Injustice (47 page)

“No what?”

“No. I can't do it anymore. I'm done. I don't want to hear any more. I don't want to know any more.”

Nobody says anything. Maybe I was kind of shouting. They're surprised. After a few moments, conversation starts up again, but only on safe subjects. When we finish with dinner, I offer to help with dishes, but Flora says no. I kiss Lizzy and go home.

Lizzy calls a couple of days later. “About the other night,” she says. “How you said you don't want to hear any more. Maybe I've found something.”

I'm helpless to stop myself. She sounds excited. She wants to share something with me. I'm putty in her hands. “Found what?” I ask.

“I was thinking. Like I said before, what if it actually was Lukus County, and that's why it was never reported? What if they told people the kid died? What if they buried an empty coffin so nobody would know they just dumped him at the hospital?”

“But, Lizzy, the authorities—”

“What authorities? You've told me yourself . . .”

She's right. It was almost forty years ago: pre-Internet, pre–cell phone. There were even stories (though I don't know if they're true) of governmental officials going missing in the county.

“Lizzy, are you about to tell me you researched deaths?”

“I researched deaths in Lukus County. And guess what?”

“You found something.”

“I found something. A twenty-two-month-old boy, William C. Tunis, died on October thirteenth, 1978.”

“So?”

“So that's the day Henry was dropped at Milltown General.”

“It's a long shot, Liz, but even if you're right, what difference can it possibly make? Who cares?”

“I don't know,” she says softly. She's quiet. Then she says, “He was a human being before he was a killer—or a monster, as you call him. I just want to understand.”

“You can't understand. Nobody can understand.”

She's quiet again. I wait. Finally, she says, “I don't know.”

“What do you want to do with all this, Lizzy?”

“I don't know. Can we, like, dig up the coffin or something?”

“Not a chance. Even if we could find it, you've got no evidence, and there's no crime other than maybe falsifying a death certificate. You're just trying to satisfy your curiosity.”

“I guess,” she admits.

We hang up. A small part of me understands. With Lydia, with Kyle Runion, with Nathan Miller, with Henry, with Calvin Dunbar, we have glimpsed the horror. Now it's too hard to turn away. It beckons with the terrifying and alluring promise of some deeper understanding: just one peek; one tiny momentary glimpse through the fingers covering your eyes. How can you not look? And how can you not wonder what makes Henry so different? He suffered unspeakable cruelty. Some people's suffering propels them into noble battle against oppressors and inflictors of pain. Others, like Henry, perpetuate the anguish, visiting cruelty upon the world as it was visited upon them. I wonder what makes the difference. Apparently, Lizzy wonders, too.

On the pretext of advocating one way or the other in Henry's sentencing (though she herself is unaware that it is a pretext), Lizzy is digging much too deeply into the tragedy of Henry Tatlock. She should run away from it, not toward it. She should run for her life.

This time I don't hear from Lizzy for nearly a week. It's Saturday when she finally calls. I'm at a playground with Barnaby, sitting on the grass watching as he and a passel of other kids slide through the tubular slide and cross the hanging bridge and climb up into the turret.

“I've done more research,” Lizzy says.

“Why am I not surprised?”

“I've looked up a ton of stuff. Everyone is so nice. Court records. Vital stats. Even stuff like utility bills. So I've researched this William Tunis kid. And I found where they lived in Lukus County. Then this woman at the registry of deeds showed me how to research who owns what. If I did it right, the land has never been sold since way back then. Maybe someone still lives there.”

“Who? Maybe who lives where, Lizzy?”

“Tunis,” she says. “Whoever pretended to bury William Tunis—if he really was Henry.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to go see who lives there. See if there are any clues. See if they'll let us dig up the coffin. Maybe he's got family still living. Maybe they'd want to know about Henry.”

“Lizzy, stop and listen to yourself. It's probably just a fallen-down shack by now. And if anybody is there, the last thing in the world they want is to hear from you. They abandoned the kid and left him to die, for Christ's sake. If that's not enough,
nobody
wants to know they're related to someone like Henry Tatlock.”

“Will you come with me, Dad?”

“No, Liz. We've done enough. I can't—”

“Because Chip said he'll go with me if you don't want to.”

She plays dirty. How can I refuse to help her when her FBI-agent stepfather is willing? I agree to go along.

We combine the trip with a family cookout. Chip brings Flora and Lizzy. I take Kenny's truck with the canoe tied on top. Barnaby comes with me. We drive way out to the west side of the reservoir, nearly two hours from the city. We make a fire in one of the barbecue pits maintained by the state. We roast some corn and some hot dogs. We paddle the canoe around the reservoir after lunch.

It's a gorgeous day, and Barn is loving it, but it feels incomplete to me because Tina isn't with us. I invited her along, but she declined. “Just taking it slow,” she said. Things
are
better with Tina, though. I
think we're doing well, but she's still skittish, and the damn couples counselor seems to be calling the shots.

After lunch, Chip and I tie the canoe back on the rack. Flora takes Barnaby in her car, and they drive back to town while Lizzy, Chip, and I take the truck and go to snoop around Lukus County. We are looking for the former home of the long-deceased William Tunis, who, Lizzy believes, is alive and in prison under the name of Henry Tatlock. I drive while Liz navigates us southward through the windy web of dirt roads into the heart of Lukus County. This is really lousy land. What a tragedy it must have been for the Slippery River Valley farmers and settlers when the government closed the dam a hundred plus years ago. No wonder Lukus County is the way it is.

We pass shacks and trailers. We pass a sign for night crawlers and an old store that must have closed decades ago, the Coca-Cola sign still tacked to the siding. We pass engine blocks hanging from trees. A couple of times we have to stop and ask directions, even though Lizzy is consulting several maps in her lap. The roads seem aimless. There are no signs. We drive for an hour. Then we see a nearly unnoticeable road, barely more than a path, on the right.

“Wait,” Lizzy says. “I think that was it.”

I stop. We back up. She studies the map.

“Yes. I think it is,” she says. “It's called Red Shed Trail. Drive up here and see if it takes a ninety-degree turn to the left.”

It does.

“Drive a couple of miles. The house was on the left.”

I do as she says, and ten minutes later, we come to a rutted path on the left. It bends around an old burned-out foundation and disappears into the willows. The shrubs aren't fully leafed out yet, and through the thicket, I can make out a structure. It's a mobile home way back off the road.

“Lizzy, do you know if anyone lives here?” Chip asks.

“No. If someone does, it's probably not the right people.” She's studying the map again. The stack of research is on her lap, and she's
suddenly hesitant. She created something in her mind that she never really expected to take this far. She's recognizing the overwhelming illogic. I should have put a stop to it all long ago.

“May I?” I ask. I take a handful of papers from her lap and start thumbing through. Some of the documents are in legalese. We lawyers forget sometimes how different and precise our vocabulary is. For example, “negligent” means something much different than “neglectful” in the legal universe. And there are all the Latin terms we use: Res ipsa, arguendo, corpus delecti, et cetera. It is a language of its own.

One word that has a unique legal definition is “issue,” referring to someone's biological child (for example;
Baby Suzie is the minor issue of John and Mary Smith
). Many people are unaware of this definition. Most nineteen-year-old girls don't know it. Lizzy doesn't know it.

I'm looking at something that Lizzy has photocopied. The document isn't identified—just miscellaneous records about the Tunis family—and before I actually read the words, their meaning has registered in my mind:
Janet Tunis and her twin minor issue.

“Well,” Chip says. “Shall we?”

“Wait,” I say. I hand Chip the photocopy and point to the sentence. He studies it a second. He starts to say something. He stops.

“Lizzy,” I say, “the mother of the boy whose death notice you found: Was her name Janet Tunis?”

“I don't know,” she says. “I think so.” She senses the change in atmosphere. Chip has a hand over his mouth in disbelief.

“What's going on?” Liz asks.

I don't answer at first. I'm still thinking my way through.

“Tell me.”

It probably doesn't mean anything. Lizzy's whole theory is unstable:
If
Henry was from Lukus County;
if
he was dumped at the hospital and reported dead;
if
Janet Tunis was his mother;
if
the “twin minor issue” were identical and not fraternal . . .

“What is it?” she demands.

I show her the document and point to the phrase:
twin minor issue
.

“What does it mean?” she says.

“I'm not certain,” I say, “but what I think it means is that if you're right about Henry Tatlock being William C. Tunis, then Henry might have had a twin brother.”

I
f we were in town instead of here in the boonies, Chip would do a ton of investigating before making any move. The FBI could find out easily enough who lives here. But Chip
is
the FBI, and since we're already here, we decide to see what we can find out ourselves. We won't reveal anything. If somebody is home, we'll just ask for directions back to the interstate, or we'll pretend the truck is overheating and we need water, or we could say we're long-lost relatives of the Tunis family looking for genealogical information and maybe for directions to the cemetery to record gravestones.

That's it: genealogical information and directions.

I drive into the driveway. The place is tidy. It's relatively well kept, as trailer homes go. There's a car in the driveway. A yellow Lab barks twice and trots over to meet us with his tail going in circles. Chip and I get out. I tell Lizzy to stay in the car for now.

We have no grounds to search the place and no grounds to detain anybody. We don't even have grounds for suspicion. We don't know who lives here—we don't know much of anything. Our plan is to make conversation:
Hi, I'm Nick, and this is Chip. We're looking for genealogical information on the Tunis family
.

That's our plan, but the plan changes: I knock at the door. The Lab barks a few more times. We hear movement in the trailer, and through the silvery corrosion of the screen, I see a figure approach. It's a man, normal size, normal build.

“I'm coming,” he says. “Who is it? I'm coming.”

The door swings open. And I stand there gaping into the familiar face of Arthur Cunningham, whose dog supposedly found the body of Kyle Runion almost twenty miles from here.

A
rthur Cunningham was a keeper of mementos. He had locks of hair from Kyle Runion and Nathan Miller and two other boys. In the weeks before committing suicide in his jail cell, Arthur was quite forthcoming with state and federal agents who questioned him. He led them to the grave sites of the three other boys.