Chapter 20 Awake
Awake
I expected that Jeff Sumner would be at the hospital.
And he was, sitting in a car with Lister’s dealer plates, in the front row of the hospital parking lot, watching the door. He was scrunched down in his seat, sunglasses on, trying to be stealthy.
I parked next to him, taking it in: the new car; Sumner watching the entrance, not going inside. I was betting Drema had banned him from Mason’s hospital room, and he was here to follow her.
I made eye contact with him, got out of my car, and approached his.
He put his car in gear and drove away.
Interesting.
Monica was waiting for me at the hospital elevators, holding a gift bag from the gift shop. A green plush tail poked out of the top of the bag.
“Whatcha got?”
Monica lifted the bag. “Everybody loves dinosaurs.”
We headed down the hallway, and paused outside the door to Mason’s room.
Mason’s mom was sitting at his bedside, holding her son’s hand. Mason was sitting up in bed, looking pale, hooked up to wires and tubes. He held a Spider-Man action figure in his lap.
I knocked on the doorframe. “Pardon me. Mrs. Sumner?”
Drema Sumner turned to face me. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, but she smiled joyously. “He’s awake.”
“That’s such great news.”
She pushed his hair back from his eyes. “The doctors say his respiration and heart rate are normal. CT doesn’t show any brain damage.” She hiccuped a sob and pressed her fingertips to her mouth. “But he won’t speak.”
I ineffectually patted her shoulder. “I’m so glad he’s awake.”
She nodded, getting ahold of herself. Monica handed her the gift bag. Drema opened it, took a plush stegosaurus out of the bag, and gave it to Mason.
Mason stared at the toy on his lap, clutching his Spider-Man to his chest. He coughed a miserable cough that sounded like a goose’s honk.
“When do they think you might be able to take him home?” I asked.
“Not sure. They want to run more tests.” She combed his hair with her fingers. “I won’t be bringing him back to that house, though. Not ever.”
“I’m so sorry this happened,” I said.
Drema rubbed her eyes, and I noticed that her wedding rings were absent. “I can’t believe Jeff would try to deny medical care to his own son. I can’t…I can’t get past that.”
I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t my place. But I was certain that if I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t do anything different.
She exhaled. “This is gonna be hard, leaving Jeff. I know he’s going to fight me on custody, tooth and nail. He’s got money and power. He told me I wasn’t going to get away with it.
“But here’s the thing…I have my own money. I’m not from here, I get it. But I come from a family of lawyers, and I’m not going down without a fight.” Her cheeks blazed red with rage.
“Mrs. Sumner…Drema…” I began, sensing an opening. Maybe I could trust this woman, just a tiny bit, so I reached out: “How much do you know about your husband’s past? Before he met you?”
Her brows drew together. “Was…he married before or something?”
“No.” I took a deep breath, glancing at Mason. “Maybe we should take this somewhere else, though?”
Drema nodded. “We can get some coffee in the waiting area.”
We reassembled down the hall, in a group of chairs before windows overlooking the parking lot.
I didn’t know how much of our discussion Mason would understand, but I wanted to keep my aspersions on his father’s character away from his ears.
I knew firsthand that it was a terrible thing for a child’s vision of their father to be punctured.
I plunged in. “Jeff and his friends were suspects in the disappearance of a girl many years ago. They weren’t charged, but we’ve reopened the investigation. And there’s another disappearance we’re investigating, that girl’s sister.”
Drema had questions, and I gave answers, making certain to be factual.
In other circumstances, I’d never consider telling the spouse of someone I was investigating where I was going, but I sensed that Drema was serious about kicking Jeff to the curb: she wasn’t wearing her wedding rings.
And I had a lot to gain by involving her.
“He never told me this. I knew about his friendship with his boys, but…” Drema shook her head.
“I never liked how they would just disappear for days on end. To be honest, I assumed they rented out hotel rooms and called up strippers. I convinced myself that I was just being jealous, until one time, I went into Jeff’s trunk to look for the diaper bag and I found… ” She lowered her voice. “Costumes.”
“What kind of costumes?” I asked.
“Like, stupid bondage stuff.” She looked down at the floor. “Hoods and candle wax and stuff. I figured he hired women to do that, since I have too much self-esteem and not enough daddy issues for that bullshit.”
Monica almost choked on her coffee, but I kept a straight face and continued. “Does this look familiar?”
I showed her a photo of the cape I’d found in her backyard. She nodded. “Yes. Stuff like that.”
“I normally don’t comment on ongoing investigations like this, but…” I began.
“What do you need from me to nail that bastard to the wall?”
I blinked. Most people had a hard time believing that their spouse had done something awful, especially if they weren’t convicted. Drema Sumner had had enough, and she was willing to put her money where her mouth was. I could see that a mutually beneficial relationship was in the offing.
“I’d like to have access to the house,” I said.
“I want to look for evidence connected with the disappearance of Dana Carson, and to see if there’s any evidence connected with the abduction of Vivian Carson.
We would be discreet, though, and not enter at times when your husband is home, since we don’t want to tip him off. ”
“Do it. You can toss the place to your heart’s content. Let me give you the alarm codes and a key. I’ll even write you a note.” She got up and went to the nurses’ station to get a pen and paper.
Monica and I stared at each other.
“That’s a woman who knows what she wants,” Monica said.
“She wants her husband in jail,” I agreed.
“No, she wants him under the jail.”
Drema returned with a legal pad and wrote out a note giving us permission to enter the house at will. “In case his lawyers give you any shit about it, we can go to the hospital notary and get this notarized.”
“This is amazing, Drema,” I said. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” she said fiercely. “I don’t want to share custody of my child, and having Jeff in prison is the best way to accomplish that.”
I admired her ferocity, her willingness to defend her child. I’d vastly underestimated her, and I felt guilty about that. Drema Sumner was a fighter, and she was a strategic one. It felt good to have one secret ally in the Kings of Warsaw Creek’s circle.
We returned to Mason’s room. Drema kissed him on the head. “Mommy’s going to go get a paper signed and go down to the cafeteria. Would you like me to bring you something to eat?”
He looked up at her, nodded, and coughed miserably.
“What would you like?”
He stared at her blankly.
“Hamburger?”
He nodded.
“French fries?”
He nodded.
“Cookie?”
He nodded.
“Okay. Just sit tight for a little while. I’ll turn on the TV for you.” She sat on the bed and clicked the remote, finding cartoons.
Mason was playing with the plush dinosaur and Spider-Man. Spider-Man had his leg in the dinosaur’s mouth, and the dinosaur was trying to devour him.
He moved the blanket on the bed, and I saw the angry marks on his leg. They were red and black, like my own marks.
He smashed Spider-Man’s leg into the dinosaur’s mouth, and I shuddered.
“Would it be okay if I talked to Mason for a bit?” I asked tentatively. “I won’t ask him anything traumatizing. I promise.”
Drema paused. “I…Sure, if it’s okay that I’m here?”
“Of course.”
Drema patted Mason’s shoulder. “Buddy, this nice lady has some questions to ask you. Is that okay?”
He looked at her, then at me.
“You can just nod yes or shake your head no, okay?”
He stared at me and nodded.
I sat on the other side of the bed. I was terrible at interviewing kids, but maybe he remembered me a little bit from the night he almost drowned. “Hi. My name’s Anna. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
He turned his attention to the epic struggle between superhero and dinosaur.
“Do you remember the night you fell into the pond?”
He nodded, not looking at me.
“Do you remember leaving the house?”
He gave a sharp nod.
“Did you go outside on your own?”
He shook his head. He walked Spider-Man down his leg.
“Was Leah with you?”
He shook his head again, and coughed miserably.
“Was someone else with you?”
He nodded. Spider-Man stopped walking at the space between his knees, which formed a little crater in the bed.
“Do you know who it was?”
He shook his head. No.
“Did that person call you down to the pond?”
He nodded vigorously.
“Can you show me what happened? With Spider-Man?”
I held my breath.
Spider-Man paused at that gap in the blankets, where the dinosaur lay. The dinosaur rushed up and grabbed Spider-Man’s leg. Spider-Man fought and thrashed, but got pulled under by the dinosaur.
“Oh, honey.” Mason’s mom’s eyes filled with tears.
Solemnly, Mason grabbed my hand and put it around Spider-Man. He used my hand to pull Spider-Man out of the fuzzy pond.
A lump rose in my throat. “You’re a very brave boy, Mason.”
Mason leaned into his mom’s chest, and she enfolded him in a hug.
“I’m gonna go find that notary, and bring back some food,” Monica said quietly, sensing that Mason’s mom wasn’t ready to leave him.
I stared at the stegosaurus on the bed. I couldn’t take a child’s nonverbal playacting as testimony, but my intuition was screaming at me.
Monsters. There were monsters in the water.
And they were as pissed off at Mason’s dad as Mason’s mom was.
—
That night, I dreamed of Rusalka.
I was sitting on the river’s shore, beneath the Hag Stone. I was barefoot, and the poisoned water licked my toes.
Rusalka slithered through the cattails, peering at me. She wore Dana’s face tonight.
“Haven’t you done enough?” I asked.
She gave a musical giggle. “No. It’s never enough. Not while those men still walk on the earth.”
She reached out for my ankles. Her palms were cool when she rested them on my skin, cool like the bellies of fish. “It can’t be enough for you, can it?”
I frowned. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“But you live in this world, where men oppress the women around them. How can that be acceptable to you?”
“It’s not. But murder isn’t the answer.”
“And how would you propose to stop this, then?” Her eyes narrowed.
Words like “law” and “justice” died on my tongue.
“I thought so,” she said. “It is the highest degree of arrogance to think you can change people.”
“Please,” I begged her, “let me try.”
“You have until the anniversary of my death, my sister. Work quickly.” Her fingers slipped away from my feet, and she sank below the water.