Behind his cherubic features, Macaulay proved to have been a monster.
What Angel didn't understand was Robbie's suicide. She wouldn't let it go and finally, after a week, of tracking down and talking to various street kids, she began to put together another picture of Macaulay. He wasn't just a killer; he'd also made a habit of molesting the street kids with whom he kept company. Their sex made no difference— just the younger the better. Coming from his background, Macaulay was a classic case of "today's victim becoming tomorrow's predator"— a theorem put forth by Andrew Vachss, a New York lawyer specializing in juvenile justice and child abuse with whom Angel had been in correspondence.
Even more startling was the realization that Macaulay probably hadn't killed Everett for whatever his usual reasons were, but because Everett had tried to help Robbie stand up to Macaulay. In a number of recent conversations Angel had with runaways, she discovered that Everett had often given them money he'd panhandled, or shown them safe places to flop for a night.
Why Everett had needed to hide this philanthropic side of himself, no one was ever going to find out, but Angel thought she now knew why Robbie had killed himself: It wasn't just the shame of being abused— a shame that kept too many victims silent— but because Everett had died trying to protect him. For the sweet soul that Robbie had been, Angel could see how he would be unable to live with himself after what had happened that night.
But the worst was that Macaulay was still free. Two weeks after Everett's death, he still hadn't been apprehended. Lou didn't hold out much hope of finding him.
"A kid like that," he told Angel over lunch the following Saturday, "he can just disappear into the underbelly of any big city. Unless he gets picked up someplace and they run his sheet, we might never hear from him again."
Angel couldn't face the idea of Macaulay in some other city, killing, sexually abusing the runaways on its streets, protected by his cherubic features, his easy smile, his guileless eyes.
"All we can hope," Lou added, "is that he picks himself the wrong victim next time— someone meaner than he is, someone quicker with a knife— so that when we do hear about him again, he'll be a number on an ID tag in some morgue."
"But this business of his taking his victims' shoes," Angel said.
"We've put it on the wire. By this time, every cop in the country has had their duty sergeant read it to them at roll call."
And that was it. People were dead. Kids already feeling hopeless carried new scars. She had a dead man visiting her in her dreams, demanding she do she didn't know what. And Macaulay went free.
Angel couldn't let it go at that, but there didn't seem to be anything more that she could do.
***
All week long, as soon as she goes to sleep, Everett haunts her dreams.
"I know what you were really like," she tells him. "I know you were trying to help the kids in your own way."
For the children.
"And I know why Macaulay killed you."
He stands in the misting rain, the need still plain in his eyes, the curious bundle held against his chest. He doesn't try to approach her anymore. He just stands there, half swallowed in mist and shadow, watching her.
"What I don't know is what you want from me."
The rain runs down his cheeks like tears.
"For God's sake, talk to me,"
But all he says is, "Do it for the children. Not for me. For the children."
"Do what?"
But then she wakes up.
***
Angel dropped by Jilly's studio on that Sunday night. Telling Jilly she just wanted some company, for a long time she simply sat on the Murphy bed and watched Jilly paint.
"It's driving me insane," she finally said. "And the worst thing is, I don't even believe in this crap."
Jilly looked up from her work and pushed her hair back from her eyes, leaving a steak of Prussian blue on the errant locks.
"Even when you dream about him every night?" she asked.
Angel sighed, "Who knows what I'm dreaming, or why."
"Everett does," Jilly said.
"Everett's dead."
"True."
"And he's not telling."
Jilly laid down her brush and came over to the bed. Sitting down beside Angel, she put an arm around Angel's shoulders and gave her a comforting hug.
"This doesn't have to be scary," she said.
"Easy for you to say. This is all old hat for you. You like the fact that it's real."
"But—"
Angel turned to her. "I don't want to be part of this other world I don't want to be standing at the checkout counter and have to seriously consider which of the headlines are real and which aren't. I can't deal with that. I can barely deal with this... this haunting."
"You don't have to deal with anything except for Everett," Jilly told her. "Most people have a very effective defensive system against paranormal experiences. Their minds just automatically find some rational explanation for the unexplainable that allows them to put it aside and carry on with their lives. You'll be able to do the same thing. Trust me on this."
"But then I'll just be denying something that's real."
Jilly shrugged. "So?"
"I don't get it. You've been trying to convince me for years that stuff like this is real and now you say just forget it?"
"Not everybody's equipped to deal with it," Jilly said. "I just always thought you would be. But I was wrong to keep pushing at you about it."
"That makes me feel inadequate."
Jilly shook her head. "Just normal."
"There's something to be said for normal," Angel said.
"It's comforting," Jilly agreed. "But you do have to deal with Everett, because it doesn't look like he's going to leave you alone until you do."
Angel nodded, slowly. "But do what? He won't tell me what he wants."
"It happens like that," Jilly said. "Most times spirits can't communicate in a straightforward manner, so they have to talk in riddles, or mime, or whatever. I think that's where all the obliqueness in fairy tales comes from: They're memories of dealing with real paranormal encounters."
"That doesn't help."
"I know it doesn't," Jilly said. She smiled. "Sometimes I think I just talk to hear my own voice." She looked across her studio to where finished paintings lay stacked against the wall beside her easel, then added thoughtfully, "I think I've got an idea."
Angel gave her a hopeful look.
"When's the funeral?" Jilly asked.
"Tomorrow. I took up a collection and raised enough so that Everett won't have to be burried in a pauper's grave."
"Well, just make sure Everett's buried with his boots on," Jilly told her.
"That's it?"
Jilly shrugged. "It scared Macaulay enough to take them, didn't it?"
"I suppose..."
***
For all she's learned about his hidden philanthropic nature, she still feels no warmth towards the dead man. Sympathy, yes. Even pity. But no warmth.
The need in his eyes merely replaces the anger they wore in life; it does nothing to negate it.
"You were buried today," she says. "With your boots on."
The slow smile on the dead man's face doesn't fit well. It seems more a borrowed expression than one his features ever knew. For the first time in over a week, he approaches her again.
"A gift," he says, offering up the newspaper-wrapped bundle. "For the children."
For the children.
He's turned into a broken record, she thinks, stuck on one phrase.