Every Dead Thing

The screen door was opened and a small, slim woman appeared at the top of the steps. She was about thirty, with delicate features and lush dark hair drawn back in a ponytail from her light coffee-colored skin. Yet as we stepped from the car and drew nearer, I could see her skin was pitted with scars, probably from childhood acne. She seemed to recognize Woolrich for, before we said anything, she held the door open so I could step inside. Woolrich didn’t follow. I turned back toward him.

“You coming in?”

“I didn’t bring you here, if anyone asks, and I don’t even want to see her,” he said. He took a seat on the porch and rested his feet on the rail, watching the water gleam in the sunlight.

Inside, the wood was dark and the air cool. Doors at either side opened into bedrooms and a formal-looking living room with old, obviously hand-carved furniture, simple but carefully and skillfully crafted. An ancient radio with an illuminated dial and a band dotted with the names of far-flung places played a Chopin nocturne. The music followed me through the house and into the last bedroom, where the old woman waited.

She was blind. Her pupils were white, set in a huge moon face from which rolls of fat hung to her breastbone. Her arms, visible through the gauze sleeves of her multicolored dress, were bigger than mine and her swollen legs were like the trunks of small trees ending in surprisingly small, almost dainty, feet. She sat, supported by a mountain of pillows, on a giant bed in a room lit only by a hurricane lamp, the drapes closed against the sunlight. She was at least three hundred and fifty pounds, I guessed, probably more.

“Sit down, chile,” she said, taking one of my hands in her own and ru

“I know why you here,” she said. Her voice was high, girlish, as if she were a huge speaking doll whose tapes had been mixed up with a smaller model. “You hurtin’. You burnin’ inside. Little girl, you woman, they gone.” In the dim light, the old woman seemed to crackle with hidden energy.

“Tante, tell me about the girl in the swamp, the girl with no eyes.”

“Poor chile,” said the old woman, her brow furrowing in sorrow. “She the fust here. She was ru

She turned her eyes toward me for the first time and I realized she was not blind, not in any way that mattered. As her hands traced the lines of my palm, my eyes closed and I felt that she had been there with the girl in her final moments, that she might even have brought her some comfort as the blade went about its business. “Hush, chile, you come with Tante now. Hush, chile, take my hand, you. He done hurtin’ you now.”

As she touched me, I heard and felt, deep within myself, the blade cutting, grating, separating muscle from joint, flesh from bone, soul from body, the artist working on his canvas; and I felt pain dancing through me, arcing through a fading life like a lightning flash, welling like the notes of a hellish song through the unknown girl in the Louisiana swamp. And in her agony I felt the agony of my own child, my own wife, and I was certain that this was the same man. Even as the pain faded to its last for the girl in the swamp, she was in darkness and I knew he had blinded her before he killed her.

“Who is he?” I said.

She spoke, and in her voice there were four voices: the voices of a wife and a daughter, the voice of an old obese woman on a bed in a wine-dark room, and the voice of a nameless girl who died a brutal, lonely death in the mud and water of a Louisiana swamp.

“He the Travelin’ Man.”

Walter shifted in his chair and the sound of his spoon against the china cup was like the ringing of chimes.

“No,” I said. “I didn’t find him.”

4

WALTER HAD BEEN silent for a while, the whiskey now almost drained from his glass. “I need a favor. Not for me but for someone else.”

I waited.

“It has to do with the Barton Trust.”

The Barton Trust had been founded in his will by old Jack Barton, an industrialist who made his fortune by supplying parts for the aeronautical industry after the war. The trust provided money for research into child-related issues, supported pediatric clinics, and generally provided child-care money that the state would not. Its nominal head was Isobel Barton, old Jack’s widow, although the day-to-day ru

I knew all this because Walter did some fund-raising for the trust on occasion-raffles, bowling tournaments-and also because, some weeks before, the trust had entered the news for all the wrong reasons. During a charity fete held on the grounds of the Barton house on Staten Island, a young boy, Evan Baines, had disappeared. In the end, no trace of the boy had been found and the cops had pretty much given up hope. They believed he had somehow strayed from the grounds and been abducted. It merited some mention in the newspapers for a time and then was gone.

“Evan Baines?”

“No, at least I don’t think so, but it may be a missing person. A friend of Isobel Barton, a young woman, seems to have gone missing. It’s been a few days and Mrs. Barton’s worried. Her name’s Catherine Demeter. Nothing to link her with the Baines disappearance; she hadn’t even met the Bartons at that point.”

“Bartons plural?”

“Seems she was dating Stephen Barton. You know anything about him?”

“He’s an asshole. Apart from that, he’s a minor drug pusher for So

Walter’s brow furrowed. “How long have you known about this?” he asked.

“Can’t remember,” I replied. “Gym gossip.”

“Jesus, don’t tell us anything we might find useful. I’ve only known since Tuesday.”

“You’re not supposed to know,” I said. “You’re the police. Nobody tells you things you’re supposed to know.”

“You used to be a cop too,” Walter muttered. “You’ve picked up some bad habits.”

“Gimme a break, Walter. How do I know who you’re checking up on? What am I supposed to do, go to confession to you once a week?” I poured some hot coffee into my cup. “Anyway, you think there might be a co

“It’s possible,” said Walter. “The feds were tracking Stephen Barton for a while, maybe a year ago, before he was supposed to have started seeing Catherine Demeter. They were chasing their tails with that kid, so they let it go. According to the Narcotics file she doesn’t seem to have been involved, at least not openly, but what do they know? Some of them still think a crack pipe is something a plumber fixes. Maybe she could have seen something she wasn’t supposed to see.”

His face betrayed how lame he thought the link was, but he left me to voice it. “C’mon, Walter, steroids and minor coke? There’s money in it but it’s strictly Little League compared to the rest of Ferrera’s business. If he knocked off someone over musclehead drugs, then he’s even more stupid than we know he is. Even his old man thinks he’s the result of a defective gene.”

Ferrera senior, sick and decrepit but still a respected figure, had been known to refer to his only son as “that little prick” on occasion. “Is that all you’ve got?”

“As you say, we’re the police. No one tells us anything useful,” he replied dryly.

“Did you know So

Walter stood up, waving his empty glass in front of his face and smiling for the first time that evening. “No. No, I didn’t. I’m not sure I wanted to know, either. What the hell are you, his urologist?” He glanced over at me as he reached for the Redbreast. I waved my fingers in a gesture of disregard that went no farther than my wrist.