All the Dying Children Read online

  Driving to work, Daly tried to put the dream and the conversation out of his mind. It was a familiar pattern, and he understood Lauren’s concerns. But he also didn’t think therapy could do anything for him — because he knew why the dream kept returning. For years, everyone around Daly, including Lauren, had been telling him that what happened wasn’t his fault. The problem was, he simply didn’t believe them.

  After arriving at the newsroom, Daly logged onto his computer and made a round of cop checks. Once he assured himself that everything was relatively quiet, he started on his top priority: checking out David Kowalski. Their brief meeting the day before left Daly wanting to know more. He didn’t know how David fit into whatever was going on, but right now he was the only person Daly knew who connected the two victims. Not only was he Daly’s only lead, but Kowalski had also admitted that he heard the last words somewhere before. This kid knew more than he was saying, and Daly wanted to know why.

  Court records didn’t return any hits for David, but Daly expected that. After all, he was still a juvenile. Daly also ran David’s name in the newspaper archives but didn’t find anything useful. There were a couple of obituaries he was named in, and he had been photographed at one point as an attendee of the Cherry Blossom Festival at Kirby Park. Daly noted that he didn’t come across any honor roll listings during his search.

  Hitting a dead end on a criminal history, Daly turned to figuring out how he could learn more about David. He needed to talk to someone about him, but it couldn’t be anyone who was too close. A friend of David’s couldn’t be trusted to be honest or objective. Daly needed to find someone who knew David well enough to give an informed opinion, but not someone who was close enough to put a spin on the negatives.

  He found his answer when searching David’s name through Facebook and seeing him tagged in a picture taken the previous weekend. David was one of about a dozen kids memorialized in the image, which was obviously taken at a house party. A few of the kids held cigarettes, and almost all of them held red Solo cups raised outward and upward as they cheered at the camera. Daly shook his head, amazed that kids would have so little sense as to allow themselves to be photographed at an underage drinking party. Not only that, but some of them had posted the proof online for the world to see.

  After a little more investigation, Daly figured out a senior named Kristen Bartkowski had hosted the party. Apparently, her parents had been out of town for the weekend, so she took advantage of the opportunity by inviting over a few dozen of her closest friends. That could be good news, Daly thought. If the parents haven’t heard about the party yet, it could be leverage to get Kristen to talk.

  Daly couldn’t be sure how closely Kristen knew David, but from her Facebook page, it didn’t appear it was very well. For one thing, they only appeared to have a few mutual Facebook friends. Plus, Daly had not seen a single picture of Kristen and David together at the party. He figured good friends would probably have been together enough to have been photographed in their drunken haze.

  Daly started to look up Kristen’s address, planning to swing by just after school and catch her before her parents got home. But as he began checking the White Pages for a listing, he heard a call on the police scanner about a house fire in Exeter. The initial report had someone possibly being trapped inside. Daly decided instead of going the opposite direction to Nanticoke, he would just message Kristen on Facebook.

  “Kristen, I’m a reporter for the Observer working on a story about some suicides we’ve had in the area. I was wondering if I could talk to you about David Kowalski. His name came up and I’m trying to get some background on him.”

  After hitting enter to send the message, Daly closed out of Facebook and ran the address from the fire through Google Maps. He got his bearings, grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.

  * * *

  The fire took up more of Daly’s time than he would have liked. The report of someone being trapped had ratcheted up the urgency of the call, but when Daly got on the scene nobody would say anything about what happened. A gruff policeman with a big gut had herded Daly and the other reporters down the street. They could see smoke rising above the rooftops and little else. The burning building was obscured behind neighboring homes, and everyone with knowledge of what was happening was more than a block away.

  Daly got on his iPhone, tapping at the screen with fingers that felt brittle in the chilly air of an early spring afternoon. He put together a few sentences based on what he saw – smoke billowing into the sky, the road closures in the area – and emailed it to the editors on the city desk. He also attached a photo he had taken with his cellphone before he’d been pushed back a block.

  For the next hour, Daly waited for an update with the other reporters and photographers. At first, they went around knocking on doors to try and learn more about the fire and who lived in the home. But the media quickly exhausted the limited supply of residents who were at home on a Tuesday afternoon, having learned very little from their efforts. One old woman thought it might have been a house used by junkies to cook up methamphetamine. Another resident, a balding man in his mid-40s who smelled of Milwaukee’s Best even though lunchtime had scarcely passed, informed the reporters that the house was vacant.

  Unsure of what to believe, the reporters wrote the neighbors off. Perhaps they were both right.

  Having run through the available sources, the members of the media huddled together in a circle, telling tales and jokes about past stories they’d covered together. When the fire chief finally made an appearance for the media well over an hour later, he revealed that the initial report had been wrong. There were no injuries and the only damage was to the affected structure, which was a vacant home.

  The reporters dutifully took down the information and then packed up, disappointed to have wasted so much time on something that would warrant only a brief mention in the paper or on the six o’clock news. Daly jumped back into his car, cranking up the heat to restore the circulation to his fingertips. He banged out a few more sentences on his iPhone and sent the update to the city desk before realizing he had a new Facebook message.

  “How did you find me?” was all Kristen had written.

  She was clearly reluctant to talk, but she had responded. That was a good sign. If Daly played his cards right, he might get her to open up. He decided he would try and set her at ease by promising her anonymity. After all, she didn’t appear to be a major source for his story; he was just trying to get a feel for who David Kowalski was.

  “I saw on Facebook that he was at your party last weekend. I was trying to look him up because I’m looking into the death of Kimberly Foster up in Hanover Area. I don’t need to use your name for this. I’m just trying to get some background information.”

  Daly hit send on the message and waited a few seconds until a check mark appeared, indicating Kirsten had seen it. When a response wasn’t forthcoming, Daly put his phone back in his pants pocket and threw the car in gear. After making his way back out to U.S. Route 11, Daly crossed the Susquehanna River at the Eighth Street Bridge and then continued south to Wilkes-Barre on River Road. When he got back to the newsroom, he hung his coat on the back of his chair and sat down, waking his computer from its sleep. First thing, he clicked a link to Facebook to see if Kristen had written back yet. He got a slight rush of excitement when he saw the small red dot showing he had a new message.

  “I don’t want my name used,” Kristen wrote. “But yeah, David came to the party. I hardly know him, but he came with a group of guys my friend Katie invited. The whole time he was here he just sat in the corner, drinking. I kind of wished he hadn’t come. He seemed like a total creep.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Wednesday, March 28, 2018

  10:23 a.m.

  The conversation with Kristen left Daly with one thought: he needed to find out more about David Kowalski. During their exchange of messages on Fac
ebook, Daly had gotten Kristen’s phone number. When he called to talk a little more in depth about the party, Daly learned that David was something of a dark horse in the school — the kind of kid who cracked jokes in class and sneaked smokes in passing. His parents were divorced and David was living with his father, who spent more time down at the corner bar than with his son. David’s primary after-school activity was detention, as far as Kristen could tell.

  He had not been invited to the party but had shown up with some kids who were members of a stoner clique who, because of their access to drugs, were able to transcend the traditional group boundaries and party with everyone from the jocks to the drop-outs. While everyone else at the party had been drinking and getting wild, David had been downing beers alone and off to the side, seeming awkward and out of place. He hardly spoke the entire time he was there, according to Kristen.

  Kristen didn’t think David had ever done anything violent, but after the conversation, Daly definitely wanted to learn more about him and how he connected to Kimberly and Justin. Daly decided to go to where the three apparently met, at Camp Summit Lake, and see if anyone there knew them. He jumped onto the Cross Valley Expressway and sped across the sprawling Wyoming Valley toward the snow-capped peaks of the Back Mountain. To the east, stark white windmills projected from the mountain tops into the bluebird sky. Down below, a few logs swirled in the muddy waters of the Susquehanna River.

  It took Daly nearly an hour to reach the entrance to the camp, which was down a rutted dirt road that was getting perilously close to being reclaimed by the encroaching mountain laurel bushes. As his car bounced down the muddy potholes in the road, Daly considered for the first time that it was unlikely anyone would be at a camp on a chilly morning so early in the springtime. As he pulled down the single-lane path that led to the camp office, Daly passed under a wooden sign with “Camp Summit Lake” displayed in raised cedar letters. A few more minutes bouncing down the dirt path that passed for a road found Daly pulling up to the camp office, a small log cabin that looked clean and well-maintained. Out front, a carved wooden black bear stood on its hind legs, ready to greet anyone who happened across the threshold. A couple of split-log benches lined the front wall of the cabin, which was situated between a rock-lined fire pit and a series of cabins to the rear where campers spent their nights in warmer weather.

  To Daly’s relief, the camp office’s chimney was blowing out smoke.

  Daly threw his car in park, cut the ignition and went over to knock on the cabin door. After a few seconds passed, he heard someone inside call for him to come in.

  He pushed open a heavy oak door and a small bell jingled overhead as the door creaked open. Closest to the door, the office had several racks of shelves set up for merchandise and amenities unprepared campers might need. The shelves were mostly bare now, aside from a few tee-shirts and sweatshirts embroidered with the camp logo. At the far end of the room, there was a counter with a cash register and a door leading to what appeared to be a manager’s office. Behind the counter, a man of about twenty-five was watching Daly with a bored expression as he stretched strips of brown rawhide across a pair of old snowshoes.

  “Can I help you?” he asked. Daly could see his interest was focused on a small television showing the Philadelphia Flyers playing the Montreal Canadiens.

  “I’m with the Observer. I’m working on a story about some deaths we’ve had recently and I was trying to get some information. Some of the people involved came here for a week last summer.”

  “Who were they?” the guy asked, his interest piqued.

  “Kimberly Foster and Justin Gonzalez. Did you know them?”

  “Justin died too?” the guy asked in disbelief. Daly gave him a moment to take in the news.

  “Yeah, he died in his garage last month. Apparently, it was a suicide too,” Daly said.

  “Man, I can’t believe it. They were really good kids.”

  “How did you know them?”

  “My parents own this place, so I help out. During the summers, I usually work as a camp counselor. I help supervise the campers and do other odd jobs.”

  The counselor told Daly that Kimberly and Justin had not known each other before camp, but they became quick friends during their week there. On the second day of their week-long sojourn, Kimberly had twisted her ankle during a hike. She hadn’t been able to walk back out on her own. Justin wouldn’t leave her side and waited with her in the woods until the counselors could get an ATV to carry her out. After that, the two had been almost inseparable. Together they had ridden on horseback through the shadowy pine woods encircling the camp. Justin helped Kimberly hook her worm when the campers dipped their fishing lines into the murky green-brown waters of Summit Lake, as she feigned disgust. They had sat together at the evening campfires, toasting marshmallows and giggling as they whispered secrets in the dark.

  “It happens with just about every camp we host,” said the counselor, who introduced himself as Scott Taylor. “Classic summer romance. They fall for each other and exchange numbers at the end. Usually, it doesn’t go much past that.”

  “What about with Kimberly and Justin?”

  “I don’t know about them. I didn’t really hear from them after camp ended.”

  “Did anything ever seem wrong with them? I know it’s been a while since you saw them, but I’m just trying to figure out why they might have done it.”

  “No, like I said, they were good kids. Seemed happy. I never would have thought they’d do something like that.”

  Now that Daly had gotten a little bit of background on the victims, he decided to move on to the real reason for his visit.

  “What about David Kowalski? Do you remember him at all?”

  “Did he die too?” Scott asked, startled.

  “No, he’s okay. I just came across a picture of him with Kimberly and Justin. I wanted to know how he fits in.”

  “David Kowalski,” Scott said with a smirk, shaking his head. “Where do I begin? He was your typical problem child. Apparently he had a long history of trouble at school. He had a therapist – I think it was ordered by a judge because of some trouble he was in. I heard he tied a few M-80s to the tail of his neighbors’ cat and blew it up. When the family came home, they found their cat inside out in the driveway. Anyway, the therapist recommended he come here as a way to get away from his problems at home. The first day he was here, we caught him smoking pot down by the lake. We confiscated the drugs but let him stay, since it was supposed to be part of his therapy.”

  “How did he do the rest of the time?”

  “That was the only real incident we had with him. We usually keep the kids on a pretty short leash, so they’re not really free to wander off and get into trouble.”

  “Got it. How about his relationship with Kimberly and Justin? How did he get involved with them?”

  “I mean, I think it was just the same way all the kids got to know each other. They weren’t especially close, but they were friendly. It wouldn’t surprise me for them to be in a picture together. A lot of the kids take selfies together while they’re here.”

  “Okay,” Daly said, disappointed. David’s background had certainly piqued his interest, but if he wasn’t even very close to Kimberly and Justin, then it was all for nothing. “Anything else you can think of?”

  “Not really. Well, there was one other thing I remember about David. He was telling everyone about some new app he found. It was some sort of a white noise app he was using because it gets really quiet in the cabins at night. I guess it helped him sleep. I only remember it because that was one of the only times we’ve had a bunch of campers plugged into headphones at night.”

  “What was the app?”

  “I’m not sure. Slumber or Somber, something like that. No, Soma. That was it. Soma.”

  “Well, thanks again for your time,” Daly said, passing Scott a business card
. “If you think of anything else, give me a call at that number.”

  A burst of cool air hit Daly as he opened the door to the office and returned to his car. David Kowalski’s background was certainly questionable, but all Daly had to tie him to the victims was a selfie and a tenuous connection for a week at summer camp eight months earlier. Daly jumped into the driver’s seat and sat for a minute, thinking. Then he pulled out his iPhone and went to the App Store, keying in the word “Soma.”

  The first hit was for a messaging service, but the next result was for a free white-noise app. He clicked the icon and downloaded the app. Upon opening it, Daly wasn’t very impressed. In contrast to other white noise apps that have a variety of sounds – waterfalls, waves lapping on a beach or wind blowing through mountain treetops – Soma appeared to have just one sound. Daly clicked play and listened for a few minutes to the soft rushing sound of static. It sounded like the static in just about any other white-noise app. He clicked it off and tossed his phone to the passenger seat, then threw the car in reverse.

  CHAPTER 7

  Thursday, March 29, 2018

  8:55 a.m.

  Richardson’s deadline was looming, threatening to reveal to the world what Daly had discovered without providing any answers in return. So far, he had little more information than when he started – still no smoking gun to connect Kimberly and Justin and to explain why two seemingly normal kids would have killed themselves. Naming David as an involved party at this stage was out of the question. As far as Daly could tell, he was just a mutual acquaintance who had some dirt in his past. Even raising the possibility of a connection between the deaths would be questionable at this point. The shared last words would suggest, at best, a shared interest or inspiration. At worst, it opened the door to the possibility that someone provoked their suicides. Celeste Gonzalez already refused to believe her son killed himself. Running a story suggesting he might not have — without evidence to back up the theory — would tear her apart.