Headlights(44)

Is it just wishful thinking to hope that was the grand finale? Is another murder coming any day now, and because I’m so goddamned slow, because none of us can make any kind of headway on this thing, more lives will be stolen? For what?

I turn to the digital forensic and HTML reports, narrowing the search to lines to Wizdumteller, the seeming mystery leader of this chatroom thing, and CanisLoopus, Everett Brown’s handle. I start with the most recent posts from these last couple months.

Wizdumteller, 10/15: Do you think our friends in blue have gotten a little complacent? Do you think they have any idea what we can do? (Shall we show them?)

10/28: Little birdie told me our gumshoe might be flying the coop. What will WW have to say about that?

11/1: Wake up, my friends. The boogeyman is back. Think we’ll get a show?

There are so many of these. Dating all the way back to the early murders. For years this shit has been going on, and … the “gumshoe.” Is that me? My actual name is mentioned so many times I can’t quite get my head around it. Daniel Stansfield. Just there, typed up by all these true crime enthusiasts positing their theories, trying to solve the case. Or alerting the others when new information is available.

But Wizdumteller doesn’t use my name, just “the gumshoe” a number of times. Ten, or more. A lot of folks chiming in, some saying they personally knew one of the Drifters or victims. Everett Brown’s contributions, back when he made them, were mostly trying to piece together evidence from what was available on the internet—much of said “evidence” being wildly incorrect.

But this Wizdumteller is something different. I think.

Talking about “the WW”—whatever that is—and “the boogeyman” repeatedly. Almost longingly. Making cryptic claims and promises for years. And while they never have many direct replies on their posts, there are always hundreds of likes on them. The rare comment they do get, a salute emoji or an “amen.” This person has a following of some kind, people who know who they are. Who put a “like” on everything they ever say, almost immediately. But this last post was the first time Wizdumteller said they knew another murder was coming. If we can interpret it that way. I don’t know, could just be a crazy person who loves attention and trolling. But we need to find them, see if there’s anything there. The fact that we haven’t found them yet seems like something.

A door slams upstairs. Music starts to play, soft, low. I turn. The record arm has dropped, the vinyl starting to turn. Dolly Parton’s voice carries through the room. Here you come again.

“Stop,” I say, to the house. To the shadows. I can’t lose focus, need to figure out—

“You don’t have to face it alone,” Marianne says. “I’m here with you, for all of it.”

“Hey,” I say. “I’m serious.”

Marianne kneeling on the floor before me in the living room. The nightmares so bad I hardly slept. Remembering what happened in the motel, seeing it again, nightmares where my dad came and found me here, did to Marianne and Noel and me what he did to my mom. Nightmares where the shadow people came into my room and stood over me and grabbed me and suffocated me, and—

I blink, hard. Try to pull back to the present. “I said stop it,” I say. But I am here and not here, the house bending time, pulling me—

Every night, the music. No matter what I did. John Denver’s voice in my room. Marianne read me this story about a very brave cowboy who faces his fears. So one night, when the shadows were everywhere and the music was so loud I could hardly breathe, I went downstairs where she was reading by the fire, and I said, “I don’t want to be scared of the music anymore.”

“Please—” I say. “I can’t—”

But I’m there. I remember it.

She sat with me, and we went through record after record. All the country music records in the house, playing them in the living room, me crying and shaking and Marianne holding me so tight. All except John Denver. Not him. More than once she said it was enough, thought we should stop. But I said we had to keep going. We stayed up all night, did it again the next night, and Noel joined us, sat on the floor, and brought hot chocolate over.

Again and again, we sat in this room, listened to the songs that Rose and I used to play, until the crying got a little better, I shook a little less. Until I could eat a snack while we were listening, until I could play with my toy horses and sometimes read and sometimes even fall asleep leaning on one of my parents. Until it didn’t terrify me. After a while, Marianne decided we’d learn to “cowboy dance.” Rose and I had danced a couple times at the Happy Inn. But it was nice, to really learn. We took lessons, Marianne and me, and we learned to two-step and cowboy waltz, and we’d sometimes do it here in the living room while Noel laughed and cheered us on, told stories from when he was my age. I even took rodeo swing classes and taught Josie a few of those moves when we got together years later.

The lights glow, the music getting louder. I can’t pull myself back to the present.

I was a teenager, and Marianne looked at me and said, “You scared us, you know. We had no idea if we were helping or making things so much worse. But then, we started to look forward to the evenings with you, the sun setting over the mountains, the record spinning, eating dinner on the floor. Willie, Waylon, Dolly, Hank, Lee Hazlewood, John Prine, all of them. I loved getting to experience it all with you. You are such a great adventure, Daniel.”