Sarah Sparrow - A Guide for Murdered Children

Suddenly Roy’s face grew rigid and cold, like an effigy of stone. Willow thought he must have been experiencing a wave of unanticipated grief, but it was something else that would remain unknown to the detective: for the first time, saying their names aloud, Roy Eakins realized with a shock that the Rummer children had returned , embodied in the eponymous landlords from the Meeting—and they had visited his very home! How was it possible he hadn’t realized who they were from the moment they appeared, by name , at the Meeting? But there were so many elisions… so many things he was only just beginning to remember. He was becoming awake , ever since he managed to become dominant over Dabba Doo.

A conundrum asserted itself, and he wondered: Do they know who I am?

“Hey,” said Willow, breaking into his reverie. “How’s your boy? How’s Grundy?”

“Doing remarkably well—the kid up and got married.”

“Is that right?” said Willow with genuine surprise and a measure of relief on Roy’s behalf.

“Oh yes he did, to an angel . And there’s wonderful news from the heavenly quarters.”

“Oh?”

“Mrs. Angel is gravid with young. She’s expecting.”

“Isn’t that something!” said Willow, masking dismay with delight. “Just fantastic. Congratulations.” He couldn’t process Grundy as a functioning human being, let alone a dad, but supposed the two weren’t mutually exclusive. “You know, I recently became a grandfather myself.”

“Did you now?” said Roy, beaming.

“He’ll be five in a few months. That’s another reason I wanted to move back.”

“It’s funny,” said Roy. “We worry and worry, and in the end they seem to turn out all right.”

He knocked on the wood table and then got up and did a slapstick jig, knocking any wood he could find.

“Does Grundy live nearby? Here in New Baltimore?”

“He lives up in Wolcott Mills—used some of that hedge-fund tutor money to buy him and Mrs. Angel a foreclosed farm. Now, Grundy , you’ll recall, had his share of problems. Did he ever! Thought I was going to lose him. For many, many years I thought that. Then he straightened up and flew right. Oh, he still crashes into windows now and then but he never broke his wings, and that took courage. I respect that. The kid hung in and came out the other side. We both did.”

“Here’s to coming out the other side,” said Willow, raising his Dr. Brown’s. “Well, I’d love to see him. And meet the wife and mom-to-be. I’m in Sterling Heights—that’s twenty minutes from Wolcott Mills.”

“Would that be an official visit?” said Roy hostilely. “Police business, Sergeant Friday?”

Willow’s gut flipped and his mouth went slack.

Roy clocked the reaction and burst out laughing. “What I’m saying is that there may still be a few open warrants on the boy from the bad old days—desecration of public property, public masturbation and the like. Oh, he was a handful!” Willow smiled in relief. “I’m afraid before I could make that visit happen, I might need a promise of full immunity.”

“Request granted.”

“Now, mind you, these were youthful crimes.”

“I’m sure the statute of limitations has run out.”

“Then a visit shall be duly granted, m’lord!”

When Roy asked if he’d retired, it appeared that he wasn’t aware of the recent task force hire. At the same time, he thought the query was likely a ploy, because the creation of the Cold Case unit had been all over the local news. Still, he couldn’t be sure. He decided it was best to play a game of his own, even though it could backfire.

“Almost there,” said Willow. “I’m counting the days.”

“Well, come over and count ’em with me . Anytime.”

“I just might do that.”

“Tell you one thing I was counting—the number of green gummy bears you ingested, which was nil . Which means there’s more for me. Which makes you my new best friend.”

He wrote down Grundy’s cell phone and handed it to Willow, nodding at the empty can of Dr. Brown’s. “One for the road?”

“I’m good. I would like to take a whiz before getting into traffic.”

“Always a good idea to drain the snake. Down the hall and hang a left.”

As Willow walked away, Roy took a step forward and yelled, “Hey!” He drew the detective’s attention to his bare foot and, like a magician doing a trick, slowly moved it aside to reveal the scrap of paper with his son’s number that Willow had somehow already managed to lose. Roy picked it up and put it in his hand.

“I don’t have athlete’s foot. I promise.”

Willow was about to enter the toilet when Roy sprinted forward, vigorously blocking his way. “Oops, forgot! Powder room’s out of commission—been waitin’ on a plumber for three days. Use the one by the washer.” Sarabeth’s bloody panties were in the sink, which wouldn’t necessarily have been a good thing for Roy.

Or Willow either.

2.

Annie had bad dreams.

To ban the nightmarish images, she dried her face and said the new mantra while looking in the mirror—the slogan that had involuntarily supplanted “More shall be revealed.” It reminded her of something in a Victorian children’s book:

“All will be most very well.”

And all would be most very well—for she had found her man, her Porter, and the children would be protected now, which was all that mattered. The tradition would be unbroken. More turbulence was expected, of course, more thunderclaps, marvels and wrinkles, but even with “haywire” factored in Annie knew in her depths that the Great Mystery compassed them and held them close. Considering the current messy state of affairs, such knowledge was grandly counterintuitive, but she’d long since learned to trust the unchallengeable feeling of serenity that thankfully had returned to engulf her. It was an old feeling and she was glad it’d come back again; she’d been without it for months now.

Her own apprenticeship had taken over a year, and was devoted to learning Jasper’s methods of preparing her for the profoundly disorienting things that Annie would encounter—now she had only weeks, if that, to tutor Willow Millard Wylde. At first, she feared he would never agree to come to the Meeting. Part of him was so distant and unbelieving, and there was an angry part too, that seemed, unthinkably, to be courting his own death. They were so different that way! There was much about him Annie didn’t understand nor felt it her business to. So when he accepted her invitation, she said to herself, We’re halfway there. We’re more than halfway…

She primped and got ready for her visitor.

Again, Annie looked in the mirror (the one beside the Murphy bed was full-length) at the doomed, blessed woman who stared back: hard-set, timelessly feminine features, bluish porcelain skin, delicate chain of the necklace that her mentor gave her subtly rising and falling to the artery’s faint pulse—then a rap on the door startled her.

She looked at her watch: only 6:30 P.M… . He’s half an hour early! Poor thing’s probably shaking in his boots. Lord, how terrified I was when Jasper brought me to my first Meeting. She remembered actually soiling her underwear when a landlord requested a hug, knowing it was a dead thing—and a dead child!—who’d been asking. It was funny now but it wasn’t then. She opened the door and her face froze.

It was Owen Caplan.

“Hello, Annie” was all he said.

She smiled back with warmth and confusion. They’d met a number of times because he was Nurse Adelaide’s husband but she didn’t really know him. He was the county sheriff, she knew that much.