by Rysa Walker
“Hell with her, then.” He gets back into the truck and slams the door. Flakes of rust drift from overhead into his lap, but he hardly notices. If Marybeth wants to get good and pissed at him, fine. She doesn’t know what his night and morning have been like. Not MB Jenkins, who lives in a cozy-ass cottage with a man who never even raises his voice to the Princess and certainly, oh yes, you can bet your ass, would never raise a hand no matter how much spare the rod and spoil the child he might spew to others.
His back twinges again. One more point on his old man’s scorecard. That kick had been hard, fast, and unexpected, but at least Ben had been the one to take it instead of Chase.
His old man, though? Oh, he had gotten it, too. You can bet your ass on that one, as well.
Ben smiles slightly at the memory.
I might be walking around with a bruised kidney, pissing blood by the buckets, but you’re waking up with two black eyes and a nose caked with dried blood. Cheers, old man!
He’ll be eighteen in January and he’ll graduate in May. Then he’ll get a job at the factory—they’re usually hiring, and his friend Luke can put in a good word. As soon as he has a steady paycheck coming in, he’ll move out and take Chase with him. No way is he leaving the kid behind. Their old man sure as hell won’t care. And their mother? She hasn’t done a damn thing to shield Chase, so she’ll just have to deal with it.
He feels his insides go cold at the mental image of his mom’s face. There was a time when his dreams of moving out included her, too. He would be the hero. He would save them all. But somewhere along the way, he’d realized Aileen Rey didn’t want to be saved. Ben didn’t know if she still loved the son of a bitch, but she had cowered too long to imagine anything else.
He don’t mean nothin’ by it, Benjy. Just brought up that way. We have to love him no matter how he acts. The Good Book says to honor your mother and father. You don’t want to disappoint Jesus, do you?
As he drives, Ben blinks away the memories and his mother’s voice. He thinks about his brother. He thinks about Marybeth, and the anger he felt a moment ago slips away. He can’t stay mad long, not at her. And she can’t be that pissed about him being late, can she? He’ll make it up to her tonight at the bonfire down at Tower Farm.
Because Marybeth is a part of his plan, too. Or at least he hopes she’ll be.
Things are going to get better. They have to.
Four
TUCKER
“Gone,” Tucker Vance says into the phone. “As in not here. Both the body and the vehicle.”
The parking lot of the Pinewood Motel, conveniently located next to the Pinewood Diner, is empty this morning, except for the two patrol cars and two other vehicles near the back. One of those belongs to the dayshift waitress, and the other belongs to the short-order cook who is called in when Neil Prescott, the owner, is sick or just needs a day off. Today is one of those days, and that doesn’t surprise Tucker in the slightest. The guy found his first murder victim last night, and it wasn’t exactly a clean kill.
“Did you check with the coroner?” Sheriff Hoyt asks.
Haddonwood doesn’t have a coroner, as Hoyt well knows. The guy who owns the funeral home, Hank Andrews, generally handles the work, unless there’s some reason to get the county or the state involved.
“I called Hank. He didn’t pick up the body. Hank did exactly what you told us to do—leave her until your team could get here. I sealed off the room and also the one next to it. The tape is still there, but the body and the car are both gone. And the room has been wiped clean.”
There’s a short pause, and then Sheriff Hoyt says, “You sure the woman was dead? Her car’s gone. Maybe she decided to just drive home.”
Tucker can hear the amusement in Hoyt’s voice. The man is one of his least favorite people in the world, and the fact that the son of a bitch was recently reelected significantly lowered Tucker’s opinion of the collective intelligence of the good people of Viola County.
“She was dead. You got the pictures I sent over, right? I’d think those would be graphic enough to elevate this to priority one.”
“Yeah, I got ’em.” Sheriff Hoyt pauses to blow his nose so loudly that Tucker can almost feel the blast through the phone. “And you got my email, right? Two officers have got this flu that’s going around, plus another guy’s out on training. The county commissioner has my balls in a vise with this latest budget cut, so I didn’t replace the deputy who quit last month. Like I said, the soonest we coulda got someone over there was this afternoon. Not my fault if you let the body get away in the meantime. Maybe you oughta call Craven back from vacation, son. Although, let’s be fair. He prob’ly woulda lost the body, too.” The sheriff laughs and then calls out to someone in the office. “Hey, Peterson, might wanna give the CDC a call and let ’em know we got a Walkin’ Dead situation over in Haddonwood.”
Tucker is about to hang up when Hoyt adds, “Seriously, though, you ever stopped to think about the possibility that somebody is playing a trick on you? Sounds like the kind of thing someone might do right around Halloween, especially with Craven out of town.”
“It wasn’t a trick.” Tucker cuts the call and shoves the phone back into his pocket. He looks again at the row of doors, a dozen in all. Pinewood is the only motel in town, and most of the married couples in Haddonwood rented a room here on at least a few occasions while they were dating. Quite a few of them still visit from time to time, usually with someone other than their spouses. Neil Prescott’s financial security lies in his talent for keeping secrets, and also in the fact that he makes a damn good cheeseburger next door at the diner.
Two of the twelve doors were blocked off with yellow police tape when Tucker pulled away last night, long after the neon sign had sputtered to life, painting the night sky around it a dull red. He remembered thinking that it looked quite a bit like a certain iconic movie set.
“So Hoyt’s guys didn’t take her?” Marty asks.
Tucker bites back a sarcastic response. Marty had undoubtedly heard Hoyt’s side of the conversation since, like many people with hearing loss, Hoyt seems to think everyone else is half deaf as well. Even if Marty hadn’t heard the sheriff yucking it up, he’d have been able to figure out that much based on Tucker’s side of the conversation alone. But Tucker has learned the hard way never to overestimate Marty’s cognitive skills.
“That’s right,” Tucker says. “Hoyt thinks maybe it’s a prank.”
“Well, it does sound like the kind of thing someone might do right around Halloween, especially with the chief out of town.”
“Mm-hmm. Funny, that’s exactly what Hoyt just said. Except you and Hoyt weren’t here yesterday. You didn’t kneel down on a blood-soaked bathroom floor to check the woman’s pulse or try to get a rough count of the stab wounds. You didn’t have to rummage around in there with the stench of blood while looking for identification—”
“Hoyt don’t like us digging around.”
“For identification,” Tucker continues, “so we could notify next of kin. I know how to look for evidence without disturbing a crime scene, Marty. And we both know Chief Craven would have looked for ID, no matter what Hoyt says.”
“Probably. But Tuck…there’s nothing here. Maybe Neil decided to punk you while Craven’s gone. Or it coulda been somebody else. Anyone in town got a reason to be mad at you?”
“It wasn’t Neil.”
Tucker’s positive on that point. He’d sidestepped a pool of the man’s vomit outside the door of Room 1 yesterday. Neil’s not that good of an actor, and anyway, he’s not going to be inclined to piss off any member of the police force since he occasionally needs their help with patrons who get rowdy or whose stay extends beyond their credit card limit.
The only two people Tucker can think of who might have that sort of grudge against him are Marty himself, who wasn’t at all happy with the fact that even though he has eight years seniority, it was Tucker that Craven left in charge. And then there’s Ralph Rey,
who’s still pissed about the drunk-and-disorderly charge earlier this year and the not-so-subtle threat from Tucker that he’d be spending more than a single night in the drunk tank if he didn’t stop using his wife (and kids, quite possibly) as punching bags.
But Marty is too stupid to set up anything this elaborate, and Ralph Rey can barely stay sober long enough to tie his shoes. Plus, there’s no way either of them has the resources to rent a classic car, let alone locate a cadaver and a gallon or so of blood, hire a cleanup crew, and so on.
“How about I drive over to Neil’s place and take his statement?” Marty asks. “Or did you do that last night?”
Tucker ignores Marty and walks around the side of the motel. He’s not even sure what he’s looking for at this point. Tire treads, maybe. Footprints. Blood. But there’s nothing. Someone even cleaned the spot where Neil upchucked.
The neon sign buzzes again. Tucker looks up, startled. The sign is still lit, which means the sensor must be broken. Or maybe the thing is too old to even have a sensor, and Neil just forgot to flip the switch last night. The effect is less eerie than it was the night before, but now he can see the Grimshaw house looming in the distance. And yes, the house sits on a much higher hill than the one in the movie, but it’s still one more creepy similarity. One more thing to suggest that they’re dealing with a copycat killer.
Tucker jogs to the far side of the parking lot and pulls out his phone to snap a few shots that include all three—the motel, the sign, and the Grimshaw house. Just as he’s about to take the last picture, a crow lands atop the sign, staring down at him. You’d think the sporadic buzz would scare it off, but it’s a single-minded creature, following him with eyes that look almost white in the glare of the morning sun.
“What you doin’?” Marty asks.
“What the fuck does it look like I’m doing, Marty? Taking pictures. It’s called documentation. Supporting evidence. You might want to try including it in your reports sometime.”
“You really gonna write this up? There’s nothing here, Tuck.”
“Then that means two crimes were committed. A murder, and a cover-up. So yeah, I’ll be writing a report.”
“Your call, I guess. You want me to interview Neil?”
“No, I’ll do it. Why don’t you clock out for a while? I’ll need you on traffic duty once the kids start hitting the streets around dark.”
Marty, who actually prefers traffic duty to anything less mundane, pulls away, churning up a cloud of dust and gravel in his wake. Tucker opens the door of his car, about to follow suit, when he hears another buzz from the hotel sign, accompanied by a loud caw.
He turns just in time to see the crow swooping down toward his head, claws extended.
Five
DAISY
Daisy steps through the back door into the brilliant autumn morning. The air is fresh and ripe with the harvest of the field that borders their backyard. This is one of Daisy’s favorite things about living in this house. From the front porch of the Gray residence, she can clearly see the tops of the buildings on Main Street. From the deck, however, there’s nothing but Teddy Martin’s ten acres of rolling farmland.
This year, Teddy is growing corn, Daisy’s favorite. She loves listening to the wind as it slips through the tightly plotted stalks. On cool nights in the autumn, she cracks open her window so that she can fall asleep to the whispers of the corn. Soybeans will come next spring.
Soybeans put nitrogen in the soil, Teddy once told her. Corn uses nitrogen. That’s why we rotate. But soybeans don’t have the same majesty as the corn stalks that tower over her head. Soybeans don’t whisper in the wind. And they do nothing to block the one thing she doesn’t like about their backyard—the view of the Grimshaw house off in the distance.
“Hey, derp,” Dani says from behind her. “I figured you’d already be in the car.”
Apparently, Dani had found time to do her hair. It falls around her shoulders in lustrous light-brown waves, like she just walked out of a frickin’ Pantene commercial. As usual, she’s carrying nothing but a small purse. No books at all. Dani views homework as cruel and unusual punishment. If an assignment can’t be completed in class or using Wikipedia, the odds are exceptionally good that it won’t be completed at all.
Daisy looks at their mother’s old car—a beat-up (thanks to Dani) Kia Sorento—and shakes her head. “Like I told you before, I have that interview with Martha Yarn for the paper, so they’re letting me out of my first two classes. And it’s a beautiful day. I don’t mind walking.”
“It has to be at least two miles from her house to the school.”
It’s actually more like two and a half, but Daisy just shrugs. “The weather will turn shitty soon enough, and I’ll have to risk my life every day with you. I’m happy for the chance to walk.”
“Suit yourself. But be careful.” She drops her tone to a conspiratorial whisper. “I hear Miss Martha lures children inside that house and bakes them into pies.”
“First, if I’m a child, then so are you. And second, Martha Yarn isn’t a witch.”
“Oh, she’s a witch, Daisy. Everyone knows it.”
This is actually a fair point. While most people in Haddonwood probably wouldn’t go so far as to actually call the town’s oldest resident a witch, Martha Yarn is widely believed to have a healthy dose of second sight. She almost always has a pie or cake baked and waiting when news reaches her that someone in the town has died, even in the cases where the death was sudden and unexpected. A skeptic might argue that this can be chalked up to the fact that Miss Martha is a prolific baker who could easily have already had those pies cooling on the stove. But does that explain why she always has the baked goods already wrapped in foil with a condolence card for the grieving family taped to the top? Back in the era of the party line phone, the standard explanation was that Martha Yarn was a snoop who listened in on calls not intended for her. But party lines have been a thing of the past for decades, and she still has that uncanny knack for knowing when Death pays a visit to Haddonwood. When Daisy’s mom died, they’d barely been home from the hospital ten minutes before the mailman pulled up with their daily allotment of bills and junk mail, along with two freshly baked pies he’d agreed to deliver.
But Martha Yarn isn’t just the local harbinger of death. She’s also the person you turn to if you need to find a lost wedding ring or a missing pet. Occasionally, she doesn’t have the answer, and far more frequently, she doesn’t have the answer you’re hoping to get. But there are plenty of tales where she’s met someone at the door with a smile and instructions to look under the car seat, before the person even gets the question out. And the ring is under the car seat, of course.
“Fine,” Daisy says. “But if she’s a witch, she’s a good witch. She’s one of the sweetest old ladies I know.”
“Well, of course she is. You have to be sweet to lure in unsuspecting children and bake them into pies. Leave a trail of breadcrumbs, okay? Maybe I’ll come looking for you.”
Dani grins and then skips down the three steps to the gravel path that leads to the driveway. She disappears into the vehicle, starts the engine, and guns the Sorento backward like a rocket, not even bothering to check the rearview mirror.
The back door opens once again. Her father steps out, checks to be sure it’s locked, and then gives her an extra-long hug. “There’s money under the coffeepot. The one place I know Dani will never find it.”
She kisses him on the cheek. “You already gave us money, Dad.”
“Yeah, but Dani will probably blow through it. She doesn’t really plan things out, and if I left it up to her, you guys would go hungry the entire time I’m gone… But, hey, that’s what makes her Dani, right? The name of the hotel is on…”
“The fridge,” Daisy said.
“And you’ll call my cell…”
“If we need anything. Got it.”
He sighs. “I worry about you girls. That’s all. Give a dad a break.”
“We live next door to a freaking cop.” Daisy smiles as a brief vision of Tucker floats through her mind.
“And he’ll let me know if y’all get too crazy.”
She laughs. “As if.”
“He will be checking on the two of you.”
And now she’s very glad that Dani has already left, sparing her from listening to the inevitable snide comments about Tucker checking on her in front of their dad.
“We’ll be good. Have fun, okay?”
He chuckles, and she almost laughs herself. A banker’s convention sounds like the most boring thing in the world.
“Sure…tons of fun. I hope FrightFest goes well. Oh, I asked Julie to check in on y’all, too.”
“Really?”
“Hey, you’re lucky she’s not staying over. If it were just Dani, she definitely would be.”
“Oh, Dani would love that.”
“Be nice.” With another peck on the cheek, Bill Gray ambles off the back porch toward the garage, letting himself in through a narrow door on the side. A moment later, just as she’s coming off the deck, the garage door opens, and his SUV emerges. He honks the horn, two short beeps, and backs out onto Elm.
Daisy turns her face to the sky, enjoying the mix of warmth from the sun and the slight chill of the wind. It’s a gorgeous day. As she reaches the sidewalk in front of her house, her dad’s taillights blink twice at the stop sign, turn left, and disappear.
Her happy mood evaporates in an instant, replaced by an iron fist of fear. Not about being left alone for a few days. This isn’t the first time she and Dani have been on their own. She knows the drill.
No, it’s more the fear that she is totally alone. Stranded, in a world with no light. No hope. Her father and Dani have been snatched away by the same vengeful, uncaring force that took her mother. It’s her fault, too, and if she could only get out of this pitch-black room, out of these restraints, she would find a way to join them. A way to stop the pain.