Emily Littlejohn - Inherit the Bones

Annika said, “Now that is irony. I had no idea. I just figured Sam was the easiest to get to, seeing as he’s not even a real police officer yet. But you sure are, aren’t you Gemma? So now, maybe you can answer something for me. Did my Grandpa kill those boys, the McKenzies?”

I nodded then shook my head.

“Well? Which is it, yes or no?”

“I think he did, but I can’t be sure. There was a third boy there, the day the McKenzies disappeared. He saw the whole thing. Your grandfather was about to dump Rose’s body. He had a partner with him, someone waiting in the car. When Frank saw the boys, he and the partner went after them. They were afraid of witnesses. So, I don’t know who killed the boys-it was either your grandfather, his partner, or both,” I replied.

Outside, a bolt of lightning lit up the sky, followed by a low roll of thunder. For a moment, the entire kitchen was illuminated. I saw Annika, pacing like a caged tiger. She held something in her hand, some small, silver thing that I couldn’t make out.

“Jesus Christ,” Annika said. “Who was his partner?”

At my side, Hannah Watkins let out a thin, keening moan. She had been through so much. I eased the cell phone out of my rain jacket pocket and held it close, under the edge of the island, ready for my first opportunity. Somehow, I needed to call for an ambulance for Mrs. Watkins and backup assistance to arrest Annika, without her realizing I was making any calls. I had a feeling she wouldn’t go easy.

“Well? Who was his partner?” Annika asked again.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Somebody incredibly close to him, a friend, someone willing to enter into the darkest of acts to protect Frank.”

Annika stepped backward, out of the candlelight, and sank into the darkness. She whistled low and then said, “There’s only one person on this planet who was close enough to my grandfather to do something like that, Gemma.”

“Who?”

“You’re sitting right next to her.”

At my side, the housekeeper jerked in her seat.

A wave of vertigo washed over me and I gripped the edges of the island.

I had been so stupid, for so long. The answers were right in front of us the whole time.

Hannah Watkins had been watching over the family for years, Ellen Bellington had said to us that day at their house.

I had watched Hannah tend to a broken coffee cup and noticed she knew her way around broken things.

Hannah herself had said that family was everything.

“Aunt Hannah?” Annika said. “You’re the Woodsman, aren’t you?”

Another flash of lightning and a second roll of thunder shook the house and showed Mrs. Watkins nodding jerkily, a marionette in the spotlight.

Tears ran down her face.

“I was twenty-three, not much older than you, Annika. I had finished college and was living at home, working at the mall, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I came home on a lunch break and my dad was in the garage, crying. He was in a panic. There was a woman in the backseat of his pickup truck and I thought she was sleeping. Dad said it had been an accident. He said he’d go to jail for the rest of his life if anyone found out,” Mrs. Watkins said.

She wiped at her face and drew a hand down to her chest and left it there, as though she was trying to hold back a lifetime of secret grief and lost innocence.

“You were the passenger in his truck, in the woods that day, weren’t you?” I asked. A deep sadness came over me; I knew what it was like to try to hold that grief inside you, how it ate away at your sense of identity, how it stole the wonder out of life.

Mrs. Watkins nodded. “I don’t know why I went with him, he didn’t ask me to. He seemed so broken and somehow, I thought if I went with him, bore witness to what he was going to do with her body, that I could take some of the burden off his shoulders.”

“And the McKenzie boys?”

“I never meant to hurt those kids. I thought if we scared them, they’d stay quiet. We cornered them up on the trail. I had a hunting rifle from the truck. They came easily enough. Then Dad dropped me off at home, and told me to forget the whole thing. He said he would figure out what to do with them. I trusted him, don’t you see? He was my father. He was larger than life,” Mrs. Watkins said as her voice broke. Tears and phlegm choked her words.

“But he killed them, didn’t he, Aunt Hannah?” Annika asked. She’d crept forward again, into the candlelight. “And then he waited to dump the woman’s body, didn’t he?”

Her expression chilled me to the core. She was curious, rapt.

Hannah Watkins nodded. “I believe he killed them that same afternoon, although we never spoke of it again. I asked him, just once, that next day when I saw the reports on television of the missing boys. He slapped me and told me that they were safe, and that he wanted to wait a few days before letting them go. He also said this could ruin our entire future, that our family’s lives would never be the same. As the days passed, I grew more and more certain that he had in fact hurt them.”

“Jesus. They were just kids, Hannah. Why didn’t you say anything?”

She looked at me with a face that seemed melted with tears and grief.

“Don’t you understand? He would have blamed the whole thing on me. He ruled this town like he ruled our house. I was a stupid girl. No one would have believed me. And once the boys were dead, what did it matter? They weren’t coming back. I couldn’t save them.”

“What about their parents? Can you imagine for one second, if it had been your children, not knowing where they were, if they were cold? Hungry? Scared? And then multiply that feeling by a thousand and then another thousand, for every day since that those poor parents lived with that pain. Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.”

Hannah wiped the tears from her face and straightened her shoulders. Her face was white and at her throat I saw her pulse beat very fast.

“I’ve been punished every moment of my life since by myself, my God, and my family. I’m barren. My husband wanted children more than he wanted me. I’ve raised my brother’s kids. I’ve lived the last few years under the same roof as a killer. My entire existence is madness, Gemma. I would give every ounce of happiness that I might have touched in this lifetime to take back what we did. I poured my soul into trying to right my wrongs, by being here, for this one family, for the only family I can still help.”

On the counter, another candle blew itself out. I pushed back from the island and stood up.

“Where do you think you’re going, Gemma?” Annika asked.

She came around the side of the island and stood next to her aunt.

I took a deep breath. “I’m going to see if I can reach my police chief. He’ll come to the house with a few officers and an ambulance. Hannah, we need to get you to a hospital, I’m worried you’re going into shock. And if you’ve already got known heart problems… Annika, you’ll need to come to the station, where I’ll book you on murder charges. It’s over.”

Annika shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I’m taking my money and leaving. Aunt Hannah said my plan would work.”

Mrs. Watkins slid off her stool and stood. She put her arm around Annika.

“Sweetheart, Gemma is right. It’s over. I’m sorry, so, so terribly sorry. I wanted a better life for you, away from here. I never dreamed it was too late. If I knew you’d been corrupted, sickened the same way your grandfather was…”

Annika struggled against her aunt and in the candlelight I saw the silver object she held more clearly. It was a short, stubby hunting knife, the kind that folds easily.