The quiet child, p.1
The Quiet Child, page 1
Dedication
For my brother, Mark
Epigraph
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.
—Ecclesiastes 12:14
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
I: Gone 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
II: Brothers 12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
III: Collection of Souls 27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
IV: Protecting the Innocent 43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by John Burley
Copyright
About the Publisher
I
Gone
1
Michael McCray squinted into the low-hanging sun as he swung the liberty blue Mercury four-door into the Century Grocery parking lot off Gas Point Road. At 7:45 p.m., the last of the August daylight still lingered, not yet willing to surrender the town of Cottonwood, California, to the custody of the night. Throughout the surrounding neighborhood, shadows spilled out from the bases of homes and businesses, dim expanding pools that merged to cover the quiet streets, the suburban yards strewn with forgotten playthings. On the radio, Kitty Kallen’s honey-flecked voice finished singing “Little Things Mean a Lot,” and Michael leaned forward and turned the knob to the left, clicking it off. He could feel warm air drifting through the open windows, the oppressive heat of the day finally slipping away with the reluctance of a child heading in for an evening bath.
The churn of the Mercury’s whitewall tires across the gravel lot—now all but empty except for the hunkered yellow presence of the proprietor’s 1952 Chevy Bel Air—ground to a halt as Michael nosed his car into a spot in the second row. He placed the vehicle in Park and turned off the engine. In the backseat, his two boys sat silently, gazing through the open windows at the parking lot beyond. It was Monday—a school night for ten-year-old Sean and six-year-old Danny—but Kate had been feeling unusually well this evening, her dark brown eyes engaged with her family instead of trapped beneath the hazy effect of her medication. “We should celebrate,” Michael had suggested. “How do you and the boys feel about ice cream from the market?”
Kate had nodded, smiling up at him from the living room La-Z-Boy, her expression both foreign and familiar, reminding him of how she’d looked at him twelve years before as he’d leaned in for their first kiss—awkward and wonderful—at the top of that Ferris wheel in Redding. It was the summer after he finished his master’s degree in chemistry at UC Davis, the road trip north made on a whim, Michael thinking he’d spend some time in the mountains, maybe cross into Oregon and hit Portland before turning back. He’d made it as far as the small community of Cottonwood before encountering Kate at the late-night check-in desk at the Travelers Motel on the north end of town. It was her summer job between college semesters. By the end of that first conversation, Michael had asked her to the carnival the following night. By the end of August, they were married.
“I’ll take Danny with me,” he’d told her this evening before heading out.
“I wanna come too,” Sean had protested, jumping up from the couch.
“Stay with your mother.”
“Please, Dad. Please,” Sean persisted, wrapping his hands around his father’s forearm.
“It’s okay. Let him go,” Kate had said, the latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine resting in her lap. “I’ll be fine here by myself for a few minutes.”
Michael paused, uncertain, his palm on the doorknob.
“I’ll be fine,” Kate assured him once again. Then, glancing at Sean, “He wants to go.”
Michael had hesitated a moment longer, the memory of the carnival still fresh in his mind. He could almost taste the hint of cotton candy on her lips, the shudder of her body against his, the dip of his stomach as the Ferris wheel lifted them high into the night air, the noise of the world falling away below. He’d wanted the feeling to last forever, not yet realizing how things would change for them—how they always do for young people in love.
Sitting now in the still of the parking lot, the car noiseless except for the soft knock of the engine block as it cooled, he draped his right arm over the seat back and turned to study his two boys, one a constant source of chatter and energy and the other an enigma, silent and indecipherable.
Michael glanced at his wristwatch: still ten minutes before the market closed for the evening.
“Sean, you come with me,” he said. “Danny”—he waited for the boy to make eye contact, the only confirmation that he was listening—“I want you to stay here. We shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”
There was no dissent from Danny—Would there ever be?—and so Michael turned in his seat, grasped the door handle, and swung it wide, stepping out into the parking lot, the gravel loose and shifting beneath the soles of his wingtips. Standing beside the open door of the Mercury, he hesitated, considered not going into the market after all, folding himself back into the car and driving away. He could return home, stop long enough to collect his wife but leave everything else behind. There were other places for them to live besides Cottonwood. The town pulled at them, greedy and unrelenting, demanding more from his family than it had any right to take. Somewhere else, things could be better. Somewhere else, there might be another way.
Instead, Michael closed the door, waited for Sean to walk around the rear of the vehicle and join him on the driver’s side. Behind them, along Gas Point Road, the traffic was light. A battered Ford pickup backfired once as it drove past, heading toward the highway, its brake lights winking as it approached the access ramp. On the opposite side of the street, a man in a tan jacket hustled across the empty pavement in its wake.
“Pick out a flavor,” Michael said as they headed inside.
“How about two?” Sean asked, hopeful.
“Two then,” he replied, “but make one of them strawberry for your mother. And get some coffee and sugar while you’re back there.” His right hand went to the breast pocket of his shirt, fingers retrieving his pack of Camels, tapping one out, placing it in the corner of his mouth. “Evening, Stan.”
“Michael,” Stan Eddleworth greeted him from behind the counter and stubbed out his own cigarette in the ashtray on the shelf to his left. The man turned, placed his thick hands on the glass in front of him. At sixty-two, Stan had hair that was more silver than gray, the metallic sheen enhanced by his styling pomade and the pale, granite blue eyes that seemed to observe the world through a light haze of smoke. The market’s proprietor leaned forward, his posture canted to the right, his good leg supporting most of his weight. He’d lost the other one during the First World War, a casualty of infection from his time in the trenches. What was left of it merged with a wood and leather prosthesis just south of the knee. If the leg bothered him, as Michael imagined it must, Stan never mentioned it. And despite the black wooden stool behind the counter, he always seemed to stand, keeping vigil, a remnant perhaps of the duties he’d been relieved of long ago.
“How’s Kate?” Stan asked, glancing toward the back of the store where Sean had gone to fetch the ice cream.
“Doing well, thanks,” Michael said, snapping his lighter closed and returning it to his pocket. He inhaled deeply, tilted his head upward slightly as he blew out a thin train of smoke. He turned to study the rack of newspapers, picked up a copy of the Chronicle—eisenhower signs communist control act the headline read—and placed it on the counter. “Shame we need a law,” he commented, tapping the paper.
Stan nodded. “Hoover says it’ll just force subversives deeper into hiding—make the FBI’s job more difficult.”
“Right. But now Senator Watkins and his committee are taking a hard look at McCarthy. Ike must be happy about that.”
Sean emerged from the aisle with two cartons of ice cream in hand, the coffee and sugar balanced on top. He set them down on the counter and walked over to the rack of comics in the shop’s entryway. A dying glimmer of sunlight spilled through the door’s window, illuminating the back of the boy’s head, a hint of scalp visible beneath the dusky blond crew cut, the tan neck bent slightly to study the illustrated covers.
“Is he back in school yet?” Stan asked, and Michael returned his attention to the man in front of him.
“Supposed to start up again tomorrow. Me too,” he added, thinking of the roster of students he’d been assigned at Anderson Union High this year, how the first few weeks were always a struggle against the inertia that had set in over two months of summer vacation. “It’ll be fifth grade for Sean. Seems hard to believe.”
And Danny? Stan could’ve a
“That’ll be a dollar eighty-two,” Stan said from behind the register. Michael blinked, and looked up at the store owner. Stan smiled back at him blandly. The two cartons of ice cream, coffee, sugar, and a newspaper sat waiting in a brown paper bag. In the parking lot outside, a car ignition turned over irritably a few times before springing to life.
The cogs of the Ferris wheel turned, lifted them into the night. Kiss her before it’s too late, Michael thought to himself. Hold on to this girl in the pale blue dress and the thrum of her heartbeat against your ribs. Let her know that she’s yours.
He dug into his back pocket for his wallet, retrieved it, and pulled out two singles. “Sean, do you want a comic?” he asked, turning toward the shop’s entrance.
The last syllable of his sentence ended as a click in the back of his throat. From the parking lot outside, he could hear tires on gravel—not slowing to a stop, but speeding up, spinning slightly as the driver gunned the engine.
“Sean?” Michael called, taking a step toward the door and the abandoned rack of comics, his tongue suddenly dry and gritty.
“Think he went outside,” Stan commented, his voice sounding alien and distorted in the small confines of the store.
Tiny beads of sweat erupted from Michael’s upper back and forearms as the pieces came together in his mind. The man in the tan jacket crossing the street, heading in the direction of the parking lot. Danny in the backseat of the car, gazing out the open window as he waited for them to return. The engine starting. The spin of tires on gravel. And Sean, standing here less than a minute ago. But now . . .
“Sean!” Michael said again, this time more urgent as he strode toward the exit and shoved the door open.
It swung outward and Michael stepped into the nearly empty lot, looked left and then right. His car was nowhere in sight. The world had taken on the soft golden shimmer of dusk. He could hear light traffic on Interstate 5, folks heading north to Redding or into the mountains upstate, south to Red Bluff or even Sacramento. One of those cars is mine, he thought, the shock worming its way through his system like something rancid he’d inadvertently swallowed. One of those cars is a liberty blue Mercury with a cigarette burn in the front passenger seat and at least one of my boys in the back.
He hadn’t heard Stan’s lurching footsteps behind him, the shoe on the prosthetic limb always sounding different—more hollow—from the other. A hand touched his shoulder and Michael jumped, turning quickly.
“Where’s your boy?” Stan asked, more as a statement than a question. The owner and sole custodian of Century Grocery had put things together almost as quickly as Michael.
“Give me the keys to your car,” Michael said, “and then call Jim Kent. Tell him to close the highway if he can—a roadblock, something. Tell him my car’s been stolen and that Sean and Danny have been taken along with it. It’s a blue 1950 Mercury Eight. Got that?”
“Yeah,” Stan responded, reaching into his right front pocket for his keys. He slapped them into Michael’s hand, turned, and hobbled back inside as fast as his awkward gait would carry him.
Michael sprinted for the Bel Air and yanked open the driver’s door. He threw himself behind the wheel, cranked the ignition, backed away from the building, and then dropped the car into gear and stomped on the accelerator. The rear tires spun on the gravel as he turned the wheel hard to the right, crossed the parking lot, and shot out onto Gas Point Road. He was going too fast for the southbound entrance to the interstate, but he took it anyway, the car sliding dangerously across the lane.
The Bel Air merged with the interstate and hurtled toward the town of Red Bluff fifteen miles to the south. Michael gripped the wheel and pushed the six-cylinder engine as hard as it would go. His blanched knuckles were miniature apparitions in the gathering darkness of the car, hovering along the edge of his line of sight as he stared through the windshield at the road ahead. The steering wheel shuddered in his hands as he topped ninety miles per hour, and his lips—pinched tightly together—began to loosen and then move in a silent prayer, the desperate murmurings of a terrified parent, insanity itself closing in around him.
It was 8:06 p.m. And both of his boys . . . were gone.
2
Jim Kent stood near the sink in the McCrays’ small kitchen, his police utility belt pressing into the small of his lower back as he leaned against the counter. The cup of coffee Michael had handed him an hour ago remained untouched, even though his body would have benefited from the caffeine. He’d been up all night, coordinating efforts with the California Highway Patrol and the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department. He had taken statements from both Michael and Stan Eddleworth, and scoured the streets in a mix of hope and desperation for several hours before meeting up with the two Shasta County detectives at daybreak and returning to the McCrays’ residence to update the parents.
On any other Tuesday morning, Jim might be soldering a pipe joint or snaking a toilet trap. A plumber by trade, he’d inherited his father’s business and had kept it running and in the black for the past forty years. Now that he was sixty-five, his police work was a side interest, a diversion. The town of Cottonwood was too small for an actual force of its own, and too poor to pay for something they didn’t need on a regular basis. Still, there were times like this when the necessity for law enforcement arose. It was good to have someone who wasn’t an outsider, someone who’d lived here long enough to know what they were dealing with. And so Jim had taken on the position of sheriff the same way his brother, Abe, had served with the Cottonwood Fire Department for the past twenty years. His work was as needed and free of charge.
It was different for the men in front of him. At the table, Detective John Pierce ran an open palm across his broad forehead. He leaned forward in his chair, thick forearms coming to rest on the lacquered wooden surface. His partner, Detective Tony DeLuca, was seated to his left, jotting down notes on a flip pad he kept at the ready. The parents sat on the other side of the table: Michael, perched on the edge of his chair, body rigid, the muscles of his clenched jaw working rhythmically beneath the skin; and Kate in a wool sweater despite the early heat of the day, her arms wrapped so tightly around her body that, from his vantage point, Jim could see that her fingertips were almost touching at the spine. It was hard for him to look at that. How much weight had she lost over the past few years? he wondered. How much more could she possibly afford to lose before her body stopped functioning altogether? He didn’t know, and didn’t like to think about it. She’d been beautiful once, though; he remembered that. Was it the boy or the town or the disease itself that took that away from her? Maybe it was just dumb luck, or the hand of God telling another one of his faithful in Cottonwood that their time had come. When he really thought about it, it didn’t make much of a difference. Twelve hours ago, the children had been here, sitting at this very table. Now they were gone. For the time being, whatever disease was eating away at Kate McCray from the inside didn’t matter. Getting those boys back did. That was what he should focus on.
“Here’s what we have so far,” Detective Pierce said, looking back and forth between the parents, Kate never lifting her eyes to meet his, Michael’s expression so intense that Jim wondered whether he was truly hearing any of this.
“We managed to establish roadblocks fairly quickly to the south,” Pierce told them. “Interstate 5 and Route 99 are the major thoroughfares heading toward Sacramento, and we already had cars along those stretches at the time of the . . . at the time your children were taken. The store owner, Mr. Eddleworth, contacted Sheriff Kent here within two minutes of the incident. The sheriff wasted no time in notifying the state police, and roadblocks were set up sixty miles south of here within twenty minutes. It’s extremely unlikely this guy got past them.”
Pierce touched his wedding band with the thumb and index finger of his right hand, turning it slowly back and forth as he spoke. “Side streets were closed down or patrolled, and we were also able to establish road blocks on Route 36 east and west of Red Bluff. It took a little longer—fifty minutes to be exact—to position a car along Interstate 5 to the north at Mount Shasta. But it’s seventy-four miles between Cottonwood and Mount Shasta. In order to make it past that point before the roadblock was in place, your Mercury Eight would’ve had to be traveling at a hundred and twelve miles an hour through twisty mountainous terrain.”
