Sarah Sparrow - A Guide for Murdered Children

“Understood.”

“Solve a few and we can add some new hires.”

“Well, that’d be nice. I actually have my eye on three more cases but I’m still training the newbies. We’re stretched a little thin.”

“I know—but good.”

“I went and saw Elaine and Ronnie Rummer.”

“Is that right?” said Owen, his interest piqued.

“I thought they needed to know we’ve reopened the case.”

“And how’d that go?”

“Ronnie’s found religion.”

“Did you see Elaine?”

“Yeah.”

“How was she?”

“Okay—I guess. I mean, it was interesting. Not what I expected.”

“What about her face? What’d it look like?”

“Not like it used to, that’s for sure. But it’s not some Phantom of the Opera deal.”

“And was she rational?”

“Very much so. But I may have caught her on a good day. I was kind of surprised she wanted to see me. When I talked to Ronnie on the phone before I went over, he didn’t mention her at all. Not a word.”

“The man has hoed a tough road.”

“Tough isn’t the word.”

“There’s probably some serious caregiver burnout in there on top of everything else.”

Willow shifted gears. “How’s the Collins boy investigation going? Any breaks?”

“Don’t ask. We get a hundred tips a day—‘sightings.’ You know the drill. He’s in Chicago. Nope , someone’s one hundred percent certain they just saw him in Seattle. Nope , he’s with some vagrant in Florida living under a freeway. And the vagrant looks suspiciously like Jimmy Buffet. Nope , he’s tied to a leash like a monkey, to a busker in Times Square… Wait! He’s frolicking in the surf with some shady family in Cuernavaca.”

“There’s no surf in Cuernavaca, Owen.”

“Not according to our tipster. Hell, we got a call from a psychic in Moscow .”

“At least it wasn’t a Russian hacker.”

“I might have more luck with one of those. But you will not believe the latest. Yesterday, a therapist calls. Says she had a session with an unstable girl who claims to know where Winston Collins is buried.”

“What kind of therapist?”

“A shrink—totally legit. I checked her out.”

“Dios mío.”

“It gets better . The girl tells the shrink that she’s some sort of zombie—you know, ‘Hey, Doc, I’m actually dead but I know where the kid’s buried because I’m channeling him.’”

“Makes sense to me,” Willow said drolly. “And what do you plan to do with this valuable information, Sheriff?”

“What do you think I’m going to do?”

“‘Press delete’?”

“Hell no. My men are out there digging as we speak.”

Willow couldn’t help but laugh and Owen broke into a smile himself. “It’s called desperation, Dubya. Desperation with a healthy scoop of public outrage and political pressure.” His phone rang and the sheriff knitted his brow as he listened. “On my way,” he said, then hung up. “Let’s go.”

“What’s up?” said Willow.

“A kid just got stabbed to death at Mount Clemens High.”

4.

The ambulance sirened away as Owen and his cohort roared in. The area around the crime scene had been cleared. A few crying students loitered behind the yellow tape, hugging one another.

A skittish flock poured from the main building, shepherded by teachers. The little (some not so little) lambs blinked in confusion as they emerged to survey the scene. Some pointed to the slick of bright red blood smearing the pavement at the foot of the steps.

Hysterical parents, alerted by calls and texts while the school was locked down, arrived in panicky droves. The police wouldn’t let them park. A few jumped from their cars, demanding to know if their kids were all right.

Willow couldn’t blame them.

Owen was briefed by one of his deputies. The victim was a football player. A student had been arrested. The deputy pointed to a witness, a distraught student named Zelda.

Willow and the sheriff walked to the squad car where the suspect sat cuffed in the caged backseat. They peered in. Her eyes were closed. A funny-looking thing—tiny too. How the hell did she nearly cut off the head of a muscle-bound gridiron king? Owen tapped the trunk, signaling the driver to take her away. The sooner she was gone, the faster calm would prevail.

“Jail or hospital?” said Willow, knowing the answer.

“County General. I have been duly informed that the perp discussed the possibility of self-harm.”

“She did appear to be an unhappy camper,” said Willow.

“Being a leprechaun amidst jolly green giants’ll do that to you. Makes you want to slash some throats. You know what’s funny, Dub? Back in the day, this would’ve been some kind of world news. Now? It’s just a blip on the Internet—or whatever they call blips on the Internet. Something to tweet about. When it comes to schools, people only really pay attention when you’ve got a ten-plus kill count. Or they’re little bitty kiddies.”

“Different times for sure.”

“To put it mildly,” said Owen derisively. “It’s like that line in No Country for Old Men . ‘It’s the tide, the dismal tide…’”

“‘It’s not the one thing.’”

“God, I love that movie.”

Another deputy urgently interrupted.

“Sheriff? They found Winston Collins.”

“You are shitting me.”

“They just dug him up.”

1.

They went straight to the marsh from the school—it was turning into that kind of day.

The body had been found in New Baltimore, about twelve miles northeast of the high school, in a boggy area of Anchor Bay not far from Walter and Mary Burke Park, where Owen watched fireworks as a boy. The area was public enough (downtown shopping and popular beaches were close by) that both men wondered if the killer was trying to make a statement.

It took a moment for the startling connection to be made: the girl who provided the information that led to the discovery of Winston Collins’s body was the very same who stabbed the star athlete to death. In the sheriff’s mind, Renée “Honeychile” Devonshire was quite possibly a double-murderer.

Owen phoned Dr. Robart from the exhumation site. When she asked him certain details about what they had found, it was compelling enough that the sheriff broke confidentiality. He told her that toilet paper had been stuffed down the boy’s throat and all of his teeth removed. When he shared about the penis being severed, the therapist said that Renée, “speaking as Winston,” had told her the killer “hurt my mouth and pee-pee with a sword.”

He needed to speak with the parents right away—but most of all, he needed to interview “Honeychile.” Unfortunately, that would have to wait. When he called the hospital, they said she’d become violent and was hallucinating. The doctors were bombing her with antipsychotics.

Standing on the sidelines of the dig, Willow’s thoughts drifted to the bedroom of Elaine Rummer—then back to the Cold Case conference room with its files and baggies, its corkboard and spilled evidentiary detritus. He floated there awhile before dipping his toe in the stream of subconscious memory, whose waters lapped up on the old Rummer place—

July 4, 2000.

Their photos weren’t on the corkboard, but he could already see them there, pinned in his mind’s eye:

Roy Eakins and his ungainly son, Grundy.

2.

Harold and Rayanne camped out in the family waiting room of Macomb County General’s psych wing.

They wouldn’t let them see their daughter and Rayanne was right behind Honeychile in losing her mind.