The Boy in the Park: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

But this child, this one unique, odd child, has never so much as lifted his eyes up to mine, though I’ve always sat in what is quite clearly his field of vision. Day after day, and not so much as a passing glance or a corner of his eye caught out of a corner of mine. But he’s never had a bloodied arm before, either, or black marks.

My thoughts drift, and I wonder who takes care of him when he leaves the water’s edge, when he makes his way home. Who touches his face and speaks soothing words to him? And why haven’t they bandaged the broken skin?

Every boy deserves soothing words when he’s done himself harm. Soothing words, a bandage, and the love that makes blood a little less terrifying.

LUNCHTIME

With thoughts like these occupying my internal attention, work before lunch sits in my mind like a kind of haze. I’m fairly certain I sold a good stock of pills to several people, at least enough to keep my manager smiling. But I did it all while staring out the glass storefront at the bright sunshine of this new day, only physically present in the little shop. The higher part of me was somewhere else. I was anxious. Anxious to get back to the park and settle my internal bets about the boy’s welfare. I wanted to see if he would be there again. If he was, I wanted to survey his condition; and assuming that it still contained any troubling elements, I was resolved to speak. I had even prepped my remarks in advance so as to be fully prepared for the encounter.

Hi kid. My name is Dylan. I usually sit over there around lunchtime. I would point back towards my bench. I saw you hurt your arms. Are your parents around? Can we get them to take a look at it?

During the night I’d determined this was probably a good approach. Casual, not too confrontational. Caring, I hoped, without being creepy.

But they’re only plans. Burns once wrote a poem about plans – something to do with mice and men. One every poet has to learn. I forget it now, but the gist sticks with me. Plan and plan and plan, and eventually something will come along to best your intentions. So lunchtime has come, and I’m resolved to put my own into immediate action before Burns’s mice have the chance.

I walk towards the park with unusual haste, each foot planted before the next with a few extra inches in my stride. I don’t have the full hour today that I had yesterday – apparently Michael’s new hire has become proficient enough on the till that more extended training isn’t required, so it’s to be my usual forty-five minutes and I want to make the most of it. Today, unlike most days, I actually have things to do.

My ID is already in my hand as I approach the ticket window and hold it up for Anna. She’s the one who works Fridays, whose hair is dyed a hazard-cone orange with roots that are almost black, gelled into little spikes that give her head the overall appearance of a badly spray-painted cactus. There are three slashes boldly shaved at angles through her left eyebrow, which I’m vaguely certain is a signal of something, but I have no idea what (perhaps she’s in a gang? though this seems unlikely. I’m not sure how many gang members have day jobs taking tickets in botanical gardens). Her grey T-shirt says BACK OFF in enormous lettering, and she’s affixed her Welcome to the Botanical Gardens, My Name is Anna and I’m Happy To Help You badge just above the final F of OFF.

Anna glances at my ID with relative detachment. She’s not so much interested in the name, Dylan Aaronsen, or the photograph that is obviously me. Her real interest is in the zip code provided at the end of my address – proof I’m a resident, which she then notes down on a sheet of paper that for some reason charts the number of daily visitors from each zip code in the region. I’ve often tried to imagine why this could be of interest to anyone; but I’ve also taken an oddly irrational pleasure in seeing more tick-marks by my own suburban zip code (94131) than by many others. On other days, I’ve entertained the idea that this says something rare and telling about what kind of people we are in Diamond Heights. The kind of people who like plants more than the Union Square elitists of 94108 and the Mission hippies of 94110. I’ve never seen a single mark next to the zip codes that lie along the beaches. That’s telling, too. Let them have their sand. We 94131’ers like our nature, and enough to travel a good hike to get it.

But today my mind is on other things. I at last step into the gardens, my ID returned to my wallet, and start to walk with purpose. These grounds normally cause me such delight, but today they are simply an avenue towards a destination.

Five minutes later. I’m at my bench. I don’t sit down in a usual way: today isn’t about a gentle relaxing into place and breathing a little more deeply for the peace of it. I sit today with purpose, as if my butt plopping onto the wood will trigger the events I want to happen next.

The sun is bright and the water is dead still. There are no throngs of visitors this afternoon. Not every day draws the crowds, and it’s an unpredictable game, guessing what factors pull them in and what fend them off. It’s not always an exact correlation of sunshine-to-crowds or fog-to-emptiness. I’d have thought it would have been, that’s the sort of formula that makes sense; but today is a case in point against.

It takes a few seconds, given my swirl of thoughts, but I eventually calm myself down and shake off the various annoyances of the walk: the noise of the traffic along the road, the seemingly unnecessary ritual at the gate. I’m able to take in a few, deep, wonderful breaths of the fresh park air, scented with a touch of the must that comes off the still water. I’m refreshed. And in that relaxed state I realize that my stillness here is a little unusual.

I am, in fact, not only absent a crowd today. I’m entirely alone. Entirely. And the reality of that strikes out at me all at once.

The boy isn’t here. It’s past time for him to be here, and he isn’t here.

This isn’t right. This isn’t how these days go, I tell myself, agitated. My mind is immediately analytical. I come, I sit, and he appears. That’s the pattern. I’m used to the pattern.

My pulse is quickening. I can sense my heart thumping in my chest – and for an instant I feel absurd. Why this fuss? It’s just a kid with a scraped arm and a bit of a bruise. God’s sakes. You’re obsessing.

Yet I’m infinitely relieved when a second later I hear a rustle in the trees. I glance across the pond to the boy’s usual spot, expecting my consolation – but there is nothing there. A strange tingling starts to build up in my spine. Then, two college-aged students emerge from a different spot, giggling at each other with heavy book bags over their shoulders. They are the sources of my noise.

I have to calm myself down. I’ve become entirely too worked up over this whole thing. I don’t know this boy from Adam. His life is none of my business. I focus on the college students instead. They’re amused by whatever stories they’re telling themselves. They’re that age, so it’s probably something to do with alcohol, workloads, or sexual escapades – the only three categories of mental focus for the 18- to 22-year-old college crowd. For an instant, I desperately wish I was in college.

Then, to my relief, the longed-for moment comes. Branches rustle again, and from his spot the boy finally emerges onto the landscape of the pond.

I can feel the breath ease within me, like a great release from an over-inflated tyre. He’s here. And I can sense my curiosity pique as I squint in the sunlight to examine him from afar.

And then the colour starts to drain from my face – I can feel it disappearing – as I gaze upon what, despite everything, I was not prepared to see.

The blood still drips down his left arm. The bruise still covers his right. And today there is a great, blue patch of swollen skin beneath one of his eyes. Strange, that in the shadows from the trees I can’t make out the eyes themselves – I couldn’t tell you their colour, the length of the lashes around them – but the bruising on his face broadcasts just fine across the distance.

No, enough of this, I say to myself. A boy shouldn’t look like that.

More giggles come from the college students. They’ve now planted themselves on a patch of grass off to the left, facing each other, and are oblivious to the world. If they weren’t they would see him, and they would be as concerned as I am.

I rise from my bench. My words are scripted, and I know the little dirt pathway that leads around the pond to the spot where he’s standing. But I don’t want the child frightened by my bursting out of the woods without a little hint of warning.

‘Hey, kid,’ I call out from just in front of my bench. My voice echoes slightly over the water. The boy doesn’t seem to hear. His expression remains fixed, gazing out over the lilies.

‘My name’s Dylan.’ I start to move in his direction. My plan has begun. Burns may have ploughed over the nest of his mice and sent their intentions awry, but mine are being put into motion. I’ll be able to offer the boy some help, if he’ll let me. At least he isn’t running in fear at the sound of my voice.

But suddenly I freeze. I’ve barely made it a few steps, but I can’t move; my feet seem anchored to the soil. Something happens that has never happened before. An arm emerges from the greenery behind the boy. I can’t see the body it’s connected to, but it’s a large arm. An adult arm. And it reaches out with a practised violence – the kind of motion that can only be called that: violent – and grabs the boy by the back of the overalls. The arm pulls and the boy is yanked in reverse, his stick falling from his grasp.

‘Stop!’ I shout, but in an instant the boy is gone, his body gathered into the dense branches, out of sight, the heels of his shoes dragging in front of him.

8

Taped Recording Cassette #014B Interviewer: P. Lavrentis

As the recording resumes on its B-side, the tension between the male’s voice and Pauline’s is high.

‘Didn’t kill my wife?’ Joseph yells, spitefully. ‘I don’t know what in the godforsaken pits of your deranged mind you’re talking about, but this is going way, way past anything that “therapy” is supposed to be good for. You can’t just baldly call me a liar. Why would I lie about something like this?’

‘I’m not necessarily saying you’re lying, Joseph,’ Pauline answers, ‘but—’

‘Not lying? You’re flat out telling me that the one thing I’m flat out telling you isn’t true. What else would you call that?’

A slight pause. Hearing the recorded hesitation, Pauline recalls how she’d searched for the right word. ‘A mistake.’

‘A mistake!’ A hand slams down on a table. ‘A mistake! This isn’t like you’re asking me to do math problems in my head, woman! I killed my wife. Took a pillow, slammed her head down onto the floor. Held it over her face and watched her body writhe until it didn’t move any more. Dead. Telling you this isn’t a mistake of my memory!’

His words are enraged. There is genuine disbelief in them, utterly uncomprehending of the blanket rejection of his claims.

Pauline’s voice returns, with the same practised calm she had trained herself to manifest in situations like this. ‘There are reasons I’m calling it a mistake, Joseph, but it will do little good for me to explain them outright. It’s better if you can come to it yourself. Maybe you—’ Her voice hesitates, then she seems to start again afresh. ‘Why don’t you start by telling me more about her. Your wife.’

The man’s breathing steadies. ‘What do you want to know?’ Then, with a snort, ‘What can I tell you that you’re not just going to call more lies, or “mistakes”?’

Pauline doesn’t fall prey to the provocation but answers calmly. ‘What do you remember about her? About the two of you together?’

‘I remember plenty. All the normal stuff.’ Joseph’s words are gruff.

‘So tell me about that,’ she prompts. This is good territory; the opportunity to speak about ‘normalcy’ has a tendency to calm people overcome with the unusual. She remembers the moment, sat there across from him. ‘Tell me about the normal stuff.’

‘Falling in love. Romance. The way we’d look at each other.’ His voice slows, as if his words are retreating into memory, but he grows more stolid and sturdy as he continues.

‘We were so happy. When it was just us, with no one else around. It was like there were only two of us on the planet. The sun and the stars and the moon disappeared, and there was only her and me. It would be like that wherever we were, whatever the circumstances. She’d look into my eyes, and I’d look into hers, and the universe would just melt away.’

He hesitates. His voice bears the traces of embarrassment, as if speaking this way, in his current position, is a sign of weakness and immaturity.

‘That sounds very comforting,’ Pauline says encouragingly. Hearing her own words played back to her now, they seem mildly inadequate. His emotions were coming through. She could have prompted him more. Encouraged him.

‘She was nothing but love and warmth,’ he continues, and Pauline is drawn back to the moment. He hadn’t needed further prompting; he’d swept himself away. On the cassette his embarrassment is instantly gone. ‘Blonde hair, she had, and big blue eyes. Soft cheeks and a killer laugh. She’d take my hand in hers, wrapping her fingers through mine, and take me on walks. I’d never gone on walks before her, never been interested. But walks with her were like dreams. We’d go out together, sit on a big blanket and have picnics. Can you imagine that? In this strange world, having picnics out in the countryside?’

Pauline’s voice offers a soft, noncommittal chuckle. The kind that broadcasts pleasant encouragement without meaning anything on its own.

‘She would make the most amazing treats for me. Out of nothing. I don’t know how she did it. It’s not like we had cash flowing out our pockets night and day, but somehow she’d fabricate the most perfect foods for those outings. Sweets. Savouries. And there would always be a little card tucked into the picnic basket. Something handmade, brilliantly drawn, with some inside joke written out inside. We would laugh until we were in giggles.’ His voice trails off again. Then, in barely more than a whisper. ‘She was one of a kind. Nobody else like her. I wanted it to be just us. Us and no one else.’

Pauline lets the remembered narrative halt, allows some silence to buffer her next question.

‘Do you ever wonder, Joseph, whether you were too lucky?’

It was the question to which Pauline had known this whole line of discussion would have to lead. His response, however, had been hostile and resistant.

‘There you go again!’ his voice taunts from the recording. ‘I tell you something simple, something straightforward, and you go off toying about with words. Playing your games.’ He’s vocally irritated. ‘What’s that even supposed to mean, “too lucky”?’

‘I mean,’ Pauline’s voice comes back calmly, ‘do you ever sometimes feel that this perfect marriage, this perfect woman, that they’re almost too perfect to be …’ She allows her voice to trail off.

Joseph doesn’t pick it up. Pauline hadn’t wanted to push. Instead, she’d made the decision to shift tack once again.

‘Something must have happened, if everything was once that idyllic.’

The man’s breath picks up pace, and his words are harder when they return.

‘Everyone has another side to them. Everyone, even her.’

Silence. She lets Joseph recollect, uninterrupted, before he speaks again.

‘I got to the point where I knew there must be someone else. I don’t know the exact moment it hit me, but after I’d figured it out it all made perfect sense. She was in love with another man.’

‘You’d had suspicions?’

Joseph’s voice hardens. ‘I had reasons to be suspicious.’ He doesn’t elaborate.

‘And?’ Pauline finally asks.

‘I don’t know when it started. Probably’d been going on for years. But that was it. That’s when I knew.’

‘Knew what, Joseph?’

‘Knew I had to kill her. Knew she couldn’t be allowed to live.’

The statement comes as a definitive finish, and a long silence follows. Pauline’s voice, however, returns with a new, slightly firmer tone.

‘Joseph, I’ve looked at your file. I even did a little research last night, from home, to examine things further.’

She recalls that she’d looked down at her stack of notes as she’d delivered the comment, a strategy to suggest definitiveness. Certainty, even of things unknown. It was a true comment, as far as it went – Pauline had indeed spent at least an hour the night before, just before sleep, with Joseph’s file open on her knees, the comforter of her bed a makeshift reading desk as she tried to ponder a way forward for the next day’s interview.

‘They won’t let me see my file,’ the man’s voice answers.

‘That’s standard procedure.’

‘So … what’s in it?’

‘There are records from the trial. From your previous escape attempts. But mostly it’s notes from conversations like these. From talks you’ve had with other people. Some from talks with me.’

‘Fat lot of good they do, any of them.’ Joseph’s voice is disgusted.

‘There’s also biographical data about your life.’

Four seconds of silence. Joseph’s voice is vaguely confused, vaguely annoyed when it returns. Pauline now leans towards the recorder again, eager to relive every sound from the tensest moment of that interview.

‘It can’t be complete,’ he says. ‘My file, my details. I haven’t told them everything. I thought that’s why we were here. You want to drag the rest out of me.’

‘It is. But some things aren’t buried away inside.’ There is a soothing compassion to her voice, now. The balance between firmness and tenderness at this moment was critical. ‘Some things can be checked on externally.’

The cassette almost manages to capture her slow draw of breath before her next words.

‘Joseph, I know you don’t want to hear this. Especially after all you’ve just recounted, I know it’s going to be hard to hear it again.’

His breathing audibly deepens on the recording, as if he’s steeling himself for something.

‘You didn’t kill your wife,’ Pauline repeats.

‘Screw you! This again! How would you know?’ Pure rage is captured in the magnetic reverberations. ‘I’ve never told anyone what I did! I’ve always passed it off as someone else’s crime. But you told me you wanted me to be honest!’

‘And I do.’

‘Then – dammit. I just opened up to you! It’s you who’s the liar. A liar and a hypocrite.’

The sound of another chair bending under a repositioning of body weight. It comes from the right speaker, the one on the side of Pauline’s voice.

‘I want you to be honest with me, Joseph. Honest enough to admit that you did not kill your wife.’

‘Damn you! I told you yesterday that I di—’

‘I want you to be honest enough’, her voice breaks through his, ‘to admit that you’ve never been married, Joseph. That you never had a wife at all.’

9

Friday

I am racing towards the boy’s spot by the pond as fast as I can run. The pathway is narrow, but I’ve walked it plenty of times – enough to know where the large roots jut out from the ground, where there are protruding stones and dips in the soil. My footing is sure.

It can’t be more than thirty yards, but it’s thirty yards blind, where I can’t see his position through the thick of green overgrowth and artfully planted forestry. To my left the whole time, as I circle anticlockwise around its circumference, is the pond. It glistens and sparkles through the branches at the edge of my vision.

I’m out of breath when I arrive at the spot. It’s more to do with adrenalin than with the run itself, surely, but I’m panting heavily.

There is no one here. I step over to the water’s edge. The stick is lying on the muddy shore, half in the water, half out. His stick. I pick it up, as if it presents some tangible connection to the boy – and I’m not surprised that it does. I’ve always been a deeply tactile person. My grandmother’s crocheted shawl brings back more memories of her than any photographs, because when I fold my fingers through its loops and draws, I can feel her. I can feel the warmth of her wrapping me up in it, rocking me on her knees. ‘Little Dyl, little Dyl,’ falling out from between false teeth whenever I needed a little boost. Rocking and humming a tune I never quite remember, though I can almost hear its music, surrounding me in that wonderful, loving, protective cocoon.

I curl my fingers around the stick. It doesn’t have bark so much as it has skin, leathery and dry, knobbed and creased. The pads of my fingers trace its stalk a few inches, taking in its unique texture. There is a patch, a little over halfway up its length, where the roughness becomes smooth. The echoes of a tight, repeated grip. The boy and I are momentarily connected: this is something he touched, and I can feel the imprint of his little hands.

It’s while I’m crouched down, senses taken up in this tactile encounter, that I notice the two parallel tracks in the mud. They’re there, just beside where the stick had lain. Lines scraped into the earth; and suddenly I realize what they must be. Trails left by small sneakers, heels dragged at an angle as the feet that wore them were pulled in reverse. These are the concrete evidence of whatever it was I had witnessed from across the pond.

The lines, I notice, are perfectly parallel. No wiggling. No remnants of protesting squirms. The boy hadn’t resisted when he was pulled.

I lurch upwards. The tracks lead straight back into the branches, and I thrust myself in after them. The boy must be here, he and whoever grabbed him. It’s an emotional thought, but I entertain it. I want to entertain it. They can’t have gone far. I can still find them.

Yet there is no one in the trees. The shoe trails stop as the ground turns from pond-side mud to vegetation-covered earth, and I feel myself growing frantic as my only clues to his whereabouts fade away into the mix of ground cover and rotting leaves. I scan around me for any signs of his presence.

‘Kid!’ I cry out again, and I’m aware of the strange sound of panic in my voice. ‘Kid!’

No one answers, and I’m not surprised. Somewhere inside, I think I know the boy is gone, but I can’t simply stop looking for him. I take a few steps further into the trees, knowing that after five yards a major, paved pathway bisects this part of the park. Within a few seconds the soles of my shoes touch the black tarmac.

There is movement now – bodies strolling this way and that, taking in the sights. My glance flits from one to the next. Be him, be the boy and whoever took him. But there are no small children. Only happy couples, a few loners. A druggie. More college students on lunch breaks, necking.

I’m frantic now. I start to jog along the path, glancing at each group of people I pass. They look at me with puzzled expressions, and I can’t blame them. I feel foolish, flustered like this over someone else’s child, running around like a madman with a stick in his hand.

But that arm shouldn’t have appeared from the trees. The boy shouldn’t have been pulled away.

‘Have you seen a small boy, about this high?’ I ask an elderly couple dressed in matching cardigans, who until that point had been entirely captivated by the knuckled, crevassed bark of an enormous Monterey Cypress. I hold my hand slightly above waist-height. The boy is small.

They shake their heads. The woman has wrinkled skin and a compassionate, grand-maternal smile. ‘Your boy run off, son? Don’t worry. They do that. Probably just playing hide and seek. This is a great place for it.’