September 15th, 2016. 3:40PM
Burlwood, Indiana
"As much as I want to believe it," the voice of Clyde Rambo said through the speakers of the Malibu, "I think that's just a little far-fetched to be reality."
Jake nodded in response, a reply that the former sheriff couldn't hear, which was largely intentional. He'd dialed Rambo as soon as he pulled away from the Elsmere County clink, already not sure whether or not he believed the story of Timothy Lane being stored in the Our Mother Of Sorrows cooler for nearly two months. He wanted Clyde's unbiased opinion of the tale, though, which he wouldn't get thoroughly if he suggested that he was unconvinced of the details himself.
"We know that he had been frozen for a time, then defrosted just before he was -- discarded," Rambo continued. "So it fits a little, but as I understand it, there was a ton of people in and out of Father Lovett's walk-in on a daily or weekly basis. I'm talking the cook, volunteers, Lovett himself, a lot of folks. The idea that Timmy was in there all that time and nobody saw him... I just don't think it's possible, Jake."
"On the same hand," Jake replied, "I don't know that Chucky knew or understood that Timmy's remains had been frozen. That's what's got me wondering, I guess, because I'm not sure he's sharp enough to put two and two together with the delay between his abduction and the discovery of his remains."
"So you think that lends credence to it being true?" Rambo wondered.
"I guess I'm not terribly sure," Jake admitted. "Is it possible that Rusty stored him in a freezer -- either at the church or otherwise -- then smuggled him into the cooler at the last minute, just before it was time to do the deed?"
"He definitely didn't sneak him in there at any point after maybe the day Timmy went missing," Rambo offered. "I was on that man like stink on a monkey at all times save for a few minutes after Timmy disappeared until sometime late the next morning. I watched him go to work everyday, his hands empty every time, and I watched him go home in the same condition."
"And you're sure nothing happened off of your watch? You had to sleep sometime, you had to deal with other business at some point during the day! Can you be sure the feds were watching as well as you were?"
"Look, Jake," Rambo objected with a change in tone, "I've already explained to you that there was a formal changing of the guard between myself and federal agents watching that man every time I left him except for the moments after Timmy was taken. I reported to the church before my relief arrived, and maybe that was a fatal mistake so far as Timmy was concerned, I don't know. Beyond that, though, there is no chance in hell that the man was able to sneak anything into that church from the moment the feds got back on him until several years after the crime. I'm positive of that."
"He managed to sneak Timmy out of the somewhere, that much seems obvious!" Jake jabbed. "And he managed to spread him around The Meadows pretty easily too!"
"I'm still not convinced that's what happened," Clyde countered. "If you want to believe that he somehow got Timmy in the church van and then pitched him out the window a bit at a time or something while they were delivering charity meals, you go on ahead and believe that. I, for one, find the whole thing hard to swallow."
"Were you watching when they delivered the food?"
There was a grunt on the other end of the line that answered the question, but Rambo was man enough to verbalize a response afterwards. "No, it was Thanksgiving. I was home with Louie, it would've been the feds at that point."
"So it is possible?" Jake asked. "Rusty could've dumped Timmy's remains while they made their rounds."
A pause and a sigh came before the answer to this question, and it was very evident that the words the former sheriff did speak were difficult and almost painful for him to mutter. "I suppose it's possible, but I don't believe it for a minute. I also don't understand how this changes anything now, you've seen the condition that Parker is in today. I don't know that he's fit to be subduing small children."
"Do you know of anyone he associated with back in the old days? Anyone that may've helped him? Is it possible that Ron Boudreaux helped him?"
"Oh no," Rambo objected, "no, no no. Anything you're thinking, know this much; Ron Boudreaux had nothing to do with those murders, there's no way in hell. Trust me, we knew about his Voodoo curiosity, we took a look. It would've been impossible for him to have been involved and been in all the places he was with us during the times that things went down. Throw that one out right away, because that one is a loser."
"You sound pretty convinced," Jake replied.
"I'm positive! Of all the things Ron Boudreaux might be, an accomplice of The Butcher he was not, I promise you. So far as Rusty goes, so far as I saw, he didn't associate with anyone. He went to work, he went home -- everyday -- without change, without fail. Once every week or so, he went shopping. He never went to the bar, he never met with a woman, he never solicited a prostitute, he did nothing beyond the very basic activities that any normal person would call basic living."
"Bottom line, though, is it your opinion that there's no way Rusty had Timmy Lane's remains in that cooler as Chucky said he did?"
"I want to pin it on Rusty as badly as you do, Jake, but I just don't see how something like that would be possible given the circumstances."
"Okay, fair enough," Jake said, realizing he largely agreed with the former sheriff. The story was a stretch, but why would Chucky make something like that up? At best, it meant someone was helping Rusty who needed to be located and questioned. At worst, the whole thing was bullshit and a deflection of some sort... but was Chucky intelligent enough to devise such a deflection? Did he have it in him to make something like that up?
"What's your next step?" Rambo asked, trying to peek inside of Jake's investigation.
"I've got a couple of ideas," Jake replied, "there are a few things I want to check out."
"Feel free to call if you have anymore questions," Rambo volunteered. "And if you run into Louie anywhere, tell him to give me a call. I've been trying to reach him for something I'm working on, and he won't answer his phone or return my messages."
"I will, but he doesn't answer for me either," Jake advised.
"Strange. That's not like him." Rambo said. "Let me know if you come up with anything."
"Yes sir," Jake said, pressing the red button on his steering wheel to end the call.
Shaking his head at everything that had transpired so far on this day, he made a turn and took the car in the direction of what he told Rambo he wanted to check out. It wasn't a new lead, it wasn't a fresh piece of evidence, it wasn't anything related to Billy Marsh at all. It was fourteen-forty Applewood... the home of Nikki Spencer.
Given everything that he'd seen, heard, thought and considered over the past several days, he had no appetite to continue in his investigation. What's more, he had no idea where to go with his investigation from this point. Everything he'd looked into had proven to be a dead end or less than viable possibility, every dark corner he'd exposed to the light had shown little of promise when it came to solving the case of who killed Burlwood's last fallen child.
What was he to do next? Knock on everyone in town's door and ask the people he found whether or not they actively aided Rusty Parker in the murder of six children in the nineties? Ask them if they perpetrated a new crime in the present tense as some twisted nostalgic throwback?
Frankly, that's about where he was...
That was about all he had...
He couldn't go back to Rusty and confront him with Chucky's charges, because Rusty had run him out his home on Confederate Way after he lost his cool during their last visit. The man had threatened to call the cops, which meant Ron Boudreaux, which meant arrest on multiple charges per the warning he'd given when this entire odyssey began.
He had no idea or clue as to who any accomplice might've been, no hint as to where he should look to find him. So it was knocking on doors he was left with to that end, either that or di
gging into the business dealings of FGSI Services -- a wholly owned subsidiary of one Sheriff Ron Boudreaux -- to find out who Rusty had dealings with on a business angle. Based on what he'd seen at Miss Fergusons' place, it seemed that organization was a front for the new sheriff's continued meth operation. For one reason or another, Rusty was on the dole of that group based on the paperwork he'd taken from the man's kitchen table. Maybe he'd seen something he shouldn't have and had to be cut in on the action, maybe he'd been involved somehow, but he was on the payroll. And so what? What did that have to do with the proverbial price of tea? Sure, a business acquaintance could just as well have been a partner in crime, but being linked to such a person under the umbrella of FGSI meant that Sheriff Boudreaux likely knew the person just as well. Was it possible that Deputy Ron would let the slaying of children pass right by under his nose without taking some kind of action? He was a criminal, but was he capable of something so foul as that?
Maybe... and maybe he put some of his alleged Voodoo tactics to work in the commission of old crimes. Sure, that was plausible... but there was no feasible way to investigate such possibilities and remain a free and breathing man in the county on Elsmere.
Giving each option he had full and complete consideration, he decided on none of the above.
Feeling like shit, feeling the arms of depression wrapping around him like a constricting boa, feeling his control slipping through his fingers, he decided he was going to see Nikki... final answer. It was only a matter of minutes after he hung up with Rambo that he pulled up in front of her place, his mind churning and heaving with doubts and uncertainties, both related to his case and his life in general. As he walked up to the door, he heard Nick Swete's voice booming in his ears.
I know she loves you, Champ... he said.
But she didn't. Not anymore.
Neither did he. He hadn't in a long time.
Nor did he love his breath, nor did he love the beating of his heart, nor did he love the sensation of the wind blowing through his hair as he knocked and the resident promptly opened her door to him, opened her home to him, opened her heart to him. There was no love for her in him either, only some subconscious longing for things that could never be, things that would never be. There was love for an illusion, for an idea with no substance in the reality that surrounded him, for a farce that offered some form of respite from the slings and arrows that assaulted him each time his lungs filled with air.
"You're back!" She said with a smile, reaching for him and swallowing him in a hug as powerful as the vicelike grip of that boa coiling around his throat. It wasn't forceful really, in fact it was quite gentle and serene, but it was powerful to him nonetheless.
He said nothing, just stepped into the trailer behind her once she'd let go and fell back into her home, urging him in with her eyes. The air was artificially warm inside, and it felt like a slice of Heaven. Like a limited release trailer for a film he would never be allowed to see. Like a glimpse of what could be if he was anyone other than himself. Like a peek into a realm in which he was never destined to tread.
Floating on a cloud of false affections, he hovered to her couch and willed himself to sit. She watched him from a short distance, wondering why he didn't speak but knowing all the while as he silently sat. She had the intuition to know what he wanted, but to give it without asking was a violation of his condition. A concession to the lies of a tormented mind.
Seeing her just waiting, he also knew what kept her still. She wanted to make him work it out, to force his hand in reaching out for things beyond his grasp. She wanted him to walk in the world of the living. To exist when that was the last thing he wished to do. She would make him ask for what he wanted, force him to express what stirred within him.
"Will you sit with me?" He said finally, longingly and in submission, looking up at her with puppy eyes.
Having heard the cue, having been asked for help, she reached out and wrapped her hands around the underside of his thighs. His cooperation was necessary in scooping his legs off of the floor and swiveling him where he sat, laying him down and placing his feet up on the far end of the couch. She gently took his shoes off to make him more comfortable, then set them down just as softly on the floor beside the end table.
His legs spread in a v, she carefully placed her knee between them and lowered her body down until her stomach was in contact with his crotch. Placing the second leg and then stretching both out, she was resting with the side of her face to his chest and just a bit of her weight pressing down on him. With her ear near his heart and lungs, she heard him take a deep and relaxing breath. Soon, the rhythm of his life slowed to a steady beat of tranquility that pumped in perfect time. Realizing that she was helping him, she closed her eyes and smiled. The flow of peace overcame her in giving just as it did to him in receiving, and together they rode an ebb of calm tides.
They sat that way for several minutes, each of them silent in their serenity, each of them calmed and reassured. They could've stayed that way forever if not for the needs of the human body, and neither would've objected to the loss of everything else that encompasses life and living. The moment was perfection, the moment was pure, the moment was sweet. But, like all good things, this zen was fated to end for them eventually. Hoping to make it more, hoping to take it deeper, Nikki finally killed their silence in a hushed and intimate voice.
"Is everything okay?" She asked.
Jake's heart pumped harder in her ears as he was pulled briefly from the moment, and the bass of his voice rattled through her body as he replied "it is right now."
"What's happening in your life?" She inquired sweetly, though the words were violent probes that exploded in his mind.
His soul retreating behind the tall and formidable walls he'd built to protect it in his past, he drew another deep breath and tried to shut her out. "I'd rather not talk about it," he said plainly.
This answer lifted her head from his chest and turned it to look into his eyes, hoping for another round of symbiotic osmosis like the ones that they'd enjoyed so many of since they'd first met only several days ago.
"Why won't you let me in?" She whispered, seeing his defenses rise in the constricting of his pupils.
"In where?" He asked with a note of muted hostility.
"In here," she said, caressing his forehead. "Or here," she seconded, placing her palm on his heart.
"Because," he began slowly, introspectively, "you don't want to be in. There's nothing good to see in, there's nothing you want to be associated with in. It's just better that you stay out."
"Better for who?" She wondered. "For me? Or for you?"
"For both," he answered.
His reply irritated her, but she squashed her negative response to his repellence and tried to maintain the peace in the atmosphere. Placing her head back on his chest, she dug it in to let him feel her there.
He did feel her, even before she made an effort of it. The warmth of her body soothed him, a fire spreading from just below his neck, where she started, to that place between his legs, where it grew to an inferno of desire that he had to fight to keep control of.
She felt him as well, just as she had several times before. From top to bottom, from beginning to end, she felt him. There was nothing inside of him that would scare her away, she knew that full well. She'd seen more than he knew, her age and general sense of innocence, if that's what he saw, was a farce that didn't mean anything at all. Letting her in would not chase her away... letting her in would sink the hook.
So far as what was happening between his legs, he wouldn't let her in there either, and she saw no point in petitioning for entrance to another place that he did and didn't want her to be all at once. He'd shut all the doors, at least for the moment, most certainly including the sexual one. She could bring him temporary respite through affection, she could provide him shelter in the storm... but he would let her do no more, he would let her be no mor
e to him. Not now... not yet.
Lifting her head slightly once more, she placed a set of kisses on either side of his neck. After the second, she moved her mouth close to his ear and spoke in notes that shook his soul in a shiver that moved down his spine. "I'll be here when you need me, baby."
When the words were spoken, he wanted to thank her. He wanted to let her in, be that in his mind, his heart, or his pants. For the time being, though, he just couldn't... because he was afraid to go to any of those places himself. Each locale carried a load of baggage that he wasn't sure either one of them alone or the two of them united could bare. Each was condemned, in its own way, and forbidden to outsiders seeking entrance. The chambers were sealed, the water-tight bulkheads were secure. The wave would only come through upon his death, when all the barriers were shattered.
Then, he would be free...
Then, he would be whole.
Then, he would be open...
FIFTY-THREE