Again, he thought: Yeah, I’m going to have to kill him.
“Hey, partner, we got any more of them Twinkies?” Duke asked.
«« — »»
The Lockwood police station was a small brick extension of the fire station on Pickman Avenue. It had two holding cells, an office for Chief Bard, whose only window offered a resplendent view of the garbage dumpster in back, and an anteroom where they kept their files and supplies.
Sergeant Byron trudged into the office. He was a young big brawny kid, and a good cop. Now, though, he looked pale, disgusted.
“Where the hell have you been?” Bard asked. “I could’ve used some help out on the state roadblock.”
“I was on that 5F, remember?” Byron sat down, sighed. “You sent me on it.”
“That was hours ago.”
“Took the damn M.E. that long to get out there. I had to secure the scene and wait. Unless you want me to leave two cooked bodies sittin’ in a pickup truck.”
Bard set down his coffee. “What do you mean…cooked?”
“They was burned up, Chief. Somebody iced these two fellas, doused ’em with gas, and lit ’em up. Right on the town line, past Croll’s fields.”
“Lockwood residents?”
“Naw, two guys from the other side of the line. Gary Lexington and Lee More, both twenty five. No rap sheets, no trouble.”
“How were they killed?”
“M.E. don’t know yet. It was hard to tell anything by lookin’ at ’em, burned as they were. They was naked, though, clothes throwed in after. Ready for the best part?”
Bard gazed at him.
“M.E. said some of their organs were gone. Someone gutted these fellas, then torched ’em. Ready for more?”
Bard nodded, though he thought he already had a good idea.
“Fellas’ heads were busted open. Brains were gone.”
Bard opened his proverbial small town police chief desk drawer. He removed two glasses and a bottle of Maker’s Mark. He poured them each a shot.
“I know you’re thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’, Chief. Heads busted open. Brains gone. Shee it.”
Bard tossed back his shot, smirked, and nodded. But what could he say? What could he tell him?
“Just like some of the bodies we caught Tharp buryin’ five years ago,” Byron finished. He threw back his Maker’s and put his glass back up for another.
«« — »»
“How have you been, Mom?” Ann asked.
She followed her mother up the heavily banistered staircase. On the landing wall hung a mirror which had always scared her as a child—at night she’d come up the stairs to find herself waiting for her.
“Thoughtful of you to ask,” her mother replied.
Here we go, Ann thought.
“It’s absolutely disgraceful that you’ve seen fit to completely ig—”
“Mom, please. I didn’t come here to fight.”
“I’m surprised you came at all. We haven’t heard from you in six months—we thought you’d written us off altogether.”
“Damn it, Mom. Just stop it, would you?”
The headache was already flaring. This happened every time; they’d tear at each other until there was nothing left. Almost twenty years now, and the only bind that remained constant between them was bitterness, scorn.
“I came here to see Dad, not to argue with you.”
“Fine,” her mother said. “Fine.”
Down the hall, another lane of memory.
“I suppose you’ll stick your head in, look at him, and then be off again, back to your ever important job in the city.”
Ann felt her nails dig into her palm. “I’m off all next week.”
“Oh, a week, a whole entire week. I suppose we should feel privileged here in lowly Lockwood, that the prodigal daughter has graced us with a full week of her cherished time in order to spend it with her family, one member of whom is dying.”
Ann’s teeth ground together. Her jaw clenched. No, she thought. I will not fight with her I…will…not.
They’d set up a convalescent bed in the end spare room. The shades were drawn; pale yellow lamplight cut wedges in the room. From a corner chair, a stout man rose in a baggy suit. He was bald on top, with tufts of salt and pepper hair jutting from the sides like wings, and a bushy goatee. This was the man who’d delivered Melanie on that stormy night, and the same man who’d brought Ann into the world through her mother’s womb. Dr. Ashby Heyd.
He smiled warmly and offered his hand. “Ann. I’m so glad you could come.”
“Hello, Dr. Heyd.” But Ann’s attention was already being pricked at, dragged toward the high bed. Antiseptic scents blended with the musk of the old house. The room seemed stiflingly warm. Inverted bottles on a stand depended IV lines to the still form on the bed.
Ann looked down at her father.
It scarcely looked like him. The vision crushed her, as expected. Joshua Slavik’s face had thinned, leaving his mouth open to a slit. His eyes were closed, and one forearm had been secured to a board, needles taped into blue veins large as earthworms.
“He’s borderline comatose, I’m afraid. A massive cerebral hemorrhage.”
Ann felt desolate looking down. Her father barely seemed to be breathing; Ann had to fight back tears. Even in her worst moment, or during her mother’s worst tirades, Joshua Slavik had always had a smile for her, a simple encouragement, the slightest note of hope to help her feel better. He’d given her his love, but what had she given him in return?
Abandonment, she answered.
“He looks so peaceful,” her mother remarked.
Ann snapped. “Jesus Christ, Mom! You’re talking like he’s already dead! He’s not dead! You’ve even got this whole goddamn house full of people like it’s some kind of goddamn funeral home!”
Dr. Heyd took a step back. Her mother’s face went dark.
“We’ve got to get him to a hospital,” Ann went on. “He should be in an ICU, not lying in this stuffy crypt. What kind of care can he get here?”
“Dr. Heyd is perfectly capable of—”
Ann rolled her eyes. “Dr. Heyd’s just a small town general practitioner. He delivers babies and treats sore throats, for God’s sake. We need a neurologist, we need a CAT scan and an intensive care facility. We’re taking him to a hospital right now.”
“I forbid it,” her mother said.
Dr. Heyd stepped in, “Ann, what you don’t understand is—”
“All I understand is my father’s dying and nobody’s doing shit about it!” Ann yelled at both of them. “And if you think you can forbid me from taking my own father to a proper hospital facility, then you better think again. You may run this ridiculous little backward town but you’re not the law. I’ll go straight to the state probate judge and file a petition for guardianship. The court will appoint me guardian ad litem, and there’ll be nothing you can do about it. I might even—”
“Why not sue me while you’re at it, Ann?” her mother suggested. “Sue me for mental anguish. That’s what lawyers do, isn’t it? Sue people? And you’d do it too, I know you would, Ann. You’d sue your own mother.”
Ann caught herself. Her mother and Dr. Heyd exchanged silent glances. Ann stared, more at herself than them. What am I saying? she thought.
Her father groaned once, lurched and twitched a few times.
“Are you happy now?” her mother asked. “Look what you’ve done, you’ve upset him. Haven’t you upset him enough in your life? You’ll even upset him on his deathbed.”
Ann wished she could melt into the wall. For that moment she’d felt completely out of control of herself.
“This is a disgrace,” her mother said, and left the room.