrying about his health, Kirk from Sault Sainte Marie wanting to know if he’d ever find true love, and Tina from Havertown who played the lottery every day and was willing to pay his mother $2.99 per minute for lucky numbers.