Secrets of the Hanged Man (Icarus Fell #3) (An Icarus Fell Novel) (10 page)

The bell rang, but Trevor didn’t move. He thought it possible he might be the only fifteen-year-old in the world who considered the end of the day the worst part of school. Not because he loved it the way the smart kids did, and not because he didn’t want to go home.

Like every day, today held a good chance Manny and his gang of wannabe thug friends awaited him.

The other students in Trevor’s socials class collected their books and spilled out of the classroom in a commotion of runners squeaking on linoleum, laughter, and Mr. Reeve calling after them to remember to do the questions on page forty-two. When they were gone, Trevor remained slouched at his desk while the teacher shuffled papers into his briefcase. Mr. Reeve looked at him over top of his glasses and put his hands on his hips.

“Mr. Fell, are you not telling me something?”

“
Uh, no. No, sir. What do you mean?”

He shook his head and pursed his lips. “I’ve never seen a student like you stay after class. Is everything all right at home?”

A student like me?

“
Yeah. Fine.”

“
Do you have a way home?”

“
Yeah.” Trevor sat up in his desk and collected his books, jammed them into his knapsack.

“
Then it must be my worst fear,” Mr. Reeve said. The expression on his face softened and he pursed his lips comically. “You have a crush on me.”

“
Uh, no. Definitely not.” Trevor stood and pulled one of the backpack’s straps over his shoulder. He liked his social sciences teacher, wanted to tell him about Manny and his gang, and Mr. Reeve was the kind of guy who’d believe him and take action, but there was no point. Anytime anyone tried to stop them or said anything, it made things worse.

“
I’m relieved,” the teacher said and went back to paper shuffling. “Whatever it is can’t be so bad. Run along and enjoy life.”

Enjoy life. Right.

Trevor left the classroom, his untied runners scuffing against the floor as he went. The hallway bustled with students sorting out their lockers and social lives, stowing books and texting friends. He slipped into the flow of teens, hoping to blend in and go unnoticed, and his plan worked fine until he got out the door.

Manny and his party of punks loitered at the edge of the school ground, smoking cigarettes and laughing. One of his cohorts, a kid they called Gonzo, though Trevor didn’t know if he got the name from Hunter S. Thompson or the character on the Muppet Show, noticed Trevor, slapped Manny on the shoulder, and pointed him out to the gang’s ringleader.

“Hey, Fell,” Manny bellowed across the school yard. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Trevor stopped with some distance between them, looked at them, then across the road at the park and back again.

If I can make it to the park, I might be able to lose them.

Trevor hesitated; fleeing might enrage Manny and make their bullying worse for him tomorrow. During his indecisive pause, the older boy gestured and his posse began making their way toward Trevor, cigarettes hanging defiantly from the corners of their mouths as their feet touched school property. Trevor’s legs took over before his brain had a chance to weigh the pros and cons, carrying him toward the park as fast as they could go on the muddy ground and with his loaded pack weighing him down. He bolted into the street and horns honked, tires squealed.

“Stupid kid,” someone yelled, but he didn’t look back or wave in apology.

He darted into the park, weaving his way between the other school kids also cutting through; they got out of the way when they saw him coming or, more likely, when they glimpsed the group chasing him.

Trevor hammered down the path toward the duck pond, the slap of runners heavy on the ground behind him. Ahead lay the willow tree overhanging the pond and beyond it the barren rocks leading to the forested part of the park.

If I can make it there, I ca--

Something solid striking his legs and tangling his feet cut the thought short. Trevor flew forward, jerking around as he fell to take the brunt of impact on his backpack. He skidded along the ground, dirt and mud plowing ahead of his shoulder, and by the time he righted himself, Manny and his pals loomed over him. He scrambled to get up but Gonzo planted his foot on Trevor’s chest and sent him back to the ground.

“
Avoiding us, Trev?” Manny said. “Going home to your Mommy?”

He snorted and spit on the ground a foot from Trevor’s head. Trevor flinched.

“I’m going home, like you and everyone else. Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“
Because you’re a freak.” He punctuated his words by kicking a spray of mud across Trevor’s chest, then signaled to Gonzo. “Get him up.”

Gonzo put a hand under his left armpit while the third member of the group—a kid named Tom doing grade twelve for the third time—grabbed him under the other. His fingers dug in deep and Trevor winced with pain.

“Gonna cry, pussy?” Manny taunted. “Gonna tell your Mom? Or maybe your dead loser dad?”

Trevor jerked away from Tom and swung a wild hay-maker at Manny, but the bigger boy moved back a step, avoiding the punch. Before Trevor thought about swinging again, Gonzo and Tom grabbed his arms and Manny punched him in the gut. Trevor doubled over, gasping for breath.

“Don’t like it when I talk about your asshole,
dead
beat dad?”

Struggling against the panic building in his gut, Trevor glared up at the other boy, hating him with every atom in his body. The knowledge his father was no longer dead did nothing to quell his ire; he couldn’t say anything about it to Manny or anyone else, not that it would have helped him if he did. Who’d believe him?

The two boys holding him pulled him up and Manny moved in close, digging his hands into the pockets of Trevor’s leather jacket.

“
What you got for me, Trev? You rocker guys have always got good shit.”

“
Nothing,” Trevor breathed.

“
Give me his pack.”

Gonzo grabbed the strap of Trevor’s backpack and yanked it hard; Trevor bent his arm and kept him from wrestling it off.

“Leave him alone.”

Gonzo stopped pulling and all the boys looked toward the sound of the voice. Trevor noticed Manny’s face change to an expression resembling innocence in case they discovered a teacher or a cop approaching, but it turned back to anger when he saw neither to be the case.

Trevor’s eyes widened when he spied Cory standing under the branches of the willow tree, hands jammed into the side pockets of a dark gray overcoat and resembling an avenging angel out of some horror movie.

“
Scarecrow. I haven’t seen you around in forever. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“
Leave him alone,” Cory repeated.

Manny laughed, a sound closer to the bray of a donkey than anything meant to convey humor. The other boys joined him. Trevor gawked.

“A freak coming to save one of his own kind. How romantic.”

Gonzo and Tom laughed again, but Manny didn’t, his eyes fixed on Cory stalking toward them. He’d taken his hands out of his pockets and they hung at his sides, clenched into fists. Tom and Gonzo stopped laughing.

“This’s got nothing to do with you, Scarecrow,” Gonzo said. “You should--”

“
Shut up,” Manny snapped. “If he wants to stick his nose in, I’d be happy to break it for him.”

Without warning, Manny spun around and punched Trevor in the gut harder than he’d ever been hit. Unprepared, his breath wheezed out of his chest and, when Gonzo and Tom let go of his arms, he folded in half and crumpled to the mud. He lay on his side, unable to breathe, struggling to direct his eyes toward Cory as the three boys swarmed him.

Manny swung a looping right hand and caught Cory in the side of the head; two more punches sent him to the ground without defending himself. Trevor watched, gasping and horrified, as Manny, Gonzo, and Tom hammered Cory with punches and kicks.

“
Fucking Scarecrow,” Manny shouted over and over again, each word punctuated by the dull thump of his foot hitting Cory’s ribs, or his fist contacting his body, his face.

Trevor didn’t attempt to get up. He watched, ashamed with himself for the relief he felt at not being the one on the receiving end of their beating. When his breath returned and the rhythm of the boys' blows began to diminish, someone shouted.

“Stop!”

Manny looked up. “Let’s get out of here. Beat it.”

They took off across the park, headed for the forest the way Trevor had when they’d been chasing him. He got to his hands and knees and crawled across the space between him and Cory, who lay on the ground, shaking. Crying, Trevor thought.

He peered over his shoulder to find out who’d chased their tormentors off and saw Mr. Reeve coming across the park in what a man of his age and weight might consider a run, but anyone else could match at a quick walk. Trevor dragged himself to where Cory lay on his side and pulled on his shoulder, rolling him onto his back.

Cory wasn’t crying, he was laughing.

Blood on his teeth and lips made his face resemble a Halloween mask, and a half-moon of dark bruise was already beginning below his right eye. Each time he took a breath to laugh, it was evident the effort caused him pain.

“Jesus! What did you do that for?”

“
I owed you,” Cory said between laughs. “You saved me, now I saved you. We’re even.”

“
Are you...boys...okay?” Mr. Reeve called out between gulping breaths of air. He’d stopped yards away and stood bent at the waist, hands on his knees.

Cory laughed again, quieter this time, a private laugh for the two of them, Trevor thought.

“We’re fine, Mr. Reeve. Thanks. Just fuc...playing around.”

Trevor got to his feet and offered Cory his hand; the other teen took it and needed the help getting up. They waved at the teacher and smiled fake smiles, then set out across the park, Trevor still struggling to take a full chest of air and Cory leaning on him like a wounded soldier pulled from battle.

That’s kind of what he is.

When Mr. Reeve gave up on his good deed and headed back toward the school, they laughed again.

“Thanks,” Trevor said when they both ran out of breath to laugh. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“
Yes, I did.”

“
They might have killed you.”

He shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

“They won’t let this go, you know. They’ll come after you. Me, too.”

Cory stopped, dragging Trevor to a halt with him. He straightened and looked him in the eye.

“Trust me, Trevor Fell. Manny will never hurt either of us again.”

I went back and forth over the tragedy of dying so young versus Dido’s higher-than-average annoying factor—and the recollection of her sending a perfectly good bottle of Grey Goose gurgling down the bathtub drain to a premature death—but my internal debate didn’t rage for long. The argument might have dragged out for a week or so, if a memory hadn’t come to mind to settle it.

I remembered how I felt the day I woke up dead.

I woke up to an archangel, and what did she get? Me. Another noticeable difference between our circumstances: people saw me—they might not know me, but they saw me—but not her. They left her alone, like when she sat at the bar at the
Caffeinated Cowboy
, with no one but me to converse with, no one but me to annoy. I put a good effort into portraying myself as a heartless, selfish bastard, but the truth of the matter is my heart is a few sizes bigger than the Grinch’s. Not many, but a few.

And so I found myself standing outside a bungalow with dark green paint flaking around the windows and a loose board set askew in the fence, figuring it the most logical place for Dido to go.

If whoever redecorated my motel room didn’t take her.

The yellow police tape hanging from the gate at the end of the path fluttered and snapped in a gentle wind. I surveyed the street for a few minutes before deciding cars passed too often for me to mosey on up to the front door, so I opted for a rear entrance and felt a little dirty for thinking of it in those terms.

I hopped a low fence and found my way along the side of the Trounces' neighbor’s house, ducking under windows and holding my breath, hoping not to find a large, ferocious dog in the backyard. Instead, I found a swing set rusted with disuse, a plastic patio chair with a cracked leg, and a vegetable garden overgrown with winter weeds, but no dog.

Unfortunately, the fence was higher here. The bloody thing came to the top of my head.

I peered up at it, regretful for my nasty fast food habit and lack of discipline I’d shown in using my membership to Rocky’s 24 Hour Fitness. What’s the saying regarding hindsight?

I huffed an exasperated breath and grabbed the top of the fence, the wood rough under my fingers. My puny arm muscles tensed, ready to give it the old college try at heaving me up and over; I paused to ensure no one was watching what would surely be my embarrassment. Luckily, I spied a compost pile in the back corner of the yard.

“Bingo.”

I released my vice-grip on the fence and wandered to the far end of the lawn, glancing back over my shoulder to complete my surveillance; no one was peeping at me.

A fence bounded the compost on the back sides while a three-foot high brick wall contained the rotted fruit, old coffee grounds, and moldy grass clippings from spilling onto the lawn. All the joints and ligaments my body needed to stretch and use to climb over a tall fence breathed a collective sigh of relief.

I put one foot on the brick wall and lifted myself up high enough to peer over the fence into the Trounces' backyard. Nothing in it, not even a rust-encrusted set of swings for Dido to play on when she was Dallas. I wondered if she ever came over to the neighbors' to use theirs, as I stepped up onto the short wall, took a deep breath and threw one leg up to the top of the fence. The heel of my shoe thudded against it with a heavy clunk and, rather than wait for someone to come see the cause of the noise, I clambered up and over with the grace and speed of a one-armed, blind chimpanzee.

Okay, I probably made the chimp look like an Olympian.

I did my best to land on my feet but ended up plopping onto the ground, my ass squelching in the damp grass.

“Damn it.”

I picked myself up and wiped moisture off the back of my overcoat, then surveyed the rear of the house. A red door to my left and a set of sliding glass doors opening into the dining room to the right. The door would be locked, but would the Trounces or the cops have remembered to lock the sliders? Probably my best shot.

I climbed the three steps to the small deck past due for replacement. Overall, the place wasn’t in the kind of disrepair as Rae’s neighborhood was, but Mr. Trounce didn’t appear the handyman type. Mind you, I shouldn’t talk—Rae’s house got in that state because of my neglect. Perhaps Ashton, her new man, fared better. The thought brought a sourness to my mouth, so I spit and wiped it from my mind.

The sliding door turned out to be unlocked, but sticky. I slid it open, cringing at the metal-grinding squeak, and stepped through, but left the door open, both to prepare for a hasty retreat and because I didn’t want to hear the teeth-grating noise again.

The interior of the house held the off-putting aroma of spilled blood. I crept past the dining room table with a half-built jigsaw puzzle set on a piece of cardboard on one end and peered through the doorway into the kitchen as I did. Empty.

Good.

The dining and living rooms joined in a semi-open concept, allowing me a view of the blood smeared across the Berber. I stepped into the living room, hoping to find the soul of an eight-year-old girl curled up on the couch where she died and having a cry for her lost parents. No spirit on the couch, only more evidence of their deaths, and more blood spattered on the wall behind it in an abstract painting random enough to make Jackson Pollock proud. Pieces of stuff I’d rather not recognize hung from the TV screen; the once beige carpet now sported a crusty, brick red spot the shape of Alaska.

Murder scenes are not pleasant places. This is a fact I should have known, having attended more than one, including my own, yet they continued to shock me.

As I walked through, I held my breath to keep the coppery tang of death from clogging my throat. I checked the three bedrooms—apparently the Trounces were either planning another child or didn’t mind having guests—as well as the bathroom and closets. Nothing. No basement, no attic, nowhere else to hide.

I found myself standing in the doorway between the hall and the living room, hands in pockets, pondering how horrible it must have been for the Trounces to be held captive by a madman with a gun. I tried not to dwell on the emotional part of the job, but the impromptu map of the most northern state and the red polka dots speckled across the spines of the books lining the shelf beside the couch made it difficult. After a moment, doing so prompted my mind to come full-circle to my own death, the panic and despair of being threatened at knife point, the pain of the blade transforming my kidney into a sieve.

“Fuck this,” I muttered aloud and turned my back on the murder-suicide to exit through the front door. Didn’t matter if anyone witnessed my presence now.

The soles of my shoes slapped against the uneven walk as I headed toward the street, anxious to remove myself from the stench of death and knowing more lay in my immediate future. One other place came to mind to search for the girl, which worked out, because I needed to make a trip to Meg’s, anyway.

***

For the second time in a day, I found myself sneaking into the house of a dead person. Not my most commendable habit. If I kept this up, I’d develop a reputation.

I didn’t hold out much hope I’d find Dido at Meg Medlin-Williams’ house, but she’d been pretty concerned over the woman’s statement about her son. Perhaps she’d come looking for clues to his identity, which was the other reason for my presence. If I didn’t find her here, my options fell somewhere between slim and non-existent, and slim was already mounted up and ready to ride. I didn’t have any other idea where to find her and, at some point, I had to consider the other possibilities: I’d lost her to someone else; she left me; the people responsible for trashing my room weren’t after her, but me.

No police tape hung outside Meg’s house. Are people who choke on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches eligible for the ‘police line - do not cross’ treatment? Probably not—you didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out Meg’s cause of death.

I mounted the steps, surveying the neighborhood before touching the doorknob: no one around. My fingers slipped on the knob as I twisted it and I paused, racking my brain to remember if we locked it when we left the house with Meg in tow.

Don’t think so.

Rather than mucking around with my intermittent door unlocking ability, I went around to the rear door. Surely Dido wouldn’t have bothered to lock it, right?

She didn’t. I entered on my toes and paused in the doorway, listening. Drops of water plunked onto a stack of dirty dishes overflowing the sink; a clock on the wall over my head ticked away the seconds. I counted sixty of them and heard no other sounds, so went into the kitchen, closing the door behind me.

I stepped up to the counter to scan the plates and cups stacked beside the sink, my nostrils flaring at the rank odor of a kitchen garbage in desperate need of emptying. I found hard food caked on many of the dishes, and those last few stubborn drops of coffee dried and cracked in the bottom of mugs, but nothing fresh. The table in the small dining area off the kitchen was bare except for a vase holding a clutch of wilted carnations that appeared to have died before the lady of the house.

Apology flowers?

I glided through the kitchen, keeping my steps light as I passed into a short hallway with the front door straight ahead and the living room to the right. Two doors on the left were both closed, with a semicircular table set against the wall between them. A number of pictures hung on the wall above the table, so I stopped to examine them, hoping for a clue about the woman’s devil-son.

Meg was in all of the photographs, some of them by herself, others with people I didn’t recognize and who couldn’t be her son, including one of her sitting at a picnic table with an older man and woman I assumed to be her parents, the willow tree and duck pond where Sister Mary-Therese died looming in the background. In another picture, Meg and a man both wore their Sunday best and smiled at a spot off camera. Judging by their hairstyles, the Walmart photo shop portrait was at least twenty years old.

I leaned closer, noticing a familiarity about the man without knowing why. I squinted, which didn’t help, so I scanned the other photos for his face. Nope.

I stopped when my gaze found a picture holding a possible clue: Meg seated with a baby on her lap and an over-tired but joyful expression on her face. A man sat beside her, his arm around her shoulders; a piece of black electrician’s tape covered his face.

Ignoring the man, I took a closer peek at the baby on Meg’s lap—a newborn with a strained face suggesting a good burping might be needed. It would have been encouraging but for the pink dress and the tiny bow in the baby’s hair, proving her either a girl or that Meg and her friend didn’t believe in gender distinction through clothing. Makes it harder on the rest of us.

I sighed and picked at the corner of the electrical tape until I got my fingernail under it and tore it off, leaving a thin layer of black, tacky glue residue. Not enough to hide the man’s face, but I didn’t know him, anyway.

No son in any of the other four photos. After straightening one hung askew, I went to the door nearest the back of the house, reached for the knob, but hesitated. Should I throw it open and catch anyone who might be within off guard? Or open it slowly and give myself a chance to sneak back out unnoticed?

I opted for the sneaky way.

The hinges creaked and I cringed, but it turned out a wasted cringe—no one inside.

The room must have been Meg’s. Women’s clothing lay discarded on the floor and an overflowing jewelry box sat atop a chest of drawers that must have been in the family for generations. The necklaces and bracelets spilling out of the box appeared cheap, even to an undiscerning consumer like myself, but if someone had taken care of the dresser, it might have been worth a couple of bucks. The chunks carved out of its edge, its peeled finish and missing drawer pulls did nothing to add to its value.

I took a cursory glance around but didn’t open any drawers or move things around, deciding to show a modicum of respect for the dead woman. If I didn’t find anything elsewhere, I’d toss the room later.

The door clicked closed behind me as I made my way down the hall to the other door, my thigh bumping the hall table on the way. Before I entered, I stopped and peered into the living room.

After no evidence of the police or any other emergency crews, I’d already guessed she’d be on the couch where we left her and, let’s face it, I smelled her halfway down the hall. The TV still blared at her, but the deep purple color had begun to dissipate from her cheeks as blood settled to the lowest point of the body; her ass and the back of her legs probably made her look like a big fan of nasty sex.

However, I didn’t expect to find Dido sitting on the matching chair, gaze glued to the boob tube.

“Dal--” I stopped myself and reset. “Dido?”

She didn’t turn her head.
Something’s wrong.

The movement on the television flickered in the glossy surface of her eyes, but her face was slack and expressionless. Normally, I’d have dropped any soul in my possession off to one of those near-albino escorts long before this point, so I didn’t know if this constituted normal spirit behavior or not.

“Dido!”

This time, she blinked and looked away from the TV. It seemed to take her a second to focus, but when she did, she smiled and slid off the chair.