December Park(74)

“But the cops don’t know that,” Scott added, still nodding. “They can’t know what we know. We’re ahead of the game.”

“And you guys think we’ll find more clues in that tunnel?” I said.

“It’s worth a shot,” Scott replied.

“That girl was killed in October,” I said. “That’s almost six months ago. Even if there was something in there, it would have washed into the sewers by now.”

They were all looking at me. They wanted to do this, and suddenly I was the one roadblock in their way. How had that happened? Hadn’t I been on board with them from the beginning? In my mind’s eye, I saw Margaret Cole weeping while Father Evangeline prayed with his thumb against her forehead and Aaron Ransom’s mother being led out of the church, her body wracked with sobs.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I’m in.”

Scott handed out flashlights to each of us while Adrian passed around plastic shopping bags he’d gotten from the Generous Superstore.

“What are the bags for?” I asked.

“For collecting whatever we find,” Adrian said.

“Let’s leave the backpacks here,” Scott said to Adrian. “I don’t want to get stuck crawling through that tunnel.”

“Good idea.”

I checked my flashlight and made sure the light came on, which it did, then stuffed the shopping bag into the rear pocket of my jeans.

The five of us crossed through the woods and ascended the embankment toward Counterpoint Lane. We waited for a break in the traffic, and when we got it, we sprinted across. The opening of the tunnel was in the muddy ravine, where we had previously trampled the weeds and imprinted the soles of our sneakers in the mud while searching for clues.

A curtain of ivy hung in front of the mouth of the tunnel. Staring at it, I felt a needle of apprehension at the base of my spine. All too clearly I remembered my nightmare of being sucked down a hole in the Dead Woods and buried underground. I quickly chased the thought away.

“We’ll have to go in single file,” Peter said. “Who goes first?”

“Don’t look at me,” I said. “This wasn’t my bright idea.”

“I’ll go.” Adrian climbed down into the ditch. The flashlight Scott had given him was one of those hefty black Maglites, like policemen carry, and it looked ridiculous in Adrian’s small hands. As he approached the mouth of the tunnel, the rest of us slid down the hill to the swampy earth.

It had been colder when we first searched this area, but in the warming weather of spring, the aroma of flowers mingling with the foul-smelling runoff from the pipe was enough to make me light-headed.

Adrian clicked on his flashlight, then swept away the curtain of ivy and vines from the tunnel’s opening. A circular black eyelet, perhaps four feet in diameter, stared back at us.

Stories my grandfather had told me about World War II suddenly flitted through my brain, particularly those of the Japanese soldiers hiding in L-shaped tunnels under the villages to escape the American troops. My grandfather had said they’d shoot the first few Japanese at the opening of the tunnel, and that was all they needed to do to trap the others inside, where they would all eventually die of suffocation, dehydration, or starvation.

“Wait,” I called to Adrian, but he had already gone into the hole. The curtain of ivy and vines swung back over the opening.

Scott went next. The tallest of us, he bent over and paused halfway into the opening. I thought he might back out and call it off. But he didn’t.

I took a breath, stepped onto the concrete lip, and urged myself forward into the darkness. The air was stagnant and thick, the temperature at least ten degrees warmer since there was no breeze inside. Bent forward at the waist, I inched my way into the pipe, the soles of my sneakers grinding on the accumulated debris while the concrete ceiling brushed against the top of my head. Just ahead of me, the beams of Scott’s and Adrian’s flashlights ticked back and forth along the walls. I heard their respiration clearly, their sneakers scuffing over muddy grit.

“Hey,” I half whispered, and even that was like a shout in this tomb-like echo chamber. “Do you see any opening up ahead, Adrian? At the other end?”

“No,” he returned, his voice the disembodied drone of a ghost.

Wonderful, I thought.

Directly behind me, the beam from Michael’s flashlight projected my shadow against the curved wall to my right. One of his hands fell against my back. “Jesus,” he whispered. “There’s probably bats down here. And rats. Possums, too. Shit. There could be anything.” He wasn’t saying this to spook me, I realized; he was saying it because he was suddenly fearful of all those things. “Don’t walk too fast, Angie.” And I felt him ball up a fistful of my shirt.

I took another step and felt my sneaker sink down into something. I paused and pointed the flashlight to the ground. Moist black sludge had engulfed my foot. Grimacing, I extracted it with a squelching sound. Bits of gunk pattered to the curved floor of the pipe.

“Just what exactly are we collecting from down here?” I said to no one in particular.

“Anything,” Scott said. “Anything at all.”

I reached down and fingered something shiny and metallic out of the muck. It was the pull tab from a soda or beer can. Holding it between two fingers, I was about to pitch it when Michael’s face came up close to mine.