John Connolly - The Unquiet

“Could you give us some space, please?” she asked.

They looked to Long for confirmation that it was permissible. He assented, and they retreated out of our line of sight.

“Some of ’em, the good ones,” continued Kellog. He pointed respectfully at Long. “Colonel Sir, he listens, when I get to see him. Others, though, they got it in for me. I try to keep out of their way, but sometimes they just rile me, you know? They make me angry, then I have problems.”

He glanced at me. It was the third or fourth time that he’d done it, never staring long enough to catch my eye, but nodding to me each time in acknowledgment of my presence. The niceties over with, Aimee introduced me.

“Andy, this is Mr. Parker. He’s a private detective. He’d like to talk to you about some things, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all,” said Kellog. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

Now that the introductions had been made he was happy to look me in the eye. There was something childlike about him. I didn’t doubt that he could be difficult, even dangerous under the wrong circumstances, but it was hard to understand how anyone could have met Andy Kellog, could have read his history and examined the reports of experts, and not have concluded that here was a young man with severe problems that were not of his own making, an individual who would never truly belong anywhere but still did not deserve to end up in a cell or, worse, tied naked to a chair in an ice-cold room because nobody had bothered to check that his meds were in order.

I leaned closer to the glass. I wanted to ask Kellog about Daniel Clay, and about what had happened to him in the woods near Bingham, but I knew it would be difficult for him, and there was always the possibility that he might clam up entirely or lose his temper, in which case I wouldn’t get the chance to ask him anything else. I decided to start with Merrick instead and work my way back to the abuse.

“I met someone who knows you,” I said. “His name is Frank Merrick. You remember him?”

Kellog nodded eagerly. He smiled, exposing his gray teeth again. He wouldn’t have them for much longer. His gums were purple and infected.

“I liked Frank. He looked out for me. Will he come visit me?”

“I don’t know, Andy. I’m not sure he’ll want to come back here, you understand?”

Kellog’s face fell. “I guess you’re right. When I get out of here, I ain’t never coming back here neither, not ever.”

He picked at his hands, opening a sore that immediately began to bleed.

“How did Frank look out for you, Andy?”

“He was scary. I wasn’t afraid of him-well, maybe I was at first, not later-but the others were. They used to pick on me, but then Frank came along, and they stopped. He knew how to get at them, even in the Max.” He smiled widely once more. “He hurt some of them real bad.”

“Did he ever tell you why he looked out for you?”

Kellog looked confused. “Why? Because he was my friend, that’s why. He liked me. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to me.” Then, as I watched, the blood began to pump into his face, and I was reminded uncomfortably of Merrick, as though something of him had transferred itself into the younger man while they were imprisoned together. I saw his hands form fists. A peculiar clicking sound came from his mouth, and I realized he was sucking at one of his loose teeth, the socket filling with spittle then emptying again, creating a rhythmic ticking like a time bomb waiting to go off.

“He weren’t queer,” said Kellog, his voice rising slightly. “If that’s what you’re saying, I’m telling you now that it’s not true. He weren’t a fag. Me neither. ’Cause if that’s what you’re trying to say-”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Long make a gesture with his right hand, and the guards quickly swam into view behind Kellog.

“It’s all right, Andy,” said Aimee. “Nobody’s suggesting anything of the kind.”

Kellog was shaking slightly as he tried to keep his anger in check. “Well, he weren’t, that’s all. He never touched me. He was my friend.”

“I understand, Andy,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest anything different. What I meant to ask you was if he ever gave you any sign that you might have something in common. Did he ever mention his daughter to you?”

Kellog began to calm down, but there was a gleam of hostility and suspicion in his eyes. I knew it would take a lot to make it go away.

“Yeah, some.”

“This was after he began to look out for you, right?”

“That’s right.”

“She was a patient of Dr. Clay’s, wasn’t she, just like you were?”

“Yeah. She disappeared while Frank was in jail.”

“Did Frank ever tell you what he thought might have happened to her?”

Kellog shook his head. “He didn’t like talking about her. It made him sad.”

“Did he ask about what happened to you up north?”

Kellog swallowed hard and looked away. The clicking noise came again, but this time there was no anger with it.

“Yes,” he said softly. Not “yeah,” but “yes.” It made him sound younger, as though by raising the subject of the abuse I was propelling him physically back into his childhood. His face grew slack, and his pupils shrank. He seemed to grow even smaller, his shoulders hunching, his hands opening out in an unconscious gesture of supplication. The tormented adult faded away, leaving behind the ghost of a child. I didn’t need to ask what had been done to him. It played out on his features in a series of trembles and winces and flinches, a dumb play of remembered pain and humiliation.

“He wanted to know what I saw, what I remembered,” he said. It was almost a whisper.

“And what did you tell him?”

“I told him what they done to me,” he said simply. “He asked me if I’d seen their faces or heard a name spoke, but they wore masks, and they never spoke no names.” He looked straight at me. “They looked like birds,” he said. “All different. There was an eagle, and a crow. A pigeon. A rooster.” He shivered. “All different,” he repeated. “They always wore them, and they never took them off.”

“Did you remember anything about where it happened?”

“It was dark. They used to put me in the trunk of a car, tie my arms and my legs, put a sack over my head. They’d drive for a time, then carry me out. When the bag came off I’d be in a room. There were windows, but they were all covered up. There was a propane heater, and storm lamps. I’d try to keep my eyes closed. I knew what was going to happen. I knew, ’cause it had happened before. It was like it was always going to happen to me, and it wasn’t never going to stop.”

He blinked a couple of times, then closed his eyes as he relived it over again.

“Andy,” I whispered.

He kept his eyes closed, but he nodded to let me know that he’d heard.

“How many times did this happen?”

“I stopped counting after three.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone about it?”

“They said they’d kill me, and then they’d take Michelle and do it to her instead. One of them said they didn’t care if they did it to a boy or a girl. He said it was just different for each, that was all. I liked Michelle. I didn’t want nothing bad to happen to her. It had been done to me before, so I knew what to expect. I learned to block some of it out. I’d think of other things while it was happening. I’d imagine that I was somewhere else, that I wasn’t in me. Sometimes, I’d be flying over the forest and I’d look down and see all of the people, and I’d find Michelle and I’d go to her and we’d play by the river together. I could do that, but Michelle, she wouldn’t have been able to do that. She’d have been there with them, all the time.”