The Dampness Of Mourning Read online

  There were a million pounds of meaning in her tone and I wondered what she’d heard about the events in Division. If death turned her on, people going crazy, and destroying those they claimed to love. I shook my head, trying to clear it, and opened the file. There was quite a bit of information I didn’t understand. I closed the folder again and asked, “Jack Tripper?”

  “Right. Like Jack Tripper. Three’s Company. Only our Jack isn’t quite so silly, or clumsy.” A dark sparkle played in her eye, a path that ran deep into her mind and branched off into multiple directions, and she’d only stayed true to her job and maybe her professionalism, true to herself, by keeping it short. “Here’s Jack’s card too. You can go home, grab some hiking boots—you’ll need them—and give him a call. He’ll tell you where to meet up and walk you through procedure.”

  “Thanks.” I stood, ready to get to it, needing to get away from her because her scent reminded me of the first girl I ever had sex with and my pulse throbbed with the sway of ghost hips, tasting heat and wetness on my lips. “Nice meeting you.”

  She looked over my application and said without looking up, “I’ll check in with you guys later today, to make sure he’s not giving you any trouble.”

  “The Ripper?”

  She chuckled. “The one and only.”

  “Great.” I waved the file and walked back out front. The woman at the desk sipped coffee, turning her head slightly as I passed. The door buzzer sounded and she said, “Good luck.”

  * * *

  At home, I threw the file Kimberly LaPorte had given me on the kitchen table, went into the bedroom and changed into a pair of jeans, a gray thermal shirt, and a black windbreaker. After I pulled my Nikes on at the table, I leaned back and opened the manila folder and began reading…

  Case: N761H

  Form of complaint: A tourist, Maurice Helton, stumbled across three children (Melissa Ann Dubose-8; Kyle Patrick Sullivan-6; Jennifer Love Hait-7) playing in the Loyalsock river south of the Devil’s Garden in Division. The children were naked, and Mr. Helton, upon drawing closer to them, noticed large bruises along the length of their spines, as well as abrasions that resembled rope burns around their wrists and ankles. Mr. Helton called the Sullivan County Police Department who took his initial statement. The children were mostly non-responsive when questioned, saying nothing more than they lived in the forest. While one officer took the children to Child Protective Services in LaPorte, Officer Derrick Reinald, along with myself, approached the children’s parents for the attached statements.

  To monitor the welfare of the children I would like to check-in weekly. Once we have more evidence the abuse stems from the adults we can take the next step and file charges.

  Jack Tripper

  I flipped the page over and read the statements recorded by Tripper and Officer Reinald.

  Arnold & Michelle Dubose (parents of Melissa Ann Dubose-8)

  Mr. Dubose: Some of the bigger kids beat on the smaller ones.

  Mrs. Dubose: This isn’t abnormal. Every group of children has those who struggle for the place of power. Not that different than grown-ups if you ask me. We’re trying to instruct them in the ways of Sonnelion, but it takes time. Everything takes time.

  The parents of Kyle Patrick Sullivan and Jennifer Love Hait were unavailable for questioning. I will make a follow up call in the coming week when checking on the children’s welfare.

  Jack Tripper

  There was an attachment showing Tripper’s follow up call. The Sullivans’ and Haits’ statements mirrored those of the Duboses’. They weren’t responsible. The children were. I wanted to call Kimberly and ask her what the condition of the children were now but it was pointless since I had to head out there to meet Agent Tripper.

  Reading further, I saw several memos from Kimberly to Tripper, asking him to find out more about the people who lived in the woods. Tripper’s answers were short and to the point—they called themselves The Society of God’s Lost Children; there were 16 families; no apparent leader or structure to their community other than some type of religious fascination.

  It didn’t ring true to me. Every community had its leaders.

  I smiled—if The Ripper was any kind of agent at all he’d have come to the same conclusion—as I flipped another page and saw another memo from Kimberly pointing out the same thing. Tripper’s reply was the last piece of paperwork other than photos CPS had taken of the children’s alleged abuse. Tripper said The Society of God’s Lost Children lived a mile into the woods south of World’s End State Park, southeast of the Devil’s Garden. There wasn’t any mention of their traditions or beliefs, probably as closed-mouthed as my grandpa in the Freemasons had been, cradling their secrets because there was power in doing so—power in mystery, in unanswered questions. The group appeared self-sufficient and purposely separated from the real world. It made me, and Kimberly no doubt, wonder what their intentions were. There was an ominous vibe to the whole thing, unlike the hippies of bygone times. Religion was a dangerous thing. I whispered the name, Sonnelion, and shivered. I remembered the demon me and Mike had fought in the manor’s basement—One of Three of Seven. I thought of Proserpine. And Uncle Red. None of it led me anywhere but toward sadness and terror.

  I pulled the eight-by-ten photographs from the folder and studied them. None of them showed the children’s faces, only snapshots in black and white that sharpened the contrasts between their browned skin and bruises—some lighter, some darker—along their spines and wrists and ankles. Someone had tied these kids up and punched them. Jesus Christ.

  I retrieved Tripper’s card from my wallet and dialed his number. He answered on the second ring, laughter flapping its wings close to his ear and into the phone, someone that sounded like a young girl. He said, “Hello?”

  I told him who I was and that Kimberly wanted me to meet up with him to work the Society case. He laughed, told the girl to shut up and said to me, “You’re familiar with the area right? You had some fun around here not too long ago?”

  Fun wasn’t the word for it. Pat Andrews, Division’s old sheriff, had gone crazy before one of my best friends murdered him; Pat’s cousin had been a wicked and vile man who thought he could give the molested peace; and there was something hunting us that still came to me in dreams and beat against the seams of reality, sometimes quietly, at other times with enough force it rattled the windows in the attic of my soul. It had been a short and intense experience, and there was so much that the authorities didn’t know and would never believe if we told them. The only one who really knew what happened was Mike Johnston, my one-time protector and if men have soulmates for friends, he was that too.

  I wondered how long the group had been hiding out there, or if they’d only taken residence recently while I was recovering from the knife wound to my chest.

  Tripper said, “You still there, McDonnell?”

  I flicked my finger against the edge of his card, not really liking his voice. “Where do you want me to meet you?”

  “Go out to the south side of Division. Follow Cold Run Road south nearly to the falls and there’s a path that leads back into the woods. Some heavy forest in there so wear boots, bring bug spray if you have any—they’re still out, even this late in the season—and we’ll hike back together. I just got here, so it’s good timing with you calling now.”

  “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll be waiting.” He ended the call and I placed the documents back inside the folder, not sure what to expect out there, or what to think of Tripper yet. I walked into my bedroom and grabbed the .38 Smith & Wesson, pulled the holster on, and hid it beneath my coat.

  TWO

  I drove by the narrow, overgrown entrance into the woods several times before I caught sight of a slight glare through the trees. I parked on the shoulder and killed the engine. A camouflaged Pathfinder sat twenty feet off the road, hugged by pines and dying bushes bearing little more than wilting flowers. Sunshine beat through the Jeep’s w
indshield and my skin itched just thinking about the last time I was out this way—how I’d found four teenage girls hacked to pieces, their limbs spelling Repent on the soft down of brown pine needles. I exited the Jeep expecting Tripper to materialize from the spruce and bone-white birch, his hands in his pockets, a jacket stretched over football player shoulders, a grin cut into a handsome face—for some reason imagining my best friend Mike’s features, only softer, more rounded—designed for movies. When he didn’t emerge I walked into the trees and checked the Pathfinder. He wasn’t around. The hood was cold, as if he’d been there a while. Wind stirred branches overhead and my feet crunched dry twigs below and I was stuck in the middle wondering if I should wait by Tripper’s truck for a bit or just call him and let him know I was there.

  A bird chirped.

  Clothing brushed wood.

  I looked to my left.

  A man stood there, leaning against a tree. Neither of us said anything, busy sizing each other up. He was big, his face flat as a cinderblock, hair long and blonde, eyes bright blue. He was neither handsome nor homely, his face expressionless. He held a machete close to his thigh. I knew this guy wasn’t Tripper. He was much too young—maybe 18—and this kid was a killer. Despite his placid face, or maybe because of it, he exuded threat and menace.

  I slid my hand beneath my jacket and gripped the .38 waiting for him to say something, or to burst into motion, the veins in his neck pulsing as he screamed and rushed me.

  I said, “You live out here?” Knowing that he did, but wanting to get some communication rolling, see if his voice matched his deadpan expression. He smiled though, revealing unnaturally white teeth, as if he’d never smoked a cigarette, never had coffee, never eaten more meals than what it took to stay alive. His lips peeled back as if asking such a dumb question both thrilled and irritated him. I tightened my fingers around the .38’s grip and said, “You seen the guy who owns this truck behind me?” watching his eyes, wondering what shape his demons were, what shades of red or black, as they swarmed beneath his flesh, what unholy thoughts rumbled through the caverns of his mind.

  I cleared my throat. “Are you a mute, or just an asshole?”

  His eyebrows rose for a fraction of second and then fell. He pointed south with the blade.

  I nodded. “Right, you live down that way. You know Agent Tripper? He’s been out to your…home?”

  His eyes danced, mostly unreadable, but madness coated his skin with the soft glow of sweat despite the crisp air, and I imagined this was how it went with people of that breed, the closer they got to letting themselves go, the quicker their heart hammered, the more they could taste blood on their lips, feel its cooling heat and tackiness with their fingertips. I imagined the others—the ones he called family—a murderous cult who paid their respects to God with sharp steel and torture, because for some violence is the answer, the release of prayers on the wind, of endorphins clogging their brains, of answers yet to be spoken.

  Branches broke behind me.

  I pulled the pistol and spun, thinking of how stupid I’d been to let this kid distract me while others circled in closer. And I pictured Tripper’s head on a pike deep in the woods, his torso slowly roasting on a spit.

  I raised the pistol as I spun, ready to kill if it came to that because it was when you hesitated out of fear or uncertainty that you died. The man behind me shifted his stance, raised his hands to show they were empty. He was small, wiry, a couple days’ growth softening his jaw, clear eyes—a bit of mirth playing in them as if he lived for moments like this. He was roughly ten years older than me, possibly in his mid-forties. I cocked the hammer. I scanned the trees beyond him but didn’t see anyone else. I pressed the barrel to his forehead, waiting for the kid with the machete to make a mad dash forward and attempt to sink the blade at an angle alongside my neck.

  The man in front of me said, “Easy now. McDonnell, right?” He flashed a smile. “I’m Jack Tripper. I sent the kid ahead to bring you to the compound, but it was just a joke. A bad one, I see that now.”

  The kid moved like a ghost. He stood next to me and nodded toward the deeper woods. A shiver broke through me and Tripper saw it and laughed even though he had a pistol grinding into his forehead. He said, “Are we going to stand here all day or are you ready to get to work?”

  The kid stared at me, a small spasm causing the flesh around his right eye to flex and release as if he were winking at me. I said to him, “You lead the way.”

  He walked off into the woods, never once glancing back, the machete swinging casually by his thigh.

  I lowered the gun, eased off the hammer, and slid the .38 into the holster expecting Tripper to take a swing or fall to the ground laughing like a lunatic. But he only followed the kid, refusing to acknowledge me or the fact that I was carrying a weapon.

  Catching up to Tripper, I fell into step slightly behind him, both of us quiet for a while, gripping trees and stepping over fallen logs on a path barely discernable through the forest. There were over seven-thousand acres out here without a road cutting through them at all. I wondered how long The Society of God’s Lost Children had been tucked away here, living as if the rest of the world hadn’t moved on without them or their archaic ways, or if they’d been part of it once—some of them bankers, or bakers, janitors or journeymen—and they’d simply left it all behind because it was easier, maybe even truer to self to turn your back on the rat race and merely focus on looking out for your family and those of like mind.

  We came to a shallow creek that wound through a small clearing. Tripper glanced down at my Nikes, said, “Your feet are going to get wet and you’re going to freeze the rest of this trip.”

  He was right, and I hated getting my feet wet and cold. I studied the water. It wasn’t more than ten feet wide. I could get a running start, either make the distance or spill down three-quarters of the way across and end up with soaked clothing on top of shoes. Tripper said, “You can’t jump it.” He tapped his backpack, said, “Hop on and I’ll carry you across,” a smile playing across his lips because maybe this was a story he wanted to tell Kimberly or some of the others at CPS, how he had to carry the new guy across a little bit of water so he didn’t get his feet wet, all of them laughing that I was such a jackass for not owning a pair of hiking boots. But the pair I’d had six months ago were ruined, stained with my blood, with Jim White’s, with my best friend Mike’s.

  “Maybe,” I said, moving closer to the edge of water, “there’s a tree fallen across it close by.”

  “No,” Tripper said. “We’d all use it, man.”

  “Stand back,” I said. Jack moved to the side. The kid with the machete waited on the other side of the water, his grip tightening around the handle. He watched me retrace my steps about twenty feet, his right eye still twitching. This all felt like a game, to both of them. I half expected to run and jump and see that I was going to make it only to have the kid step forward, swinging the machete while I was in flight.

  I kept my body loose as I sprinted, then tensed as I vaulted. It felt like I had pushed off a moment too late, but it helped me and the ball of my foot hit the bank on the far side, until I started falling back toward the water, unbalanced. The kid grabbed my forearm and caught me. His nails dug through my coat and into my skin. His lips parted. His breath smelled like a shithouse. I turned my head and said, “Thanks,” grabbing his forearm with my free hand, waiting for him to kick my legs out from under me, or to grab my pistol, but he stepped back and pulled me with him. When he let go he started walking forward again and Tripper splashed through the water, laughing. He slapped my shoulder and said, “Nice jump.”

  I fell into step beside him again and he said, “So what brought you to CPS? What do you think of Ms. LaPorte?”

  My hands shook a little. I stuffed them in my pockets as I scanned the trees around us and said, “A friend of mine thought I’d be good at the job.”

  “And Kim?” He cocked his head.

  “Professional
.”

  “Ha! Nice answer.”

  “Guess I’m just full of nice things today.” The kid was a good fifty feet ahead of us, moving through the brush and shadows without a sound. I said, “Are they all like him?”

  “They have to hunt, man. They don’t get good at it they starve. But Lucas is the best of the young men.”

  “And what of the older ones?”

  “The best of them is their preacher. Abraham.”

  We worked up a sweat despite the chill beneath the heavy branches. We walked for an hour at a snail’s pace because the ground grew rocky and steep. I said, “What’s their compound like?”

  “It’s not some cult, McDonnell. Just some families living free.” The way he said it sounded like he envied them. Maybe even respected them. He had a bit of the hippie about him.

  “They beat their kids, though, right? They worship something. Sonnelion.”

  His voice hardened as we climbed higher. “Don’t base the whole bunch on a couple of bad apples. That’s a lesson I think everyone should learn. You don’t learn it and you become hard and suspicious of everyone and where does that get you? I haven’t seen anything too suspicious or I’d be all over them. I think there is some bullying between the kids, they gang up on the weaker ones from what I gathered.” He glanced ahead, said, “You believe in God, McDonnell?”

  “I believe in truth.”

  “That’s it?”

  “No.”

  “Share.”

  “I don’t even know you.” There were only a handful of people, like Mike and my Uncle Red, I talked to about anything beyond our natural understanding.

  Jack smiled. He said, “That’s how you get to know someone, kid. Give and take. And you think these people out here got it all wrong?”

  “I’ll save my assumptions until I see what we’re dealing with.”

  “So, go on. What do you believe in besides truth? Which is an easy fucking answer, man.”