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“I’ve been thinking...” Ollie tilts his head to the right side of the path. The entire search party notices the gesture and abandons their search of the bushes on his left.
“You seem to do that a lot.” Peter keeps pace with his father as he wanders down what’s left of the narrow dirt trail. The torrent of rain during their last tour of the forest washed out much of the path.
“I’m afraid there’s not much else to do these days,” Ollie says with a shrug. “But I digress. I think if you had experience killing someone... whether for love, or hate, or boredom... maybe you and I wouldn’t be at such odds all the time.”
Ollie behaves as if he’s talking about Peter picking up shuffleboard. He’s aghast at his father’s casual demeanor. “I’m not going to murder someone just so we can connect, Dad.”
His father stops and takes a long look at him. Ollie appears offended. “Why not?”
“I don’t know,” Peter says, frustrated. “Maybe because people are people? They have jobs, families, lives to live?”
“Not everyone has a life worth living, Hen. There’s a woman in D block who killed seventeen patients in hospice. None of them had anyone visit them after they got sick. With people like that, it’s not really murder. It’s helping someone out of their misery.” Ollie shrugs off Peter’s judgmental frown. “Fine, then. Let nature take its course. The good Lord takes them in the end, anyway.”
They stand in silence for a moment. Peter stares at the monster who he used to think of as a loving father. Ollie looks thoughtful, too.
“Not every murderer chooses his victims, Hen. You can always let a victim choose you,” Ollie offers.
Peter groans and casts his gaze toward the forest canopy. He wishes one of the ancient trees would fall over and knock both himself and his father down dead. “Come on, Dad.”
“I’m serious! A man could hold some kind of competition. Let the survivors and victims sort themselves out. Hell, a guy could even put a prize in a Cracker Jack box that explodes when it comes into contact with moisture or something. Put it on display on the check-out line at the tool store and walk away. Let dumb luck influence who gets it.”
“Kids get prizes out of Cracker Jack boxes, Dad. As much as I’m not a murderer, I’m absolutely not a pedo-murderer.”
“I understand. Kids are hard. It’s easier when a victim has a little life experience before he dies. Or she.” Ollie shrugs, appearing to make a cursory effort at being an equal opportunity killer. “Although there are always orphans and kids from crack houses. They’ve got plenty of life experience.”
They walk a little farther down the trail. Ollie’s train of thought is so absurd that Peter doesn’t know how to respond.
“Hasn’t anyone ever pissed you off so much that you just want to...” Ollie holds his hands out in front of him and mimes choking an invisible person to death. Inspector Douglas is nearby and notices the gesture. He raises an eyebrow at Peter. He motions he’s okay.
“Not really,” Peter answers. “I’ve never wanted to kill anyone.”
“Not even me?” Peter’s father looks at him with interest. “I murdered your mother and got hauled off to prison. I left you in the hands of strangers. Not only did I trap you in foster care, I also made you grow up around the discovery and clean-up of dozens of murders.”
Peter sits on a worn stump and gazes at his dad. Ollie looks smaller out here among the sky-high boughs of old-growth pine. Peter imagines a younger version of his father hiking around in the dark. Alone except for Carol, flung over his shoulder, as lifeless as a department store mannequin. “Not even you.”
“Good Lord, Son. Maybe you ought to talk to someone about that. Seems to me, if anyone would have enough pent up rage to go on a killing spree, it should be you.”
Peter glances around for the nearest marshal and raises his hand. Special Agent Jones starts the brief climb up the hill with a blue-clad officer. Inspector Douglas stays where he is, but pulls back his jacket and touches his fingertips to the hilt of his handgun.
“All done here?” Special Agent Jones eyeballs Ollie as she directs her question to Peter.
“I sure am,” Peter says loudly. Everyone nearby looks over at them.
Ollie’s face drops. “We haven’t gotten to Carol yet. Don’t you want to know where she’s at?”
“Nope.” Peter stands and brushes a smudge of mud on his thigh. He stomps down the hill toward Dougy’s car, feeling like a pissed off teenager refusing to take out the garbage. It’s a sensation that’s never consumed him before. Even as a kid, he was even keeled. Now, he feels sullen and defiant.
“Well, if he won’t listen to me, I guess I’ll tell you, Mac.” Ollie shouts the name over Special Agent Jones’s shoulder.
Peter covers his ears and keeps marching, willing himself to not look back. He won’t let his father use this woman’s decomposed corpse against him. Yes, Peter wants to be the hero. Wants to have a hand in recovering her body. For her family. For her daughter. Peter spits on the ground beside the black sedan when he reaches it.
“Have a goddamned contest?” Peter mutters to himself as he thinks about his father’s disturbing suggestion. “Fuck.”
He doesn’t look back up the trail until he’s in the back seat of the car with the door closed. Once he moves his gaze through the tree line, he sees Ollie watching him. His father stands apart from the swarm of Search and Rescue volunteers that dig the ground about ten yards from the hillock they’d been standing on. Ollie stares a moment longer. An expression of disappointment cemented on his face.
It shouldn’t break Peter’s heart when his father turns his back. But it does.
Inspector Douglas and Special Agent Jones work their way down the trail. Jones slides into the driver’s seat and Inspector Douglas taps Peter’s window with a knuckle until his partner punches the button to roll the glass down.
Dougy leans into the opening. “They found her. Well, her foot, anyway. Outstanding job, Peter. Special Agent Jones will take you home. I’ve got to stay until they close up the scene.” The inspector pauses, his face curious. “Unless you want to take a look?”
Peter rocks his head. “Not interested in the slightest, thanks.”
Inspector Douglas nods and pats the car’s roof twice before wandering back up the trail. Jones rolls up the rear window and starts up the engine.
“Special Agent Jones, would you mind dropping me off somewhere other than my apartment?”
“Sure. Where to?”
“Fourteenth and Burnside.” Peter pulls his buckle into place as the car flounders over the root of a nearby tree, rocking the car hard. Once the belt clicks into place, he looks at Jones’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Mac, huh? That’s not usually a name you hear someone call a woman.”
Mac glances at the mirror, catching Peter’s gaze, then refocuses on the dirt road. “It’s short for Mackenzie. But I don’t go by that anymore.”
“Why not? Mackenzie’s a pretty name,” he offers, hoping the compliment will appease her.
She locks eyes with Peter in the mirror. “I shot the last person who called me that.”
“Okay...” Peter breaks his gaze away, uncomfortable. “Mac it is, then.”
After another lengthy pause, Mac clears her throat. Her tone is friendly when she asks, “What did you and your dad talk about out there?”
“Murder, mostly.” The woods pass by Peter’s window in drab shades of brown, green and orange.
Mac laughs, taking his statement as a drop of black humor. Peter rests his forehead against the cool glass and closes his eyes. The needling pressure at his temples and weighty tension in his shoulders release. The agent isn’t driving him home. Soon, he’ll be in Jeanne’s office. She’ll ask him all the right questions and listen patiently to his answers.
Jeanne will stop his mind from cycling through Ollie’s twisted words. Even if it’s only temporary, seeing her is bound to make him feel better.