envelopes neatly squared and bound with wide rubber bands, a coffee mug of pens, pencils, and pipe cleaners), peered into the closet and half bath.
Something.
It was the smell, he finally realized, reaching past all the blood, through all those years.
Camphor.
Mothballs.
He stood by the cedar chest in the room’s corner remembering the one his mother had when he was a kid. He didn’t know what happened to it, it wasn’t there by the time he was puttering about the house on his tricycle, but he remembered the smell. The chest was filled with sweaters and heavy clothes they never wore, linens and towels kept for guests they never had. And it was forbidden to him.
Beneath the cushions atop, it apparently having served as a makeshift sofa, the cedar chest wasn’t quite closed, and the smell, the camphor smell, was coming from within.
Sayles removed the cushions and opened the chest knowing what he would find. It was a small chest, too small. There were marks on her torso where the killer had knelt on her to force her body inside. Her neck and arms had been broken in the process. Later they would find the child’s body below hers. The child had been alive when put into the cedar chest. He had died of suffocation. Both of them had smiley-face stickers on their foreheads.
CHAPTER TEN
HIS FEET WERE ON FIRE.
He had no idea where he was. He could see the sun low through the trees. The last thing he remembered was the sound of heavy artillery, the thwack of chopper blades. Now it was quiet. Scattered bird calls high in the trees. Rumblings far off that could as easily be firepower or a storm building. In his sleep, if it was sleep, or maybe before, he’d pissed himself. He pushed up on hands and knees, and insects went rattling away from him through the ruff of dry leaves.
Letting himself fall back over, he rolled and slowly pushed with his hands into sitting position. The dizziness passed, but he still was not seeing clearly; everything upon which he focused, trees, the burned-out stump beside him, his boots, had two or three borders. It took a while to get the laces undone, the phrase Died with his boots on running stupidly in his head the whole time.
At first he’d thought it was leached color from the olive canvas boots. Too green, though—and growing. Alive. He remembered a photograph that an uncle had showed him of his house in New Orleans, sidewalk, wood, even cement blocks covered with a patina of green. The growth on his feet went from green to black. No idea what part was fungus or mold, what part rotting skin. He didn’t want to think about that. But his feet itched like mad and burned like fire.
His socks were soaking. He swung them in circles, pushing out as much wet as he could, wiped between his toes with a handful of leaves, put socks and boots back on, and, hand against the burned-out trunk, experimentally stood.
—And woke, What the hell? , instinctively swinging out of bed to put his burning feet on the floor, toes curling around the carpet’s nap.
The clock blinked at 2:35. Jimmie walked to the window and looked out. No lights anywhere. The storm, he supposed. But he had slept through it. His heart still hammered. Strange how quiet it was, sounds so familiar as ordinarily to go unremarked now conspicuous in their absence: box fan wobbling and gently bucking near the door, that faint buzz of wires in the walls, hum of the refrigerator two rooms away.
He hadn’t returned the pan to Mrs. Flores yet. Why he thought of that now, he didn’t know. Why he hadn’t done it, he didn’t know. He’d scrubbed the pan, dried it; it had been sitting on the counter since.
Something else he was supposed to do as well …
The storm had long passed. He watched a police helicopter circle in the sky over toward Black Canyon Freeway, its spotlight lashing in crisscross patterns. Power came on—he heard the click of relays in the cooling system, felt a brief whoosh of breath from the fan—then
Something.
It was the smell, he finally realized, reaching past all the blood, through all those years.
Camphor.
Mothballs.
He stood by the cedar chest in the room’s corner remembering the one his mother had when he was a kid. He didn’t know what happened to it, it wasn’t there by the time he was puttering about the house on his tricycle, but he remembered the smell. The chest was filled with sweaters and heavy clothes they never wore, linens and towels kept for guests they never had. And it was forbidden to him.
Beneath the cushions atop, it apparently having served as a makeshift sofa, the cedar chest wasn’t quite closed, and the smell, the camphor smell, was coming from within.
Sayles removed the cushions and opened the chest knowing what he would find. It was a small chest, too small. There were marks on her torso where the killer had knelt on her to force her body inside. Her neck and arms had been broken in the process. Later they would find the child’s body below hers. The child had been alive when put into the cedar chest. He had died of suffocation. Both of them had smiley-face stickers on their foreheads.
CHAPTER TEN
HIS FEET WERE ON FIRE.
He had no idea where he was. He could see the sun low through the trees. The last thing he remembered was the sound of heavy artillery, the thwack of chopper blades. Now it was quiet. Scattered bird calls high in the trees. Rumblings far off that could as easily be firepower or a storm building. In his sleep, if it was sleep, or maybe before, he’d pissed himself. He pushed up on hands and knees, and insects went rattling away from him through the ruff of dry leaves.
Letting himself fall back over, he rolled and slowly pushed with his hands into sitting position. The dizziness passed, but he still was not seeing clearly; everything upon which he focused, trees, the burned-out stump beside him, his boots, had two or three borders. It took a while to get the laces undone, the phrase Died with his boots on running stupidly in his head the whole time.
At first he’d thought it was leached color from the olive canvas boots. Too green, though—and growing. Alive. He remembered a photograph that an uncle had showed him of his house in New Orleans, sidewalk, wood, even cement blocks covered with a patina of green. The growth on his feet went from green to black. No idea what part was fungus or mold, what part rotting skin. He didn’t want to think about that. But his feet itched like mad and burned like fire.
His socks were soaking. He swung them in circles, pushing out as much wet as he could, wiped between his toes with a handful of leaves, put socks and boots back on, and, hand against the burned-out trunk, experimentally stood.
—And woke, What the hell? , instinctively swinging out of bed to put his burning feet on the floor, toes curling around the carpet’s nap.
The clock blinked at 2:35. Jimmie walked to the window and looked out. No lights anywhere. The storm, he supposed. But he had slept through it. His heart still hammered. Strange how quiet it was, sounds so familiar as ordinarily to go unremarked now conspicuous in their absence: box fan wobbling and gently bucking near the door, that faint buzz of wires in the walls, hum of the refrigerator two rooms away.
He hadn’t returned the pan to Mrs. Flores yet. Why he thought of that now, he didn’t know. Why he hadn’t done it, he didn’t know. He’d scrubbed the pan, dried it; it had been sitting on the counter since.
Something else he was supposed to do as well …
The storm had long passed. He watched a police helicopter circle in the sky over toward Black Canyon Freeway, its spotlight lashing in crisscross patterns. Power came on—he heard the click of relays in the cooling system, felt a brief whoosh of breath from the fan—then
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