The Fall of Jasper McCaine (Preview)

“…I hit him quite often… was trying to hit him a solid blow in the head for I knew if once he got me down it would be my finish…”

The Conservation Officer’s assessment was that the wolf was in good condition although it appeared lean.

—Record of a Timber Wolf Attacking a Man, MAMMOLOGY, Vol. 28, No. 3, August 1947

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART ONE: DEAD MAN WALKING

CHAPTER ONE

1979


THE MAN WALKED down the dimly lit corridor to the prison gate, the shadows veiling and unveiling him.

His skin was heavily tanned, and in the crow’s-feet surrounding his eyes, almost black. Calluses covered his wide palms, and half the middle-digit on his left hand was missing. To this day, he felt the raw, biting pain in that phantom fingertip, though it did not hinder him.

“Personal effects in the tray.” A stainless steel tray jutted out of a booth where a guard sat, perched on a stool behind a pane of bulletproof glass.

The man emptied his jean pockets, making sure to keep his wallet, driver’s license, and firearm permit in a separate pile.

“One antique lighter… one set of keys…” the guard said as he picked through the man’s belongings. He clucked his tongue. “One folding, pearl-handled buck-knife…” He dropped it, and the rest of the man’s stuff, in a large manila envelope and then held up the driver’s license to match it with the face. Satisfied, he began searching the contents of the wallet, stopping at a careworn photograph tucked inside a slip of plastic. “Pretty little girl.” He closed the wallet and returned it to the man. “Your daughter?”

The man didn’t bother to look at the photograph—a picture of Sarah at the beach, smiling for the camera in a pink, one-piece bathing suit. There was no need. He knew by broken heart where the curves of her face joined the soft crease of her chin. And then without trying, without even wanting to try, she was standing right in front of him, her eyes shimmering, hazel-green like her mother’s, shaped like his own. Her lips were dusty red and spread in an easy, if not a little ornery, grin, her nose freckled and a little too delicate for that strong face, the wispy hair drawn in a golden, sand-speckled ponytail. Her laughter chimed above the low roar of the waves like it always did when he remembered her, like a song he couldn’t get out of his head… Then the camera flashed and she was gone.

“Yes.”

“Go ahead,” the guard said. “Pat him down and run him through.” A younger guard stepped up, fresh-faced and pale, frisked the man, and then moved aside to give him room to pass under the metal-detector.

It chimed like a doorbell.

“Anything else on you?” the younger guard asked, his hand coming to rest on his baton.

The man searched methodically, indifferent to the younger guard’s concern—first his pockets for any forgotten change, next his boots to see if a tack or nail was lodged in one of the soles. He wriggled the battered, partially gold wedding band from his ring finger last, revealing a pale circle of skin, and stepped through the detector again…

Again, it dinged. The man remembered then. “It’s a chunk of metal lodged in an old wound.” He lifted his white T-shirt to show them the length of scar that ran across his chest and shoulder. “From the war.”

“Fair enough.” The guard unhooked a clipboard from the rear wall of the booth. “Who’re you visiting?”

“Timothy Geist.”

The guard perused the stack of papers attached to the clipboard. “Funny… Not seeing your name on his approved visitors' list.”

The man placed the wedding band back on his finger, feeling naked without it. “I’m on the list. McCaine, like it says on the license.”

Not finding it on the first page, the guard flipped to the second. “McCaine… McCaine… McCaine…” He started to shake his head.

The knuckles on the man’s maimed hand crackled as they tightened into a fist. Brick-by-brick, gate-by-gate, guard-by-guard, he’d tear this prison apart if his name wasn’t on that list…

“Ah wait… here you are,” the guard said. “Sorry about that. The spelling threw me.”

“Patience pays,” the man heard his father’s voice tell him.

The guard tipped his hat to him. “Follow the yellow line down the corridor until it veers into the Visitors’ Room.” His voice had taken on the inflectionless drone of someone who has repeated the same script far too often. “Officer Henderson here will escort you.”

Selecting a heavy-looking key from his belt, the younger guard unlocked the gate. The hinges wailed. “Welcome to Stateville Correctional Center.”

Nodding, the man walked ahead of Officer Henderson, his heart a jackhammer in his chest, the nape of his neck dripping with the sweat of anticipation. His mouth was dry, his mind emptied of everything except the concentration required to put one foot in front of the other. The only other time he recalled feeling like this was on his wedding day. Like that day, he hadn’t the faintest idea of what God or fate had in store for him.

But like that day, Jasper McCaine kept walking.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER TWO

1959 (TWENTY YEARS AGO)


“WE’LL GET HIM, don’t you worry, Son.” Crouched, Jasper’s father shifted his weight without stirring a twig or dry leaf and rested the barrel of the shotgun across the top of his permanently tanned forearm.

Jasper nodded and shivered. His teeth chattered from the cold. “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“You think Maggie suffered much?”

His father’s wiry fingers gently tapped the trigger. “No, I believe she went quick like.” He rubbed the grubby palm of his left hand across his brow. “Just borrowin’ trouble, that was, picking the runt from the litter. Can’t let a predator get a taste of blood from your own land.” He clapped Jasper on the shoulder. “All the same, I’m sorry about what happened.”

His father rose. “Better go check on your momma and use the john before I spring a leak. Keep a sharp eye out while I’m gone.” His gaze wandered off to the cornfield.

“But… what if it comes?”

Ray McCaine smiled. “Trust me, Son, that critter is more scared of you than you are of it. Besides…” The wind died in time with his voice, giving Jasper two distinctly conflicting impressions: that his father was waiting for the wind to blow again or that he was summoning another by sheer will alone. The wind picked up. “…you’ll be ready for him.” He handed Jasper the shotgun by the barrel, along with a few extra shells. “Reckon it takes a man to protect what’s his. How ‘bout you?”

“Yessir.”

“Good boy. Peepers front, Son. I’ll just be a minute.”

Time crept by as Jasper waited within spitting distance of the broken wooden fence that surrounded their cornfield, a blanket draped over his shoulders to protect him from the gnawing wind, the double-barrel shotgun cradled in his arms.

He looked back at the house. A kerosene lamp pulsed in the kitchen window of the two-story, clapboard farmhouse, its light dying. Between gusts of wind, Jasper could just make out his momma’s transistor radio playing on the soapstone countertop. Marty Robbins was singing his heart out about the woman he loved and died for in El Paso. When he turned to face the cornfield, his belly fluttered from the coppery stench of rancid meat, souring every breath he took. His father wanted them to be downwind of the smell.

Jasper touched the barrel of the shotgun. The icy metal bit his fingertips. He stared up at a starless sky shrouded with funeral-black clouds and tried to force his will on the Heavens.

“Make it come,” he said. “Just make it come.” He spat on the fence. “Amen.”

He yawned and wished his father would hurry. His eyes felt heavy, as heavy as his heart. Faint paw prints in the dirt and a patch of dried blood left a thin trail of gore leading into the pitch beyond the fence line, but sleep was the only monster coming. The hole in the fence was a cave, black and endless. Black and endless. Black and—

Eyes in the blackness, silver and gleaming, and hungry, so very hungry. Jasper heard it panting, its footfalls silent. His heart pounded against his chest. His ears rang, and the metallic taste of fear coated his tongue. The animal halted as he went to stand.

His dad figured it had been a coyote or some other critter that attacked his pet lamb, Maggie, but this was no coyote.

Teeth bared, the animal lowered its long head to the ground and growled, a sound like thunder in the hills. The hairs on its back bristled. Its fur was redolent of overturned dirt, the smell of an open grave, freshly dug.

It was a wolf. Wasn’t supposed to be any in these parts, but it was just too big and wild-looking to be anything else.

Jasper thumbed both hammers back on the shotgun.

The wolf leapt, teeth gnashing, its long head cocked to tear out his throat. In the span of a second, Jasper glimpsed its bone-white incisors, felt the raw heat of its breath on his cheeks, caught a whiff of the overripe, road kill smell of death.

Clutching the shotgun sideways, he drove the barrel up into its snapping maw. Teeth and blue steel clanged and squealed.

Something warm and wet trickled down his wrist. His left hand felt pinched in a vice—tightening, tightening, tightening. Wordless, Jasper stared at a splinter of bone jutting out of where the tip of his middle finger used to be, now forever lost behind a wall of teeth. Blood spurted from the stump and splashed the wolf’s fangs. He screamed then. His mind reeled away from his body, and darkness, thick as tar, poured into him.

The wolf flung its head and the shotgun flew. No misfire as it thumped to the ground—a small miracle. Jasper stumbled backwards as the wolf barked and nipped at the air between them.

Pain radiated from his hand in nauseating waves. The darkness rose higher. Circling now, the wolf’s bushy tail grew rigid and pointed, both of its ears tracking him like the hollow sockets of a skull.

Head spinning, Jasper clenched his fists. He grit his teeth as he channeled the pain, letting it clear the tar from his mind. Blood seeped through his fingers as the wolf came sharply into focus.

“C’mon then,” he said. “I ain’t scared of you.” The wolf growled. He spat at it. “C’MON!”

Instead of leaping, the wolf ducked low and snapped at his overalls, yanking his legs out from under him. Jasper hit the ground, but managed to mule-kick the beast in the nose with his free leg on the way down. The animal shook its long head, then bit him again, sinking its teeth into the heel of his boot. Its powerful jaw locked, and a massive pressure pressed down on Jasper’s foot, crushing it.

With his right hand, Jasper flailed at the ground for purchase—only tufts of grass for his efforts. The wolf was dragging him, closer and closer to the hole in the fence and the cavernous darkness waiting beyond. Edging towards panic, Jasper searched the grass and found what he was looking for.

His maimed hand skated over the steel, attempting to grip it by the barrels, but the exposed bone of his middle finger scraped sickeningly on the cold metal. A bright new burst of pain followed. His vision blurred, and everything above his left wrist went numb.

“No chances left for half-assed,” his father would say.

Reaching again with his right hand, Jasper grabbed the stock. He brought the shotgun to bear, steadied it on top of his left forearm, and took aim between the wolf’s silver, pitiless eyes.

“Time to pay,” he said. Hands trembling, he fingered the double-barreled shotgun’s dual triggers.

Both barrels fired, clapping the air, but the shot went wide. A swatch of fur and a spray of blood flew from the wolf’s right flank. Yanked backwards by the blast, it yipped and chased the gaping wound in its side.

Jasper scrambled away on his hands and knees, not trusting his legs. Nearly every iota of his being compelled him to run, but something deep inside him, as unyielding as stone, told him there was no sense in running.

(“Reckon it takes a man to protect what’s his. How ‘bout you?”)

Jasper cracked the shotgun open over one knee. His left hand trembled, sprinkling blood on his undershirt as he fingered the front pocket of his overalls for more shells. Sensing the danger, the wolf ceased running in circles and pounced on him.

A shell flew out of Jasper’s hand as he jammed the stock under the wolf’s neck. Its teeth snapped at his face, splashing his cheeks with drool. He saw his reflection in its pupils, like twin moons shining over some distant, alien world.

The stench of death and inevitability washed over him. There was no sound, no more fear. The wolf pinned his arms to the ground under the weight of its terrible, feral strength and closed in for the kill.

A whip crack, followed by another.

The wolf shuddered, then fell over.

Gasping for air, Jasper got on his feet. Thirty paces away stood his father, his rifle aimed at the wolf, the barrel belching smoke.

His mother bustled out of the screened-in porch in her nightgown barefoot, but stopped short when she saw what had transpired. “My God, Ray, our boy…”

“Hush, Meredith.” His father lowered the rifle and walked over, his gaze never leaving the target. “Are you hurt, Son?”

Jasper swayed in the dark as he held his bleeding hand. He shivered, but not from the cold. “Was I man enough?” he tried to ask. It was little more than a whisper.

His father’s eyes widened when he looked at him, and he laid his rifle on the ground and caught Jasper as he fell.

“Am I a man, Daddy?”

“Sh, rest now. You’re going to be alright.”

Nodding, Jasper hugged him, sobbed once, and then passed out in his father’s arms.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER THREE

1979


THE FLUORESCENT LIGHTS of the Visitors’ Room hummed incessantly, casting everything in a grimy pall. Lettered signs designated the bolted steel tables, and in a lineup against the far wall were a ramshackle assortment of vending machines, their battered plastic faces cracked and smudged with handprints.

The place reeked of bleach, sweat, and mold. Several inmates visited with loved ones as a guard circled nearby.

A few tables over, a young boy was talking excitedly with his father the convict while an older woman, probably grandma, glared on. Watching her, Jasper recalled his own mother and almost choked on the regret rising in his throat. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

He quit paying attention and let the minutes pass him by. He figured it was six or seven steps, eight at most, to the painted steel door Timothy Geist would enter through, and Jasper imagined the expression that might appear on Geist’s face if he just charged him: the confused panic and terror mounting in his enemy’s eyes, and deep inside the terror, the undeniable certainty that it was the death he deserved coming to claim him.

But it was never that easy. Jasper would have to make sure it was really him, but more importantly, he wanted Geist to know why. Then, and only then, was he going to fix him.

His only regret was that it’d have to be quick.

The painted steel door opened. Jasper tensed as Officer Henderson entered the Visitors’ Room…

No one accompanied him.

Holding the door, Henderson waved Jasper over. “Inmate Geist has requested to meet with you in the No Contact Room,” the guard said when Jasper reached him.

“Why’s that?”

“Didn’t say.”

They followed a narrow corridor until it veered left in front of another iron gate, another barrier between Jasper and what he had come here to do.

“Pardon me,” Officer Henderson said as he stepped around him to unlock the gate.

In the center of the No Contact Room were a dozen cubicles separated by a wall-to-wall sheet of Plexiglas. An inmate sat at the seventh cubicle in a metal chair with his hands folded in his lap, his combed blonde hair damp and feathering near the edges. His pale blue eyes regarded Jasper with neither curiosity nor contempt. Well-groomed and wearing starched denim jeans and a matching shirt, he seemed at ease, like this place was a day spa rather than a maximum-security prison.

Jasper had expected to find a thug, an ugly hood with a face crisscrossed with scars and tattoos littering his arms; somebody an old lady would cross the street to avoid; somebody you could pick out of a crowd and know, just by looking, that he was the lowest form of human being—a soulless, gibbering animal with only a passing resemblance to a man.

Geist cocked an eyebrow as if sensing what Jasper was thinking. He pointed at the tan phone hanging from the cubicle wall and they both picked up the receivers at the same time. Neither of them spoke at first. Then, Geist whistled. It was a tune Jasper recognized, but couldn’t place.

“Thanks for the shower and shave,” Geist said. He ran his hand over his head, smoothing his hair, and then turned to wave at the guard on his side of the partition. “They let us clean up when we get visitors in here.”

Jasper sat down in reply, the knuckles of his left hand turning white as he held the receiver.

Geist nodded at him. “What’d you do to that finger?” He waggled his own middle finger with the top part folded down so that it appeared missing. “You zig cutting some onions with your new Ginsu when you should’ve zagged? ‘It slices! It dices! But wait! There’s more!’” He chuckled. “No, huh? Well, this has been real fun, but I’ve got better things to do. Give Mr. Deluca my regards.” He unfolded his middle finger.

“Wait,” Jasper said. “This has nothing to do with Deluca.” He reached into his wallet and pulled out the picture of his daughter. “This is between you and me.”

Geist didn’t look at the picture, letting his gaze wander as he tilted back in his chair. “Cute kid.” Jasper’s skin crawled. “Am I the father or something?”

Jasper propped the picture on the glass so that his daughter faced him and not her attacker. “Let me tell you a story.”

“I’m all ears.” Geist smiled. His teeth were pearly-white and perfectly straight. “I just hope this story has a happy ending.”

“For one of us.” Jasper leaned closer. “Almost two years ago you were smuggling heroin on a regular basis into Chicago and selling it to the pimps on Rush Street who bought your merchandise for personal use, to string out their hookers, or both.” Geist winced. The satisfaction Jasper felt then swelled in his chest and floated there like a helium balloon. “One day, a man named Tommy Deluca approached you about expanding your business with some associates who weren’t entirely convinced yet that heroin was the way of the future.”

Scowling, Geist sat up. “What? You a cop or something? If so, you’re a little late. I’ve already been bust—”

“Shut-up and listen!” Jasper said.

Geist leaned forward, his expression hardening. The guard glowered at them.

“You were running a shipment back from the Mexican border,” Jasper continued, unabated. “The largest you had ever smuggled at this point in your career. On the verge of hitting it big, you decided to celebrate by indulging in your dark and dirty little secret, like you had so many other times on your road trips.”

The metal chair screeched as Geist rose from it. “Who are you?”

“There was a farm,” Jasper replied. “A seven-year-old girl was going into a barn to feed and water her pony. The little girl in the picture.” He looked his daughter in her hazel-green eyes. Her smile seemed to say that she approved.

The guard ordered Geist to sit down, but Geist ignored it. “Who… who the fuck are you?” he asked again.

Flipping the picture over for Geist to see, Jasper said, “Her name is Sarah, not that you deserve to know her name, and I’m going to kill you for what you did to her.”

Geist stared at him, swallowed, and then threw back his head and laughed like Jasper had told him the funniest joke he had heard in a long time. “Is that right? Hate to disappoint you, but you’ve got the wrong guy by a country mile.” A second guard entered the door on Jasper’s side of the partition and gestured with his baton for Geist to sit down. Geist grinned at them like old friends and did what he was told.

“You did it," Jasper said, "and you’re going to pay for it.”

Geist waved his hand at him like he was shooing a fly. “You’re barking up the wrong convict. I’m a drug dealer, not some perverted sicko.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Beg all you want.” Geist’s face reddened. He was finally getting angry. “I can go get one for you, if you like. There are plenty of them panty snipers in here. Regardless, though, one problem still remains.” He tapped the Plexiglas between Jasper and him. “Even if I did do it, how do you kill what you can’t touch?”

“I can wait.”

“Wait? Ha! You won’t be able to wait. You could barely wait to tell me that crazy, bullshit story in the first place, much less for as long as it’ll take before I taste freedom again.” Geist chewed his lip as he shook his head. “This must be Deluca’s idea of a practical joke.”

“This is no joke.”

“Look, you psychotic motherfucker…” He held up both hands and waggled all his fingers. “I don’t get out for another ten years, at least, and you can only count to nine-and-a-half. Besides, you’ll be long dead by then. Deluca will see to that. And if not him, you.”

“Don’t underestimate me.”

“Oh, I don’t. You’re obviously a man to be reckoned with.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Hell, I don’t even want to know how you found out about the wheeling and dealing I had going with Deluca, considering what he thinks of me these days. But you’re burning way too brightly, my friend. You don’t have another year in you, much less ten. Just look at you. You look like somebody who’s about to spontaneously combust.”

Jasper realized he was standing, though he didn’t have any recollection of doing so. His face was less than an inch from the Plexiglas, his right hand pressed against it. “I’ll get you. Whatever it takes. However long it takes. I will get you.”

Geist shook his head. “No, you won’t. But if it’s any consolation, I’m sorry about your daughter. Truly I am. Sarah was your daughter, right?”

Jasper couldn’t answer. The sudden compassion in Geist’s voice and demeanor, even though he knew it was feigned, left him speechless.

“Thought so. Look, I’m sorry you came up short. I wish you all the luck with finding the guy who did this to you, hopefully in this lifetime. If not, I’m sure your Sarah will forgive you either way—”

THUD! Jasper had punched the Plexiglas with the phone still in his hand, cracking the receiver in half. The cubicles shook from the impact and the photograph fell, facedown. The guard ran back into the corridor and shouted for immediate assistance. Jasper’s shoulders heaved, and his breathing was ragged. There was a smear of red on the Plexiglas. Distantly, he felt his knuckles dripping with blood.

More guards burst in, Officer Henderson among them. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Geist shrugged. “See? Told you. You can’t do anything to me.”

“Sir?” Officer Henderson repeated.

“I’m untouchable in here.”

“Sir!”

“Go home.”

“Now, sir!”

“At least you still have that.”

Geist hung up the phone and left the No Contact Room. Officer Henderson, baton at ready, hovered near the door on Jasper’s side of the partition, flanked by two other officers.

Jasper picked up the photograph of his daughter with his fingertips, his injured hand trembling, and let the guards escort him out of Stateville, back to the prison awaiting him outside its walls, within himself.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER FOUR

1968


“LET US PRAY,” Reverend Daniels said. Friends and family alike closed their eyes in prayer, all of them but Jasper. “We commend to Almighty God our brother, Ray Joseph McCaine; and we commit his body to the ground: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust—”

The irony struck Jasper like a slap in the face. His father had already committed his body to the earth. That’s what farmers do: commit their bodies, their lives, their family’s lives, their very souls to the earth—all of it to the dirt and the dust.

“Amen,” the gathered replied in unison.

His mother stifled a sob, and Jasper put his arm around her. He had felt nothing but numb since his father’s death. This wasn’t supposed to be happening, and maybe if he didn’t accept it, it wouldn’t stay true.

“Does anyone have any final words they want to share?” Reverend Daniels asked.

Their neighbor, Bill Jones, cleared his throat and stepped forward. A widower himself, his hair was thinning near the edges, his nails stained with dirt like Jasper’s father’s—dirt that wouldn’t come off with a hundred washings. His eyes were red from weeping and drinking, not necessarily in that order.

“Like Ray, I was also a veteran,” he said, “and although I was in the Navy and he’d been in the Army, I didn’t much hold that against him.” Jasper’s mom laughed a little at that. “The two of us would poke fun at each other about it when we crossed paths at the west fence of the McCaine farm, and it made for some lively conversations, to say the least. But he always lent a hand if some bit of work was more than one man could manage, and eventually, when he was old enough, his son would too.” He shuffled his feet, as if he had forgotten what he was going to say or was figuring out a better way to say it. “His wife, Meredith, God bless her, when my Patricia passed, her and Ray took on the job of making sure I was alri—” Mr. Jones stopped to compose himself. “That I was alright.” He wiped his eyes with the knuckles of his hands. “Anyways, what I wanted to say is that the McCaines are more than neighbors, they’re family, and that Ray McCaine was, is, my friend. I’ll never forget him.”

Stepping back, Mr. Jones joined the row of mourners.

“Thank you for those kind words, Bill,” Reverend Daniels said. He regarded those gathered there. “The members of the VFW are here to do their part to give Brother Ray a right and proper sendoff, but first let us give him, and those who have survived him, a moment of silence.”

Everyone bowed their heads, but the silence, Jasper noted, wasn’t complete.

A beehive buzzed incessantly somewhere in the tree branches above them. A squirrel chattered. A pair of sparrows chirped to one another. A woman coughed. The wind blew. The world hummed. Somehow, life was going about its business, not knowing, or not caring, that his father was gone.

The very notion was maddening.

A bugle sounded and Taps began to play, and for the first time since his father had passed, Jasper wept.

A hand took hold of his own, and he found Jennifer Daniels, the reverend’s only daughter, and a friend of his until their paths split in high school, as paths tend to do, at his side.

“Present arms!” The seven former soldiers held their rifles stiffly at their sides. “Aim!” They pointed their rifles at the sky. “Fire!” The shot rang in Jasper’s ears as he saw the wolf’s needle-sharp teeth hovering less than an inch from his face, his blood on its breath, its eyes branding him, claiming him…

(… A whip crack, followed by another… Thirty paces away stood his father, his rifle aimed at the wolf, the barrel belching smoke…)

The sound of the third volley faded in the distance as Jasper stared at the simple pine box where his father lay.

(“Sh, rest now. You’re going to be alright.”)

Ray McCaine’s son wasn’t so certain.

“Refreshments are being served at the McCaine house,” Reverend Daniels said. “Please join us there, and please, go safely.”

The crowd of mourners began to disperse, except for his mother, the reverend, and Jenny Daniels, who hovered nearby.

“Mrs. McCaine, may I walk you to your car?” Reverend Daniels asked.

“I suppose that’s best.” Jasper’s mother reached up, pulled his face down to hers, and kissed him on the forehead. “I trust you have a way back?” She was looking at Jennifer when she asked him, her eyes raw, but dry.

“I’ll get him home, Mrs. McCaine,” Jennifer said.

His mom sighed. “Let’s hope so, dear.” She squeezed his arm and departed with the reverend down the green slope of hill that would forevermore lead to his father’s grave.

Jennifer got on her tiptoes and faced him. Her hazel-green eyes were flecked with sunlight, the lashes frosted with gold. “You’re leaving tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“That I am,” Jasper replied. Tomorrow morning he was hitchhiking to North Carolina for Army basic training, having volunteered instead of waiting to be drafted for the war in Vietnam. He felt, as his father must have, that it was his duty to serve when his country needed him.

Jennifer’s fingertips glided to his left hand. “Will you do me a favor?”

“Yes.”

“Promise to write.”

“… Okay.”

“No. Promise.” She stepped closer and straightened the collar of his shirt with her free hand. Her skin smelled faintly of honeysuckle, and wisps of blond hair outlined her heart-shaped face.

“I promise if you’ll tell me why.”

“Let’s just say you and I have some unfinished business.”

They walked arm-in-arm to her vehicle and got in. She started the car and drove until they reached a crossing where they had to stop for a passing freight train.

Jennifer stared out her window, and for the first time, Jasper noticed the simple, knee-length black dress she was wearing, the hem trimmed with silver lace. Other than the faintest trace of lipstick and mascara, she wore no makeup, and didn’t need to.

She turned and gazed at him, her pale eyebrows knitted with concern. “This place is turning into a ghost town.”

“It is quiet today.”

“No, it’s more than that. Seems every boy our age has gone to fight in that war. Any day now, my brother’s draft letter is due in the mail. My mother is worrying herself sick over it.”

“Andrew’s a decent and smart enough sort to know what to do if things go badly.”

“But there’s no way to be certain, is there? Nothing to do, but to hope and pray.”

“I suppose… You know, your brother once asked me if I believed in God.”

“What did you say?”

He stared at her for a moment, remembering. “I said that I did.”

She beamed at him. “Faith’s a funny thing, isn’t it?”

“How do you mean?”

“You just have to believe sometimes, despite all evidence to the contrary.”

Jasper rubbed the back of his neck, feeling self-conscious. “My dad used to say that sometimes God has to be your worst enemy to be your best friend.”

“Huh, I wonder what he meant by it.”

“Don’t reckon I know, but I’m almost certain I don’t want to find out.”

She laughed, and the sound of it relieved him a little of the burden on his heart.

“Ah, there it is,” she said. “I knew you had it in you.”

“What’s that?”

“A smile.”

Jasper touched his lips, surprised to find she was right. The train passed, and they rode on in silence, one that grew more comfortable with each passing moment.

When she parked behind the procession of cars leading to his house, he took her hand. “Will you promise me something, too?”

“Yes.”

“Believe that I’ll come home. Will you do that for me?”

She laid her head on his shoulder. “I will.”

Wrung out from the day, Jasper took a deep breath. “We better go in before my mother sends out a search party.”

She checked her mascara in the mirror, wiped her eyes, and nodded. “Alright, Mr. McCaine.”

They got out and went inside, and as they did, it occurred to Jasper for the first time since his father’s death that maybe he didn’t want to leave after all.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER FIVE

1979


DOWNTOWN CHICAGO’S RUSH Street looked like a block party in Gomorrah.

Sirens wailed hysterically. Taxi drivers laid on their horns, anxious to escape traffic. Half-naked hookers as numerous as the busted parking meters strutted in glittering micro-skirts or skintight leather pants. Bums scavenged dumpsters for leftovers with the pigeons and rats. A young girl sat on the crumbling stoop of an abandoned tenement, sucking her thumb as she rocked her baby sister, or just as likely her daughter, to sleep. An old newspaper blew between the closely cropped buildings like a giant, filthy crow.

Turning left, Jasper pulled into an alley to park next to the Mogul Hotel—a three-story, half-century-old, brick relic from a bygone era. He put the truck in neutral and listened to the engine idle as the vehicle glided down the alleyway. A cylinder was misfiring and the rest of the engine was working too hard to make up for it, revving without any pressure on the gas pedal. Jasper shut off the ignition. Like him, the truck had seen better days.

He retrieved a roll of clear adhesive tape from the glove compartment and then exited on the passenger-side. After closing the door, he stuck a three-inch strip of tape from the top of the window to the roof of the vehicle and then walked around the truck to make sure the piece he had placed on the driver’s side was still intact.

“Hey, man.”

Slipping the roll of tape in his shirt pocket, Jasper turned and faced a stranger wearing a white tank top, black jeans, and a belt that may or may not have been snakeskin. The stranger’s face was split in half by a blotchy red scar that threaded its way up from his chin and through the right nostril like a major highway on a roadmap. The scar veered sharply towards the stranger’s eye before disappearing beneath the brim of a Cubs hat.

“Hey, man, you going in The Morgue?” The Mogul Hotel was called “The Morgue” by the locals because of the dead hookers occasionally discovered in the rooms.

“Not interested,” Jasper replied.

“Hey, man, no reason to be rude.” The stranger pointed a bandaged finger up at him. “You do not even know what I have to say yet.” When he said “yet” it came out “jet.” “I just looking for somebody.”

“Go look somewhere else.”

“Hey, man, just because you so big, you can’t be nice?” He poked Jasper in the chest. “Just because you so big you cannot answer a simple ques—ah-AHHHH-OWWWWW!”

Jasper had plucked the stranger’s hand off his chest and bent it backwards. The trapped fingers were turning purple, and his victim’s legs buckled.

“AHHHH—mierda!” the stranger said. “Hey, let go! AHHHHH! Let go!”

Jasper twisted the man’s arm behind his back and shoved him into the hotel, pinning him by the neck with his free hand. The Cubs hat popped up off the guy’s head, the brim stuck between his hairline and the brick wall. Jasper took the hat and tossed it into the bed of his truck.

“You going to break my fucking hand, man!” The stranger said. “Por favor! Por favor!”

“Stay against the wall.” Jasper let go of his hand, but kept his head pinned.

“Jesus, man, what is the problem?”

“Don’t move.” Jasper began to frisk him.

“Hey, you a fucking cop or something? I did nothing wrong. I just wanted to ask you a question.”

The search yielded a wadded ball of crumpled dollar bills and a box cutter. The weapon didn’t surprise him. Practically everyone in this neighborhood carried something to protect themselves. He slipped the box cutter in his back pocket and pulled the stranger off the wall.

“Ask away,” Jasper said.

The guy massaged his wrist. “Huh? What? You joking with me?”

“Going once…”

“Maldición. Can I at least have my hat back?”

“Going twice…”

“Okay! Okay! Would you please just ask that híbrido manager in there if he has seen my sister? She is about this high.” The stranger went to hold his hand up to Jasper’s chest to illustrate, thought better of it, and held his hand up to his own scarred nose instead. “Her name is Anjelita. She is sixteen. Last time I saw her she had dyed her hair red and—”

“Why not ask him yourself?”

“I did. He does not care. She is just another customer to him. Dinero with no identity.”

“You sure this girl is your sister and not an employee?”

“What? Oh, I see.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt. “You think because I dress so nicely I must be a pimp. Typical mierda blanca del hombre.”

Jasper grabbed the hat out of the bed of his truck. “What’s your name?”

“Ruben.”

“Sorry about roughing you up, Ruben…” He handed the hat back to him. “But if I find out you’re lying to me…”

Ruben nodded vigorously. “So, you will ask?”

“When I get the time.”

“Gracias. I be back.” Keeping his eyes glued to Jasper, Ruben backed away until he reached the corner of the neighboring building and then disappeared.

Jasper made his way down the alley until it dead-ended in a brick wall scrawled with graffiti and loose piles of trash. Descending an adjacent stairwell to the hotel’s basement, he used the key the manager had given him to enter a damp corridor where water dripped from clanking pipes, and took the service elevator up to the third floor.

Chipped, lime-colored ceiling lamps illuminated the third floor hallway. The plaster walls pulsed with noise: a woman shouting “Asshole!” like a mantra, a Tenor’s voice soaring high above the music of an Italian opera, a small dog yapping, several television sets blaring the White Sox game, a man sobbing uncontrollably. Most of the hotel guests on this floor stayed for as long as they could afford it (the first two floors were reserved for customers who rented rooms on an hourly basis). Very few of them had ever seen him. The manager kidded Jasper on a regular basis about being the “Phantom of the Morgue” with his mysterious comings and goings, but one couldn’t be too careful in his current line of work.

Jasper reached his room at the end of the hallway, double-bolted and chained the door, and then called the lobby. It rang twice before the manager picked up.

“Yeah?” Boyle asked. His deep voice croaked like a toad’s when he spoke.

“Any messages?” Jasper asked.

“Ah, the Phantom has returned.”

“Messages?”

“Yeah, yeah. Boss called.”

“… Anything else?”

“You could say that. Room 2B has a leaky sink. When you get the chance, huh?”

“Sure. If anyone calls again, don’t let them know I’m here until ten.”

“You know I can’t do that. 2B. Don’t forget it.”

“I won’t.” Jasper hung up and sat down on his bed. Across the room, a family of houseflies circled over the toilet through the bathroom doorway. He realized he had forgotten about Ruben’s favor, but he was too tired to bother with it now. “Later,” he told himself. Besides, Boyle wasn’t really the one to ask.

Half of the hundred or so bulbs on the Mogul Hotel’s giant sign flickered to life outside his lone window. Night was almost here. Jasper stripped off his shirt and undershirt and laid his head down on the thin pillow. The room was sweltering, but he didn’t mind.

Pinned to the water-stained wall next to the bed were newspaper clippings covering every Midwest state from Huntsville, Texas all the way up to Chicago, Illinois. The headlines read: 9-year-old girl brutally slain, Local girl missing, Local girl’s body found—no suspects arrested, Birthday party turns bloody, Slain girl has history of abuse, Siblings die in bloody horror, Snatched Missouri girl found dead, Uncle found not responsible for girl’s death, Dozens of girls in the Heartland ‘vanishing…’ The dates all took place over a year ago, before Timothy Geist had been convicted for drug trafficking by a Cook County criminal court and sentenced ten to fifteen years in Stateville Correctional Center.

Jasper shut his eyes and saw Geist safe in his cell, laughing smugly, and his hatred for him did a slow, fuming burn.

(“I’m untouchable in here.”)

“I’m going to get you,” Jasper whispered to the empty room, his thoughts turning into the fuel of nightmares best forgotten.

(“Go home.”)

“Going to kill you…”

(“At least you still have that.”)

Night came as Jasper slept.