All the Dying Children Page 4

  * * *

  Daly pulled back into a parking space outside the Observer and found himself hoping it would be a quiet afternoon on the police beat. He had thought of another loose end he wanted to check out. Celeste Gonzalez had told him Justin didn’t know Kimberly — but how did she really know for sure? She said she kept tabs on his Facebook account, but that didn’t mean she knew everyone her son friended. Daly knew most kids have hundreds of friends on Facebook, and it was highly unlikely Celeste knew them all. Daly climbed the steps to the newsroom planning to find out for sure whether there was any connection between the pair. Trust, but verify, as the saying went.

  Logging on to Facebook, Daly went to Justin’s profile first. Luckily his friends list was open to the public. Luckier still, Daly saw he had only two-hundred and three friends on the list. Daly opened another tab and went to Kimberly’s page, seeing she had six-hundred and fifty-seven friends. It was a lot to go through, but Daly nevertheless breathed a sigh of relief. Cross-referencing two-hundred and three names against that would take a little while, but it could have been much worse.

  He started by printing out Justin’s friends list and then searching through Kimberly’s list on the website to find any matches. It was monotonous, but pretty quick going. After searching through one-hundred seventy-six names, Daly had gotten three matching names, but he’d quickly realized they were different people with the same names. Then Daly keyed in the one-hundred seventy-seventh name and got a hit.

  Daly circled the name on his list and then finished going through it, confirming that David Kowalski had been the only mutual Facebook friend of Kimberly Foster and Justin Gonzalez. Judging from the sweatshirt he wore in his cover photo, Kowalski was a student at Nanticoke Area High School. He also had an affinity for dirt bikes, all-terrain vehicles and monster trucks, as demonstrated by a series of images of mud-spattered vehicles and the motto listed on his introduction, which announced to the world that David Kowalski “like(s) it dirty.”

  Much of the rest of the page was private, so Daly wasn’t able to see most of David’s status updates or pictures. But one of the images stopped him cold. The photo, which had been uploaded the previous summer, was a group shot of a bunch of kids who appeared to be at camp. David was in the middle, smiling with his arms around Kimberly and Justin.

  Daly snapped a photo of the page and image just in case anyone decided to remove it, then sent the picture to Celeste Gonzalez in a text message. As soon as it showed as sent, Daly dialed her number.

  “Celeste? Hi, it’s Erik from the Observer. I just texted you a picture. Did you get it?”

  “Hang on,” she said, fumbling with the phone on the other end. “Yes, it just came through. Oh my goodness ...”

  “Do you know who that is with Justin?”

  “I recognize the girl from the news. I don’t know who the other boy is. I’ve never seen him before.”

  “His name is David Kowalski. Do you know the name?”

  “No, I don’t think I ever heard Justin mention him.”

  “Do you know how Justin knew Kimberly? Before it sounded like you were sure they didn’t know each other.”

  “Yes, well I never met her. She never came around here. This picture looks like it was taken last summer. Justin spent a week at Camp Summit Lake out near Ricketts Glen State Park last July.”

  “How did he like it?”

  “He loved it. It’s a Christian summer camp. I think he had a great time bonding with other kids of faith,” Celeste said.

  “Okay. Thanks again, Celeste. I’m going to try and figure out who this other kid is. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  They ended the call and Daly grabbed his coat, planning an excursion southbound on the Sans Souci Parkway to Nanticoke. It wasn’t much to go on, and Daly realized that the camp connection meant his two victims could have had dozens of mutual acquaintances from that summer.

  But right now he decided to focus on David Kowalski: the only person with his arms wrapped around them both.

  * * *

  The sloped streets of Nanticoke were lined with old coal-miners’ homes, bunched tightly together amid the scattered corner bars and churches. The people were mostly hard-working blue-collar types, descendants of coal miners who bored the anthracite from the bedrock below their very homes. The collapse of the mining industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania brought hard times, not just for Nanticoke, but for the region overall. Now the mines that once helped fuel the country and sustain local families produced acidic water that poisoned area waterways. The homes on the surface were weathered and wilting, many resting atop crumbling foundations.

  The home of David Kowalski was no exception. As Daly pulled into a spot a few doors down on Noble Street, he found an old, drooping structure with peeling paint and rusting furniture on a cluttered front porch. In stark contrast to the dilapidated state of the dreary home, a cherry red 1957 Ford Thunderbird sat shining at the top of the driveway, spotless and glistening in the sun.

  Normally when Daly went to the home of someone who might be a suspect, he’d have a photographer staked out across the street, ready to snap a picture with a telephoto lens the instant someone opened the front door. Daly decided to hold off on the paparazzi for the time being, as to not spook Kowalski. At this point, he wasn’t even certain there had been a crime to make Kowalski a suspect.

  When Daly began ascending the three steps leading to the front porch, he glanced at his watch and saw it was still early enough that David’s parents probably wouldn’t be home yet — assuming they worked. That could also go in his favor – a parent standing behind David as a reporter asked him questions about two dead kids might get nervous and put a damper on the whole thing.

  Daly pushed the button for the doorbell but didn’t hear a bell inside. Probably out of service, he thought. He opened the storm door and knocked, closing the exterior door and stepping back just enough so he wouldn’t be perceived as a threat. A minute later he heard some rustling inside, followed by the sound of giggling. David Kowalski pulled open the door and gazed out at Daly, his hair mussed and a grinning girl leaning on his shoulder.

  A tall, thin kid with dark brown hair, David wore a cockeyed camouflage ball cap and a Harley Davidson tee-shirt. After eyeing Daly for a moment, he turned and smirked at the brunette using him for support.

  Apparently, Daly had been right about the parents not being home.

  “Hi, I’m Erik Daly with the Observer. Are you David Kowalski?” Daly asked, trying to sound casual.

  “What do you want?” David said.

  “I’m looking into a few deaths we’ve had in the area. Have you heard about Kimberly Foster?”

  “Everybody knows about Kim,” David said in his best no-shit-Sherlock tone.

  “Well, the last thing she said on the video was pretty similar to something another boy said last month before he killed himself. It was an unusual thing to say and it didn’t really make sense. I’m trying to figure out what it meant.”

  “Yeah?” David said, sounding bored. His mind was obviously on something much closer in space and time than the dead kids.

  “The other kid was Justin Gonzalez. I saw on Facebook that you’re friends with both of them. You’re the only one who was friends with both of them.”

  As the words came out, Daly watched David carefully, looking for any sign of fear or recognition. But if David felt any of those things, he didn’t show it. He looked back evenly at Daly, waiting for the next question. Probably waiting for the chance to cut off the interview and get back to the task at hand, Daly thought.

  “How did you know them?” Daly asked.

  “I met Kim and Justin at camp last summer. We hung out that week, did some archery and swimming, stuff like that. But I haven’t seen either one of them since last summer. After camp ended, we friended each other on Facebook and hung out once or twice. But
you know how it is.”

  “Did they seem depressed at all?”

  “Like I said, I only ever hung out with them in person for a few weeks last summer. But they both seemed like normal kids. Kim was a cheerleader and seemed to be pretty popular. Honestly, I think me and Justin both gravitated to her, if you know what I mean. But he seemed like a cool dude too.”

  “Do you know why they would have said the same thing at the end? Does it mean anything to you?”

  “Not really. I mean, what Kim said about being watched and not being able to stop it seemed kind of familiar. I can’t put my finger on it. I can’t be sure, but it seems like something I heard somewhere before.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Tuesday, March 27, 2018

  1:56 a.m.

  The passage of fourteen years had done nothing to reduce the terror the dream brought to Daly. Every time, Daly woke up in a sweaty panic, the air in his bedroom seeming to suffocate him like he’s trapped in a sauna. A moment after sitting up in bed, Daly’s eyes would adjust to the darkened room and he would hear the constant whirring of his fan as he slowly remembered it was just a dream. Then, almost without fail, he would reach across his bed and feel the empty, cool sheets where Jessica once slept and be reminded of the vast void in his life.

  Most nights when the dream came, Daly knew there was little chance of getting back to sleep. By the time his heart rate dropped and he assured himself of where he was, he was wide awake. Looking at the clock, Daly took solace in knowing he wouldn’t have to get up for work for about six hours. He got out of bed and crept to the kitchen through the dark house, not wanting to turn on the hallway light and risk waking Lauren.

  Down in the kitchen, Daly pulled open the refrigerator and looked inside, squinting in the cold, bright light. With another glance at the clock on the oven, Daly pulled out a bottle of Yuengling Lager. He popped the cap off with a satisfying hiss, dropped it on the kitchen table and sat down. As Daly tipped back the bottle, sipping the amber, rich liquid, he kicked his feet up onto the chair next to him. He decided to put on some music and called out to his Amazon Echo to play Muddy Waters singing “Louisiana Blues.” As Waters sang the opening lines of his melancholy ballad, Daly took another sip of beer and started to let his mind wander. Jessica was on his mind tonight, as she always was after the unnerving dream. The dream made him feel ugly, and afterward he often felt the need to remember Jessica the way she was. He felt he needed to honor her memory.

  And to apologize.

  This night, Daly thought back to the first date they had after their awkward meeting on the King’s College lawn. Daly had called Jessica up to ask her out to dinner, and surprised her when he pulled up to a sushi restaurant. After discovering that Jessica hated fish, Daly tried to recover by taking her to a downtown coffee shop. The place was low-key, bathed in blue lights, and had a guy playing a mediocre version of “Big Yellow Taxi” on a worn acoustic guitar. As they sipped their overpriced coffees, they started getting to know each other. With her disarming smile, Jessica teased Daly and asked if he wanted to be the next Dan Rather. Daly returned the gesture, asking if she wanted to save the world with a degree in psychology.

  Jessica Thompson, he learned, was a native of Montrose who had descended from a long line of coal miners. Her ancestors had bored the earth with blackened hands, scratching and blasting prized anthracite away from the bedrock that held it in its clutches for eons. The men of the Thompson family rarely saw the sun; by the time they emerged from the subterranean labyrinth covered in sweat, blood, and coal dust, the daylight had often turned to a gray dusk.

  When mining collapsed in the region, the Thompsons, like many others, had struggled to find a new livelihood. Jessica’s grandfather had turned to farming, scraping together what savings he could to buy an ailing dairy farm with a dilapidated barn and sickly cows and try to start over. It was a hard life, with early mornings and work that lasted all day, seven days a week. But he fixed up the barn and eventually got the cows producing milk. Jessica’s father had followed suit and took over the farm when his father could no longer manage it. Jessica, however, envisioned herself as something of a modern-day woman and decided she wanted to take the first opportunity she could to get out of the farmer’s life. Wading through cow shit at five o’clock in the morning was not her idea of the good life.

  She knew she wanted something more, but it wasn’t until she was a freshman in high school that she found out what it was. The exact date her life changed was May 8, 1992. It was a Friday in springtime, a warm and inviting day after a long and brutal winter. Jessica and her older brother Kevin got off the bus that afternoon and rushed to the barn to get their chores done. Jessica had it in mind to go down the street to play with her friend Molly. Kevin, who by then was a high school senior, was hoping to borrow their father’s pickup and go to town to shoot some pool with the boys.

  After feeding the cows and getting the barn tidied up, they went home and washed up for dinner. Ed Thompson, usually a gruff man, had been in good spirits that evening — perhaps he felt a tinge of carnality himself because of the change in seasons. Whatever the reason, he didn’t much question Kevin’s request to borrow the Ford F-150, and he agreed to let Jessica go to Molly’s until dark. Stuffing the final few bites of a pork chop into his mouth, Kevin said thanks and gave his mother Barbara a peck on the cheek. Then he grabbed the keys and ran out the door, leaving the torn screen door to slam home.

  It was the last time Jessica ever saw her brother run anywhere. When the house phone rang a little after midnight, the police told Ed that there had been an accident. A drunk driver had swerved across state Route 167 and hit the F-150 head-on.

  The family rushed down to Moses Taylor Hospital in Scranton and found Kevin unconscious. The only sound in the room had been the steady bleating of a heart monitor and the rush of air coming from a machine that was doing the breathing for Kevin. Jessica remembered thinking her brother — the person she had admired since childhood — looked so frail. Most of his skin had been covered in white bandages that were tinged with blood. His once-handsome face was bruised and bloodied, and tubes and wires protruded from his mouth and arms as if he were the subject of some horrific scientific experiment.

  The doctors were quick to reassure the family that it might not be as bad as it looked. Kevin had shattered most of the bones in his body and had severe internal bleeding, but he wasn’t paralyzed. There was still a chance of a full recovery.

  When Kevin finally awoke a week later, it was apparent that would never happen. Kevin had been a smart kid who did well in school and who was always quick with a comeback. But the morning that he opened his eyes and looked to his mother without comprehension, he hadn’t been able to utter a word. The doctors’ talk shifted from hope of a full recovery to talk about speech therapy and physical rehabilitation. Best case scenario, they said, Kevin might be able to walk again one day — with the help of a walker. He would probably be able to hold a conversation at the level of a second-grader.

  Kevin’s transformation from an exuberant teenager who talked about joining the U.S. Navy to an incoherent invalid who would forever need help with the bathroom was too much for Ed Thompson. His long workdays got longer as he disappeared into the barn for long stretches. Ed pretended to do work that had never before existed, and Barbara pretended she didn’t notice the pint bottles of Jim Beam when she emptied the trash.

  Jessica and Barbara did whatever they could to help Kevin’s recovery. They rejoiced every time he picked something up by himself and every time he spoke a re-learned word. It was exhausting work, both mentally and physically. They continually had to keep at bay the thought that maybe Kevin was as far along as he would ever get. Disabled or not, this person was still the Kevin they loved.

  It was during this period that Jessica realized what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to get out of the farmer’s life, sure, but she also wanted to
do something meaningful for others. A degree in psychology, she decided, would let her work with people in need and help them overcome their obstacles. She could provide therapy and coaching to people like Kevin, and hopefully, she could have an impact on their lives.

  Daly had sipped his black coffee and took in the story, feeling a little ashamed at having teased Jessica, even if it was in jest. She wasn’t out to save the world. She just wanted to save her brother.

  * * *

  After knocking back his third beer inside a half-hour, Daly decided it would be dangerous to have another and went back to bed. He drifted off still thinking about the lavender scent Jessica’s luxurious, golden hair had during that first date. When he woke up again, it was already light outside and he could hear Lauren rattling around in the kitchen, getting ready for school. Daly shaved and brushed his teeth, then went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee.

  “Good morning,” Lauren said. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I saw some bottles in the recycling. And you got up later than usual this morning,” Lauren said. “Plus, I heard some music playing at two o’clock in the morning.”

  “Nothing gets past you,” Daly smiled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “It’s okay. I went right back to sleep. Did you have the dream again?”

  “Yeah,” Daly said, embarrassed.

  Lauren walked over to where Daly was standing by the coffee pot at the counter and wrapped her arms around him. She squeezed gently for a few seconds before talking.

  “I really miss her too. But it’s been fourteen years. You need to stop blaming yourself. What happened wasn’t your fault, no matter how much you think it was.”

  “I know that,” Daly said, his eyes welling up. “But I can’t control my dreams. It keeps coming back, no matter how hard I try to get past it.”

  “Maybe you should see a therapist. It might help.”

  “I don’t need a therapist,” Daly said. “I just need a cup of coffee.”