The Ghost Tree

by Christina Henry

  Sam’s was a pretty typical roadside shack place with burgers and hot dogs and fries plus shakes and soft serve. Sofia didn’t like Alex eating a lot of junk food (“I don’t care if you’re still fit, that much grease isn’t good for anybody”), so he limited his fast food to once a week and brown-bagged Sofia’s chicken salad on whole-wheat sandwiches the rest of the time.

  “Three chili dogs, one large fry, one chocolate shake,” Miller said to the skinny teenager working behind the counter. He took out his wallet. “What do you want, Alex?”

  “Chicago dog and a Coke.”

  “No fries?” Miller couldn’t imagine a day passing without eating fries.

  “I would have said fries if I wanted fries,” Alex said.

  He scanned the parking lot while he waited for Miller to finish the transaction. It was the usual summer midday crowd—families with young kids eating ice cream cones, groups of teenagers splitting fries and sundaes. The small radio just inside the front window was playing “Everything She Wants”—a song Alex had heard too many times in the last couple of months, ever since his normally sensible and science-obsessed Val had fallen in love with Wham’s lead singer, George Michael. The air was redolent with the scent of frying oil.

  He recognized almost everyone by sight if not by name, which just went to show how small Smiths Hollow really was. Alex and his family had only moved in a couple of months before but at least half the people who caught his eye waved and said, “Hi, Officer Lopez!”

  There was one notable exception, though. A solitary white man eating a cheeseburger at one of the picnic tables. Alex didn’t recognize him, and something about the man made the back of his neck prickle.

  It wasn’t that the man looked suspicious. Or that he looked like a serial killer. It was more that he Didn’t Belong. Alex could practically see the sign above the man’s head that marked him as an outsider.

  And it wasn’t “outsider” as in “from Silver Lake.” The man wasn’t from anywhere near Smiths Hollow. His clothes were too expensive and so was his haircut. His shoes were too shiny. And he watched the lunch crowd at Sam’s Dairy Bar with a faint expression of contempt in his eyes, like he’d bought a ticket to a particularly amusing zoo.

  Miller walked toward Alex, carrying a tray loaded with food. They grabbed an empty picnic table. Alex made sure to position himself so he could keep an eye on the stranger.

  Alex noted that there were two cardboard trays of French fries. “I said I didn’t want fries.”

  Miller shook his head and pushed the second tray at Alex. “Gotta have fries, man.”

  Alex wondered sometimes what the inside of Miller’s brain looked like. Madonna, French fries, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and the Cubs, he thought, answering his own question. How did somebody like that become a police officer?

  “What are you looking at?” Miller asked. He took a bite of his chili dog that made half of it disappear.

  “There’s a guy over there that I don’t recognize,” Alex said, absently picking at the fries that Miller had pushed in front of him.

  “Even I don’t recognize everyone and I’ve lived here my whole life,” Miller said. “Who are you talking about?”

  “There’s a guy sitting by himself under the tree,” Alex said. “No, don’t turn around.”

  “What do you think this is? A spy movie?” Miller said, ignoring Alex and twisting around on his seat. He squinted at the figure under the tree. The stranger was now carefully wiping his hands with a handful of the tiny white napkins that were standard issue at roadside shacks and diners across America. “That rich-looking guy?”

  “Yes,” Alex said, rolling his eyes. “Why don’t you just announce it to everybody?”

  Miller turned back and shoved the rest of the first hot dog in his mouth. “Probably from Chicago,” he said, talking through a mouthful of chili.

  Alex winced. “For chrissakes, don’t talk with your mouth full. My kids have better table manners than you.”

  “What’s the big deal about that guy?” Miller asked. “I bet he’s driving through on his way to somewhere more interesting.”

  Alex shrugged. “Something about him.”

  Miller grinned at him. “Well, if he’s that suspicious you can go over and ask him what he’s doing. You are a duly sworn officer of the law, Alex.”

  “Maybe,” Alex said, picking up his hot dog. He’d eaten half the fries without really noticing what he was doing.

  He didn’t exactly stare at the stranger, but he didn’t really let him out of his sight, either. Miller ate the rest of his lunch with the kind of focused concentration normally associated with scientists trying to find a cure for cancer.

  They were just about done when the stranger finished up his own lunch and tossed the trash in a nearby garbage can. Alex thought about hurrying Miller along so they could follow the man and then decided he was being absurd. Didn’t he have enough extracurricular projects at the moment?

  He did, however, note that the man climbed into a red 1984 Pontiac Fiero with a Chicago city sticker. Alex would definitely notice that car if he saw it again. Very few people in Smiths Hollow drove recent-model cars, and that city sticker made it stand out.

  The man put his car in reverse and backed onto the county road without a second glance at the crowd. But Alex was certain the stranger had noticed him watching all the same.

  4

  George Riley had noticed the cop—some people sitting near Riley had called him “Officer Lopez”—giving him the evil eye at the dump where he’d stopped for a burger. How could he not notice? It was Riley’s job to notice such things. A good journalist noticed everything. You never knew what might be important.

  Riley wondered what a Hispanic cop was doing in white-bread Smiths Hollow. The census data indicated that less than five percent of the town’s population was not white and/or descended from Irish, German, or Polish immigrants. It was not unlike most of Chicago in that respect. Riley had learned to speak Polish early in his career because there were still parts of the city that had more Polish than English speakers.

  The Hispanic cop had assessed Riley, drawn conclusions, and made a mental note to keep track of this stranger in town. Riley had seen it all on his face. That face wasn’t stupid, though, for all that he probably wasn’t very good at poker. He made a mental note of his own to investigate Lopez’s background. It might come in handy.

  His partner, now—he’d looked like a big dumb piece of meat, typical high-school-football type gone to seed with brains to match. The kind who would punch first and ask questions later. He’d been far more interested in his chili dogs than a stranger in town.

  That was what Riley wanted. A police force more interested in local goings-on than in him. Because there was a story here in Smiths Hollow, and he was going to be the one who made it national. And once that happened Riley was going places—to New York or L.A., to a national news beat. No more Chicago crime reporting, no more sordid stories of drug deaths and gang wars.

  Riley had called his buddy Paul Nowak—a fellow graduate of Northwestern’s prestigious school of journalism who’d decided to return to his small-town roots in Smiths Hollow—the night before for their weekly chat. Nowak had been the only person Riley could tolerate at Northwestern. The program had been stuffed with earnest-eyed students looking to Change the World with their reporting. Everyone wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein, taking down corrupt institutions and winning prizes and getting book deals.

  Riley, on the other hand, wanted to be a star. He had no intention of staying in newspaper reporting. He wanted Dan Rather’s job, and the Tribune was just a stepping-stone to get there.

  His friend Nowak was a laid-back, just-the-facts type. He didn’t have any burning ambitions but he was a very good writer—better than the local rag deserved, actually—and his easygoing manner often fooled people into telling him more than
they intended.

  Riley had never understood why Nowak had returned to the tiny burg that birthed him rather than parlay his degree into a job at the Tribune or the Sun-Times.

  But Nowak told him that he liked Smiths Hollow and there was nothing wrong with the local paper. Nowak was now the editor (by default, since the previous editor had retired) and claimed that running the Smiths Hollow Observer was better than any staff reporter job in the city.

  “I make my own hours, buddy,” Nowak had told him once. “And as long as I cover all the high school sports and the town council meetings, everyone is happy. I don’t have to build a network of sources or have secret meetings in parking garages in the middle of the night.”

  Of course, real estate in Smiths Hollow was a lot cheaper than in Chicago, so Nowak’s piddly salary went further than Riley’s did. And Riley had an affection for things he couldn’t really afford—Italian-leather shoes, for example, and the flashy new Fiero he was driving into Smiths Hollow proper. If he thought too hard about his Mastercard bill, that burger he ate would probably come right back up.

  He turned on the local top forty station and David Lee Roth blasted out of the speakers, singing “Just a Gigolo.” Riley didn’t really care what music was on as long as there was noise. Noise helped him think, which was reason number 108 why he could never live in a quiet little town like Smiths Hollow.

  Of course, Smiths Hollow wasn’t quite as quiet as advertised.

  During their conversation the previous night Nowak had casually mentioned that two murdered girls had been found in the yard of some old biddy.

  “Who are they?” Riley asked.

  “Nobody seems to know,” Nowak said, his tone the verbal equivalent of a shrug. “They aren’t from Smiths Hollow. The chief asked me to put their photos in tomorrow’s edition. Maybe someone will recognize them.”

  “That’s a pretty big story for you, huh? Two murders in that town must be worthy of a headline.”

  “Oh, no,” Nowak said. “Christie wants me to keep it quiet until we find the girls’ families, no details. So it’s going on page three.”

  Riley’s ears pricked up. “That doesn’t seem right. Since when does the town chief of police dictate what goes in your paper?”

  “I don’t mind,” Nowak said.

  “You should. Whatever happened to freedom of the press?”

  “Don’t pretend that you care about the Bill of Rights,” Nowak said, laughing.

  Riley scowled into the phone. “I care about the Bill of Rights. And anyway, you should put those girls’ pictures on the front page if the police actually want them to be identified. Tons of people skip right to the sports section.”

  “I don’t know if I want to put them on the front page anyway,” Nowak said, his tone suddenly sober. “They did their best to clean them up and the pictures will be in black-and-white, but you can still tell the heads aren’t attached to their bodies . . . especially if you know.”

  “They were beheaded?” Riley asked. “Talk about burying the lede, Paul. So . . . do they think it’s a serial killer or something? Are they going to call the FBI?”

  Riley had read Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon the year before and since then had done some research on FBI profiling. He had a sudden and exciting vision of being the first reporter to get in on an emerging serial killer story. That would raise his profile, all right. He could be like Jimmy Breslin with Son of Sam.

  The idea that Nowak might want to report on the story himself never entered Riley’s mind. Nowak was buckling under small-town pressure already. He’d never give two beheaded girls the proper consideration they deserved.

  “I don’t think they’re going to call the FBI,” Nowak said. “Like I said, they’re trying to keep things quiet out of respect for the girls’ families.”

  More like trying to keep things quiet so their total incompetence won’t be noticed, Riley thought, but he didn’t say it.

  “Maybe I’ll take a drive down there tomorrow,” Riley said. “I don’t have anything special going on here for a few days, and I have personal time coming.”

  “Well, I’ll be glad to see you. But don’t think you can come down here and turn this into some big splashy story. The chief and the mayor won’t be happy with me if that happens.”

  “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t do that to you,” Riley said, lying through his teeth.

  Nowak lived in one of the little developments that branched off the main street of town. He’d given Riley detailed turn-by-turn directions, but he wasn’t expecting his old college friend until after four p.m. Plenty of time for Riley to poke around the village, maybe have a drink at the bar. Plenty of time to listen to what people were saying about the murdered girls in their midst. The whole town was probably buzzing.

  He parked the Fiero in one of the diagonal parking spaces on Main Street, where it drew admiring glances from a small crowd of teenage boys who’d just emerged from the arcade.

  There was a bar a few doors down from the arcade that he’d noticed as he parked. He locked his car and strolled in that direction. A neon Budweiser sign shone in the window and the sign over the wooden door proclaimed its identity as Tiny Lounge.

  There wasn’t very much loungelike inside, Riley noted. It had Typical Bar written all over it—dingy green flooring, dingy leather booths, a handful of regulars sitting at the long wooden bar determinedly sucking down beers delivered in frosted mugs.

  A few heads turned toward him, their gazes mildly interested in the newcomer, but they quickly returned to their beers once they realized they didn’t know who he was. Riley grabbed a seat at the end of the bar, two seats away from a wrinkled white guy who looked old as dirt. There were about four gray hairs left on top of his head and they all stood straight up like baby duck fuzz. Despite the early summer heat he was wearing a red plaid flannel shirt and jeans with worn work boots.

  The bartender, a guy who looked like he was in his early thirties (and also lifted weights if the size of his arms was any indication), lifted his chin in Riley’s direction. Riley interpreted this as a request for an order.

  “Old Style,” he said.

  The bartender nodded, drew the beer off the tap, and put it in front of Riley with a little cocktail napkin. “Buck fifty.”

  Riley handed him two dollars. “Keep the change.”

  He nodded and turned away.

  Riley had hoped that there would be some conversation going and he’d be able to slide into it unobtrusively. He didn’t think leading with Hey, what do you think about those murdered girls? would garner a good result.

  But if they were already talking about politics or the Cubs or the White Sox (which was a lot like talking about politics) then he could casually join in and quietly mention the tragedy at some point when the crowd warmed up to him.

  Frankly, he was surprised that they weren’t already talking about it. Those dead girls had to be the biggest thing to happen in this town since the chili factory opened. Not only was there no discussion of the murder, nobody was discussing anything. The radio wasn’t on and the TV that hung over the bar was switched off. Not one of the patrons spoke to another.

  Riley nursed his beer for a bit, waiting for his chance, but it never came. Two of the six patrons drained off their beers and left without even acknowledging the bartender, who stood with his arms crossed watching all of them like they were misbehaving students.

  After twenty or so minutes Riley decided he couldn’t take the oppressive atmosphere any longer. He finished his beer, placed the glass on the cocktail napkin, and walked out, letting the door slam shut behind him.

  That was the least convivial bar I have ever been in, he thought as he blinked at the abrupt change from the dank gloom of Tiny Lounge to the blistering sunshine outside.

  On Main Street all the little residents of Smiths Hollow went about their business—buying lunch
meat at the deli, picking up nails and bolts at the hardware store, wiping ice cream and snot off the faces of their screaming children. Much to Riley’s disappointment they were all acting completely normal—not a whiff of fear, suspicion, or scandal anywhere.

  You’d think nobody was murdered here at all, Riley thought.

  He walked in the direction of the arcade, thinking vaguely that the town’s teenagers would be talking about it. Kids loved it when anything horrible happened. As he did, one of the Smiths Hollow patrol cars rolled by.

  In the passenger seat was the Hispanic cop Riley had seen earlier. The man didn’t even bother trying to disguise his interest as the car rolled by. He stared right at Riley in a way that made Riley feel squirmy inside, like he was a child caught doing something wrong.

  He shook his head from side to side, trying to dispel the feeling. Riley had just as much right to be in this lame little town as anyone else did. He changed his mind about going into the arcade. There was nobody more pathetically obvious than an adult in a room full of kids playing video games. They wouldn’t want to talk to him, and anyway, that cop might decide Riley was trying to pick up underage girls or something. No, he’d have to think of something else.

  At the opposite end of Main Street there was a three-story brick building that had that generic town-administration look. Riley bet that was where the mayor’s office was located. And the mayor hadn’t wanted anyone to know about the dead girls. He was trying to keep it quiet, and to Riley’s mind that was suspicious behavior.

  He stopped at his car and grabbed his notebook and the Philips portable cassette recorder that he kept in there. In a pinch he could take shorthand notes but he hated doing it and anyway, the presence of a tape recording every word made it less likely that he would be rudely refused by the mayor. Politicians hated to be caught on tape saying anything that might alienate a voter.

  The brick building was home of—among other public services—the town courthouse, the municipal water authority, and yes, the mayor’s office. Several people were going in and out of the building—some with the officious paper-carrying look of people heading to meetings, others with the midday pinched mouth and eyes that meant they were finally escaping for their lunch break. The lobby was cramped for such a large building—just a tiny entranceway with two elevators off to one side and a bored-looking security guard opposite. The guard told Riley to sign into a large notebook, not bothering to check the signature or the destination. Riley took the elevator to the third floor.