Sarah Sparrow - A Guide for Murdered Children

The nurses didn’t notice when the singing stopped.

Willow told the sheriff that his unit’s preliminary investigation indicated that Renée “Honeychile” Devonshire might possibly be in possession of information of value to the Rummer case. He was prepared to be vague and lay it off on something “the kids” were chasing down, but Owen reacted with indifference.

“Have at it, Dubya. She’s in the Twilight Zone.”

Truer words were never spoken, thought Willow. You don’t know the half of it.

When Willow and his apprentices arrived for their visit, she’d only been dead a few minutes.

In the wake of the chaos, the police hadn’t yet been called; the staff was somewhat startled to see that detectives were already on the scene. (Willow immediately phoned Owen to apprise him.) The nurses looked grim, steeling themselves for the hassles, controversy and general shitstorm that came with a suicide on the ward. Hangings were the hardest to defend, almost always blamed on a lapse in vigilance and protocol. At least the girl’s method was unusual; it would have been difficult to foresee or prevent. She had stuffed the sheets of an entire roll of toilet paper down her throat and suffocated.

The three of them went for a look.

The room bore the lonely messiness of panicky, failed medical intervention. Daniel ignored the body on the bed, focusing on the drawings that Honeychile had been working on.

Lydia went straight to the girl. She tenderly touched Honeychile’s forehead. “I guess this is what I’ll look like,” she said, as if talking only to herself. “After the moment of balance .”

The poignant moment reminded Willow of one of those high-end sci-fi flicks where androids have existential crises.

“No you won’t,” said Daniel. “Because she didn’t have a moment of balance . I don’t know what she had.”

He held up one of her sketches, a finely detailed drawing of a naked angel with huge wings colored like a Monarch butterfly. Above the angel’s head, Honeychile had written RON .

Willow and Lydia came closer.

“Ron,” said Lydia. “Do you think that’s the killer?”

Daniel shook his head and said, “I recognize this.”

“From where?” asked Willow.

“An album. I’m a metalhead and know whence I speak.” He tore a blank page from the back of Honeychile’s notebook and then took a crayon and wrote RON .

He filled in the blanks, before and after the name:

I R O N B U T T E R F L Y

“See?” he said. “It’s from the cover of Scorching Beauty . A totally underrated record, by the way.”

5.

He told Lydia that he needed a few things from his old place in Smiths Creek, which he actually did, mostly a leather jacket that he missed. But Daniel hadn’t been there in weeks and really just wanted to be alone with himself—alone, one might say, with whatever agglomeration he’d become. He was tired of his child-tenant’s intrusions and was compelled to reflect on who he once was. He even longed to see Rachelle.

On the way, he stopped at a bar in Richmond for a drink.

Through the weeks, Lydia saw that he was becoming depressed. She was too, and understood why, but handled it differently. “Don’t go there,” she warned, referring to the dangerous ennui that had overtaken them only weeks before. Both knew that Annie’s “haywire” virus was in play, and indeed the stakes seemed higher now; with Honeychile’s chilling example, the option of suicide as a response to the anguish of stalemated landlord-tenant relations was in play as well. She gave him little pep talks. She knew the Daniel side of him was violently impulsive and urged him to remain cautious—she worried that he’d go off on someone, like that time he beat the shit out of the men who mugged her. “I need you,” she pleaded. “ We need you. We can’t afford your suddenly winding up in jail or worse.” Plus, Lydia feared that an innocent person could die, like what happened to that dreadful woman in Jacobs Prairie. “That is not our purpose. So please be careful, Daniel. And you have to share about the way you’re feeling. You need to share about it at Meetings! It’s important .”

Everything tingled now—he knew that their moment of balance was nigh. A vision had come to him that it was Roy Eakins who had killed them yet how could that be? How could they have come so far on the train, only to murder a man who was already dead? Daniel was energized, but depressed; everything seemed possible and impossible all at once. He wanted to talk to Annie but in his opinion, she had grown too weak. He did think of speaking to Willow about his overall dilemma but decided the man just wasn’t ready. The Porter uniform didn’t fit him yet.

He finished his beer and left for Smiths Creek.

He fumbled for the right key (he hadn’t been there in a while), and when he came in, the sizzle of a Taser brought him to his knees.

He was shocked a few more times—for fun because he offered no resistance—and as he lay gasping, a rag was shoved in his mouth and sealed in with duct tape. He was lifted up, as if by a crowd of men, and propped against the sofa. The light switched on.

“Hello there, Christian soldier!”

Everything flooded back. That was exactly what his abductor had said on July 4, 2000, after pulling Troy off his bicycle. Then he threw him in the trunk where Maya and her bike already lay. The last thing Troy ever heard was “Gotta run—your dad’s making me a badass burger. Catch you and dream girl later!”

“Hey!” said Roy, sidling up to the couch. “I see you’re having some trouble with that gag so I’m going to take it out. ’Cause that’s the thoughtful kinda guy I am. But when I do, say one word , little man, and I will shit down your throat. Promise you’ll zip it?” Daniel nodded and Roy removed the rag. “Got a little surprise for ya. Not the surprise I had way back when—not yet , anyway.” He shoved a handful of gummy bears in Daniel’s mouth. “Chew! Come on, ol’ buddy! That’s right… chew, chew, chew, Chewbacca, like the Christian soldier from space that you were meant to be . So sorry they ain’t green—I was starting to run out and couldn’t spare any. Nobody ever called me the hostess with the mostest. I really should make a candy-store run… but no worries, there’s orange ones and red —chew! chew! chew!—those are actually my second and third choices, when I’m in a pinch…

“But that’s not the surprise I was talking about, no, no, no . See, there’s a shiny automobile waiting out front. And sitting in the front seat of that automobile is—guess who? Can you guess?” The prisoner shook his head. “ Maya! Maya is sitting right there in the front seat of that shiny car! Hahahaha!” Daniel closed his eyes in anguish. “That’s right—Maya the pigtailed Christian soldieress! I should say ‘Maya-Lydia,’ queen of the cold case coppers! The original Dead End Kids hottie! Boy oh boy does little sissy in all her incarnations make me come! And here’s what’s gonna happen next: you will accompany me to said shiny vehicle. Didn’t think we were going to stay here all night , did you, shit punk? And listen up, Troy—or Daniel or Dudley Do-Right or whatever you’re supposed to be—listen up and listen good . If you try to fuck with me during our lovely little stroll to the car, if you try to run or fuck me in any way , my associate has been instructed to lop your Romper Room sister’s head off. And you will watch it happen .”