Through this exchange, Davey kept quiet, but made sure his chin was up and shoulders back. He sensed another challenge coming his way and he meant to greet it head-on.
“Well, Ashley’s brother can barely dress himself, and he’s older than Davey. Is that what you’re learning? How to dress yourself?”
Not detecting any direct insults or threats, Melanie tuned out the question and returned to opening her mail.
“Did you?” Susan asked again. “Are you too dumb to answer?”
“Susan…” Melanie warned.
Davey looked up and raised his eyebrows at his sister. After swallowing his mouthful, he shrugged slightly. “Whatever,” he said.
“Oh my god,” said Susan. “You’re so retarded.”
“Susan!” Melanie raised her voice. “You could join your brother at the Career Center. Would you like that?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” said Susan. “You’ve already paid for my dance class and it’s non-refundable.”
“Keep testing me,” started Melanie, “and you’ll find out what I’ll do.”
Susan sensed truth behind the threat and shut her mouth without rebuttal. Scoring a minor victory, Melanie pressed forward. “Now apologize to your brother.”
Susan glared at Davey for several seconds before her one-word apology. “Sorry,” she said. As she spoke the word, Davey was lifting his fork with another bite of potatoes. Under the table, Susan pulled her foot back and kicked out at Davey’s shin. The velocity of her hard-shoed foot was savage, despite the day of dancing class. Davey never took his eyes from the calendar and didn’t slow the fork to his mouth, but quickly pulled his legs back, out of the way of the unseen kick.
Susan cried out as her foot connected with the hard table leg instead of her soft brother’s.
Unfolding a bill, Melanie hardly seemed to notice. “What’s wrong, honey?” she asked.
“Nothing,” said Susan, tightening her mouth to a thin line. She shot Davey another glare, but he never met her gaze.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Mike
“HELLO?”
“Morris? I think it’s him. Did you hear about the guy near Sebago?” Mike asked the phone.
“I’ll call you back,” said Morris.
Mike clicked off his phone and turned up the volume on his television. The reports lacked any real detail, but the hair stood up on the back of his neck and his instinct screamed that there was a connection. Since mid-morning, the local stations had been reporting on yet another murder in the area. According to Mike’s improving mapping skills, this new one made perfect sense in the chain that he and Morris had tracked earlier.
When the phone rang Mike nearly jumped off the couch.
“Morris?” he asked before he even had the phone all the way to his ear.
“It’s not him,” said Morris.
“What? How can you be sure?”
“I talked to my cousin,” he said. “My other cousin,” he clarified. “Says the MO is totally different. The guy was connected to some shady stuff. Someone broke through the window, took the guy off into the woods, cut him up, and buried him. This guy used tools and wore boots. They’ve ruled out a connection.”
“But its right in line,” said Mike. “How many times is someone killed around here? It’s got to be our guy. Did you find out when it happened? If it was more than a day or two ago, our guy is probably almost to the coast by now.”
“I heard it was earlier today,” said Morris. “Just a fluke that they found him so quick. If it was our guy, then he would be moving much slower than before.”
“How did they find him so fast then?” asked Mike, unwilling to renounce his suspicion.
“Don’t know,” said Morris, starting to return to his regular, more taciturn self.
“You want to go out there? See what we can find?” asked Mike.
“Nope,” said Morris. “You haven’t even paid for my gas for last time.”
“I know, I’m sorry about that,” said Mike. “Like I said, I haven’t had a chance to go to the bank, but I will really soon. You’ll get it as soon as I’ve got it.”
“Tell you what,” said Morris. “You bring by money, and we’ll go track.”
“Seriously?” Mike asked the phone, pulling it away from his head to look at it. He found it impossible to believe that Morris wasn’t as intrigued as he was at the prospect of tracking down the elusive giant. “You must want to know what this thing is?”
“Not enough to waste my time for no pay,” said Morris.
“Okay, whatever,” Mike sighed. “Thanks anyway.”
“Get my money,” said Morris.
Mike heard the phone disconnect with a click. He returned his concentration to the television and wondered how he could find the location of the latest crime. The report gave precious few details, and nobody yet on the scene. They settled for updates every thirty minutes from a reporter behind a desk in the studio. A generic map of the area took up the other half of the screen.
He muted the television again and picked up the thickest book from his coffee table. History of local tribes was maddeningly sparse, but he had collected the best information available from the local libraries. As the indigenous people were overrun with colonizing immigrants, their rich oral history had been twisted and discarded. He sought information on the mythology of local tribes, but most of the legends he read were contradicted, sometimes just pages later in the same book.
He snapped shut the book and slammed it down on the table.
Snatching his keys, he stood up, pulled down the biggest map from the wall and headed out to his car. Mike spent the rest of the day in his car, until his back had sweated through to the seat and then dried again in the cool evening air. He drove from one side of the state to the other, starting in the west, near where he and Morris had left off, and continued east until he found himself back at the dam where Gary and Katie had helped him stake out the woman from the water.
He sat on the hood of his car and looked over the flowing water at dusk. After losing his friend, job, and his financial independence, Mike had latched onto the idea of redeeming his work and himself through tracking down this mysterious killer. At first he’d felt that it was his duty to Gary’s memory to finish the detective work that Gary had started.
I should’ve stuck to my day job, thought Mike.
For several years, Mike had split his time between working as a geneticist and investigating paranormal activity. Both obsessions stemmed from the death of his brother, and a deep desire to prove his worthiness to his dead parents.
Mike walked through the timeline of his own childhood. His family had been doomed to tragedy. When he was seven years old, riding his bike down a quiet suburban sidewalk, he had been struck by a swerving van and thrown into a tree. His spine had nearly been severed, and his family had endured several months of caring for Mike while his body lay in a motionless coma. Years passed before Mike’s young life returned to normal. His parents rearranged every aspect of their lives to accommodate his various therapies and expenses.
Even at his ninth birthday, Mike understood the dynamic of his family. Their parents worked tirelessly to guarantee that Mike had every chance for a full recovery, and shielded him from anything or anyone that would make him feel strange or burdensome. If Mike had been an only child, their careful act would have been perfectly convincing, but his parents also had Charlie. Younger, mischievous, independent, and healthy, Charlie was almost ignored for the years of Mike’s recovery. Although their energy and money was consistently directed to Mike, he could feel their silent devotion to Charlie. His little brother was the unsung hero of the family, oblivious to any injustice in being the younger brother of an accident victim.