Aric Davis - The Fort

“What in the hell are you doing running?” Van Endel asked as he walked the man around the trailer and back to the Caprice. “Especially running with your pants down?” Van Endel opened the car door and slid the man in, giving a sad look to the state of the man’s pants against the clean interior. “C’mon, buddy, out with it. What’s going on in there?”

“I didn’t have nothing to do with it,” the man said. “I was in there fucking Emma, the mother. I didn’t touch them kids.”

Van Endel shook his head and looked to the trailer. Smoke was coming out of an open window. It wasn’t enough to suggest that the house was on fire. It looked more like someone was burning something. Van Endel slammed the car door on the man who claimed to have been fucking Emma, the mother, then took his walkie-talkie from the front seat. The walkie squawked, and Van Endel barked into it where he was and what he was doing. “No clue what I’m walking into, so tell them to hurry.”

The smoke was intensifying, so Van Endel left the walkie on the hood of the Caprice, unholstered his pistol, walked to the front door, and kicked it in. Smoke billowed out as he strode in. Two bored-looking twin girls in their early teens sat watching TV on an old and battered couch. They looked at him and then back to the TV. “Get outside, now,” he said, but the twins just ignored him. Van Endel walked past them to the source of the fire.

There was a woman kneeling on the floor of the trailer, busily feeding stacks of photographs into an oven that was billowing smoke. As far as Van Endel could tell when he stepped closer, the pictures were of the little girls in the living room, and they hadn’t been taken at Kmart. In the first couple of shots that Van Endel could see, the twins were posing nude with each other, but then he could see others where worse things were happening, with very white-bodied men, both with and without underwear.

“Goddammit,” said Van Endel.

The woman kept frantically shoving sheaves of the photos into the oven, so he grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her onto her ass on the floor, then turned off the oven. Van Endel made himself look calmly around him. There was enough evidence on the floor that he didn’t need to empty the still-burning contents and risk setting the floor on fire. The woman was snuffling, but when Van Endel said, “Get up, get your ass outside,” she did.

Once they were out of the trailer, Van Endel shoved the woman into the backseat with the man, for lack of a better spot to keep her, then slammed the door closed. The two girls from the couch were standing together just a step or two away on the front stoop, smoking cigarettes. They were younger than Van Endel had initially figured, twelve or thirteen, most likely. “Dispatch, I need CPS and backup now.” He looked back at the girls. “Send some EMTs too. And tell them to hurry.” He set the walkie-talkie down, shaking his head at just how fucked up the world could be, as the twins smoked and stared through him.

The first squad car was there about three minutes later. He would have been there sooner, the cop driving it explained, but he’d been getting gas about a mile away when the call came through. They loaded the male into the squad car after the uniform had Mirandized the pair, and then Van Endel and the cop, a guy named Mike whom he had seen around before, leaned against the hood of the Caprice.

“Kind of fucked,” said Mike, then nodded at the two girls. The smoke had stopped spilling from the house, but not from the twins’ mouths.

“Agreed,” said Van Endel. “Very much agreed.”

“I mean, they’re what, like, fourteen, tops?” Mike asked incredulously, and Van Endel just nodded. The whole thing made him sick. “How did you even know to check this place?” Mike asked, and the question made the hackles on the back of Van Endel’s neck rise up. Luke. Mike was rambling on: “There is a shitload of filth in there. It’s a hell of a bust.”

“I was here looking for a kid,” said Van Endel. Goddammit, he’d forgotten. “Whole separate case, believe it or not. Speaking of which, I need to go ask Mama Bear back there a couple questions. I’ll be back.”

“Sounds good, but that’s crazy that this is just dumb luck,” called Mike, as Van Endel walked to the rear door of the Caprice and opened it. The woman wasn’t snuffling anymore. She was staring at him with an evil look in her eyes, and he buried the urge to punch her in the face.

“I need to know about your son, Luke,” said Van Endel. “Did he stay the night at a friend’s house?”

“How the fuck should I know?” said the woman. “He ran off a few days ago. I figured you were coming by to tell me he did something wrong, stole food or some shit.”

“He hasn’t been home at all?” Van Endel asked with disbelief in his voice. “Why didn’t you call the police?”

“Not my problem,” said the woman. “He run off, that’s the state’s problem. He’s yours to deal with, and you’re welcome to him.”

Van Endel considered explaining to her exactly how and why that opinion was incorrect, deciding instead that one of the masochists who worked for CPS might do a better job of explaining it all to her.

“Any idea where he might be?”

“I figure he’s probably staying in the tree fort he and his friends built off in those woods,” she said, flailing her arm at the visible line of trees.

Van Endel closed the door and walked back to Mike.

“I’m going to follow upon the hunch that brought me out here in the first place and go for a little sightseeing. You mind holding things down for a few minutes?”

“Not at all,” said Mike. Van Endel took his walkie-talkie from its place on the hood, shook his head, and headed off to the forest. He was under the canopy in just a few minutes and, not sure of where to walk, started trying to recall some of the tracking skills his dad had taught him on mostly forgettable hunting trips up north. Seeing a path worn by tennis shoes, Van Endel began to follow it, trying to watch up as much as he did down. After about ten minutes walking, Van Endel was at the fort.

“Anybody up there?” Van Endel called, and when there was no response, he walked to one of three ladders built into the trees the platform was supported by. After testing the first rung, Van Endel began to climb, questioning his sanity internally with every rung. Finally at the top, Van Endel was happy to find that there was no injured boy—or, worse—boys waiting for him. There were a few bits of gas-station-food trash, and then he saw something that did catch his eye. Huh. Bet nobody’s folks knew they were shooting a .22 off up here. He pocketed the brass casing, kicked at the trash, and went back to the ladder to descend it. Pretty good carpentry work.

Van Endel made his way back to the trailer quickly. CPS, an ambulance, and two other marked vehicles had been added to the scene since he’d left. He needed to go talk to the other kids now, find Luke, and figure out what they knew.

He found Mike leaning against the car where he’d been before, but the man and woman were gone from the back of the Caprice. “I had them move them,” Mike said when he saw Van Endel looking. “Find your missing kid?”

“Nope,” said Van Endel. “You want to do me a solid?”

“Of course, Detective. How can I help?”

“Get this scene buttoned down, call in more help if you need it. I’ll help pick up the mess back at the station. That OK with you?”

“Of course,” said Mike. “Still looking for your missing boy?”

“It seems that I am.”

52

Tim was helping his dad with the patio. Neither had spoken of the night before. Tim’s mom and Becca had gone to Kalamazoo for some reason that Tim didn’t care about, most likely shopping. As far as he could tell, his additional troublemaking had gotten his sister off the hook almost completely. Somehow, that knowledge was worse than actually being in trouble in the first place, though Tim didn’t quite understand how it could be.