John Hart - The Last Child

“From Mr. Freemantle’s right front pocket. Other than his clothing, that’s the only property he had on his person at the time of death.”

“Well, that answers a question.”

“Which is?”

“Why a certain ex-cop is still breathing, and more important, maybe, why his thirteen-year-old kid’s not charged with murder.” Hunt slipped the evidence bag into his coat pocket. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” They sipped coffee and the silence spooled out. “Speaking of questions.” Moore rolled forward in his chair. He was small and compressed, so full of energy he could barely sit still. “There are very few mysteries in what I do, Detective. Unanswered questions? Yes, all the time. But no mysteries. The human body, alas, is a very predictable instrument. Follow the damage and it leads you places, leads you to conclusions, determinations of cause and effect.” The energy flared again in Moore’s eyes, the excitement. “Do you have any idea how many autopsies I’ve performed?”

“No.”

“Neither do I, but it’s a lot. Hundreds. More, maybe. I really should count them up some day.”

Hunt sipped his coffee. Normally, he’d be irritated, but he had nowhere to go.

Moore drummed fingers on the desk, eyes alight, skin flushed. “Do you believe in mysteries, Detective?” Hunt opened his mouth but Moore waved him off. “Not the kind of mysteries that you deal with every day.” He leaned over the desk and cupped his hands as if holding a small world between them. “Big mysteries, Detective. Real ones. Large ones.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“I’d like to show you something.” Moore lifted a file folder and rose. He crossed the room and flipped a switch on the X-ray viewer. Light flickered, then steadied. “Beyond a small note in the report, I debated sharing this.” A nervous laugh. “I have my reputation to think about.” Moore took an X-ray from the folder and snapped it into the viewer. Hunt recognized the structure of a human torso. Bones that seemed to glow. Amorphous hints of organs. “Levi Freemantle,” Moore said. “Adult male. Forty-three years of age. Heavy musculature. Massive infection. Borderline malnutrition. See this?” He touched the image. “This is where you shot him. Bullet entered here. Fractured scapula at the exit wound. See?”

“I didn’t mean to kill him.”

“You didn’t kill him.”

“What do you mean?”

Moore ignored the question. “This.” He traced a rough white line with his smallest finger. “This is a tree branch, a hardwood of some sort. Oak, maple. Not my area. The subject impaled himself somehow. The limb was brittle, not rotten. Jagged. See these sharp edges. Here and here. It’s hard to tell from this image, but it’s about twice the diameter of your index finger. Maybe a thumb and a half. It entered here, just below the lowest rib on the right side, then angled in such a way that it pierced the liver through and through. It did damage to multiple organs and tore a three-centimeter perforation in the large intestine.”

“I don’t understand.”

“This is massive trauma, Detective.”

“Okay.”

Moore stepped away, then back. He raised both hands and Hunt sensed his frustration. “This-” He moved his hands over the X-ray, then stopped. “This is a fatal injury. Without immediate surgery, this is fatal. He should have been dead days before you shot him.” Moore raised his hands again. “I can’t explain it.”

A cool finger touched Hunt between the shoulder blades. The hospital pressed down. He pictured Moore’s eager eyes, his questions about large mysteries. “Are you saying it’s a miracle?”

Moore looked at the X-ray, and the light put a cold white sheen on his face. He lay three fingers on the line of jagged wood that pierced Freemantle’s side. “I’m saying that I can’t explain it.”

Social Services came for Johnny the next day. He held his mother’s hand as two case officers stood by the car’s open door. Heat rolled off the parking lot. Cars flew by on the four-lane. “You’re hurting my fingers,” Johnny whispered.

His mother loosened her grip and spoke to Hunt. “Is there no other way?”

Hunt was equally subdued. “With all that’s happened. The violence. The media. They have no choice.” He stooped and looked Johnny in the eye. “It’s just for a while. I’ll speak on your mother’s behalf. We’ll make this right.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

Johnny looked at the car and one of the ladies offered a smile. He gave his mother a hug. “I’ll be okay,” he said. “It’ll be like doing time.”

He got in the car. And that’s how it was for the next month. Like doing time. The family they gave him to was kind but detached. They treated him like a hard word might break him, yet conspired to act as if nothing unusual had happened. They were unfailingly polite; but he caught them at night, watching the news reports, reading the papers. They’d shake their heads and ask each other: “What does something like that do to a boy?” Johnny thought they probably slept with their door locked. He thought of the looks they would give if, just once, late at night, he rattled the knob.

The court ordered Johnny to see a psychologist, and so he did, but the guy was an idiot. Johnny told him what he needed to hear. He described made-up dreams of domestic boredom and claimed to sleep through the night. He swore that he no longer believed in the power of things unseen, not totems or magic or dark birds that steal the souls of the dead. He had no desire to shoot anyone, no desire to harm himself or others. He expressed honest emotion about the deaths of his father and sister. That was grief, pure gut-wrenching loss. He loved his mother. That, too, was truth. Johnny watched the shrink nod and make notes. Then he didn’t have to go anymore.

Just like that.

They let Johnny see his mother once a week for supervised visitation. They’d go to the park, sit in the shade. Each week, she brought Jack’s letters. He wrote at least one a day, sometimes more. He never discussed how bad it was in the place they’d sent him. Never about his hours, his days. Jack talked most of regret and shame and of how Johnny was the only good thing in his life. He talked of things they’d done together, plans they’d made for the future. And he begged to be forgiven. That’s how he ended all of his letters.

Johnny, please.

Tell me we’re friends.

Johnny read every letter, but never responded. They filled a shoe box under the bed at his foster house.

“You should write him back,” his mother told him once.

“After what happened? After what he did?”

“He’s your best friend. His father broke his arm. Think about that.”

Johnny shook his head. “There were a million times he could have told me. A million ways.”

“He’s young, Johnny. You’re both so very young.”

Johnny stared at the court-appointed monitor while the idea rolled in his mind. “Did you forgive Detective Hunt’s son?”

She followed Johnny’s gaze. The monitor sat at a nearby picnic table. She was hot in a blue suit too heavy for the season. “Hunt’s son?” she asked, voice distant. “He seems very young, too.”

“Are you seeing Detective Hunt?”

“Your father’s funeral is tomorrow, Johnny. How could I be seeing anyone?”

“It would be okay, I think.”

His mother squeezed his arm and stood. “It’s time.” The court monitor was approaching. “You have the suit?” she asked. “The tie?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like them?”

“Yes.”

They had a few seconds left. The next time they were together, it would be to bury the ones they loved most. The monitor stopped a few feet away. She gestured at her watch, and her face reflected something like regret.