by Hank Early
It might have worked if I hadn’t hit something first.
I saw it at the last second, far too late to stop.
It was a body; I knew when I heard the distinctive, and unmistakable crunch of bone beneath my tires.
I swung the truck around, completely forgetting about the intruder, who was surely to the woods by now, and aimed my headlights at what I’d just run over, hoping against hope it was a coyote and not my dog, Goose.
When my headlights illuminated the body, it was clear. That was no coyote or dog. It was a man.
3
Goose, I eventually remembered, was inside the house. Before heading out to pick up Rufus, I’d decided to leave him in because it looked like rain. The rain never materialized, but in its absence something worse did.
The dead man in my yard was young, somewhere in his twenties, I guessed, broad shouldered and thickly muscled. Best I could tell he had sandy-blond hair and surprisingly dark features. His eyes seemed too large for the rest of him, each frozen pupil fathomless and somehow haunted. His face revealed a strange tangle of emotion: revulsion, surprise, melancholy. Below that, there was a hole through his neck, and the blood—massive amounts of it—had drained off toward the ground along the underside of his left earlobe. As revolting as it was, I felt a small measure of relief because the wound made it pretty clear he’d been dead before I’d run over him.
I saw all this under the glare of the penlight I kept on my key chain, and when I couldn’t take looking at it anymore, I switched the light off and sat down in the grass, thankful for the comfort of darkness.
I wished I was drunk. Too drunk to care about this kid I didn’t know. That had certainly been the way of things for me lately, reaching for the bottle a little earlier each day and stumbling toward bed a little more recklessly every night. But the one night I needed to be three sheets to the wind, I was closer to sober than I’d been in a while.
I thought of Mary. She and I were still together, though the seeds of our dissolution had already been planted. We were doing the relationship “long distance” now because she’d decided to move out to Nevada to be with her brother and her five-year-old nephew who’d recently been diagnosed with leukemia. Her brother, Jeremy, had just gone through a terrible divorce, and it was absolutely the right thing for her to do. What’s more, it was absolutely the Mary thing for her to do. Still, I’d taken it hard, too hard. It wasn’t like it was the end of us, but somehow, in a way I couldn’t properly explain, it felt like it was just that. The end.
And now I had a dead man in my yard.
I flicked my penlight back on and went to retrieve my phone from the truck. I was running on instinct now, and every instinct I had was telling me to call the authorities. It wasn’t until I had my phone in hand that I realized I was about to make a huge mistake.
The problem with calling the authorities about the dead man in my yard was this: the newly elected sheriff of Coulee County didn’t like me much. Nope. That didn’t quite do it justice. The sheriff, Preston Argent, would probably relish nothing more than charging me with this murder. He wouldn’t be overly concerned about evidence—well, not any more concerned than he needed to be to plant it.
Not only had I lost to Argent in a hotly contested race for sheriff just four weeks earlier; he was also beholden to the one man who hated me more than anyone else. His name was Jeb Walsh, and he was a stain on this county that wouldn’t come out. Despite taking down the white supremacist organization Walsh ran last fall, I hadn’t been able to touch Walsh or Argent. Not only that, but Walsh was growing more powerful with each passing day as he raised more money and support for his House of Representatives bid in the fall. According to all the reports I’d seen, he was expected to win in a landslide. God help us all if they were right.
No, calling Sheriff Argent would be like presenting myself to him with my hands already cuffed. There was no way he wouldn’t see this as an opportunity to, at the very least, hassle me. More likely, he’d confer with Walsh, and they’d arrest my ass. Once that happened, I might sit in the jail until doomsday without a trial, bail, or representation. Argent and Walsh saw me as a thorn in their side, one of the few in the whole county. There was Rufus, of course, but as irritating as he could be, he was still somewhat of a pariah in this area. People tended to think he was just some crazy mountain man, which was true, of course, but what people missed about Rufus was how smart he was, not to mention how determined. Argent and Walsh hated Mary too, but she was in Nevada for the foreseeable future. Besides, they’d already tried to take advantage of her once, and it hadn’t gone very well for them.
Bottom line: Argent and Walsh would use this body against me. Even if they didn’t get a conviction, they’d make sure a prolonged court battle ruined my life and my reputation.
Even now, replaying it all in my mind, I’m pretty certain I would do the same thing all over again.
What I did was stand up, dust the dirt off my blue jeans, and head to the house. Goose was still inside and would be wanting out by now. I was glad it was relatively early in the evening, not yet ten thirty. I had plenty of time before daylight to figure this out. My first instinct was to call Mary, but I resisted. The last thing she needed was to be pulled into something like this. Her hands were full with her nephew and brother.
Next, I considered heading into the woods behind my house to look for the man I’d glimpsed on my property. Perhaps I could find him tonight and put an end to this nightmare. But something kept me from pursuing him. He’d be long gone by now, somewhere on the backside of the mountain where there were trees and caves and places no sane man would go at night.
I started to call Rufus but then hesitated. Calling him would only satisfy my need to confide in someone. He’d want to help, but I couldn’t see how a blind man would be useful to me right now, other than the advice he might offer. I was pretty sure I already knew what that advice was going to be, and there was no way I was calling the authorities. Like Mary, he would help, but it didn’t seem fair to inflict this on him just for the sake of my own deep-seated need to talk to someone.
That left Ronnie, who was still at Hays State Prison. He’d help me hide the body in a heartbeat if he could, but not having him around to help me in this moment felt like a relief. He’d already stuck his neck out for me once, and look where it had gotten him. There was no way I could ask him to get involved in this.
So, in reality, that left me. Yet, I was still sitting here, doing nothing. I needed to wake up. Get moving.
I sighed and went inside to grab a pair of latex gloves from under the sink. I needed to search his pockets. Maybe I’d find a wallet with some form of identification. Goose greeted me at the door, more subdued than usual, almost cautious. He could sense something was up. Maybe he could even smell the body. I knelt and patted him on the head, speaking to him in a soothing voice. He wagged his tail, licked my earlobe, and eased past me into the dark yard. He lifted a leg, pissing and sniffing the wind. When he finished, he lowered his nose to the ground and started toward the body, but I whistled at him sharply. He seemed relieved to come back inside the house with me.
Once I had the gloves on, I walked to the body and shined my penlight at his face, checking again to see if I recognized him. A sense of unreality washed over me, and for a brief second I believed I did recognize him. It was vague but undeniable, the way you might hear a snippet of a song you loved as a child and know it but not quite be able to remember all the words.
The moment passed, and the man’s face was unfamiliar again, a stranger. But a sliver of doubt had wormed its way into my subconscious, and I wondered at the likelihood of a stranger meeting his demise way up here in these mountains, just a couple dozen feet from my front door.
4
This is what I found in his pockets:
His car keys, three dollars—most of it in change—a piece of lined paper, folded into a neat square, and a bookmark from a place called Ghost Mountain New and Used Books. I unfold
ed the paper and laid it out in the grass under the glare of the penlight.
It was a letter, written in a tight cursive script.
Dear Joe,
I have continued to try to reach out to you. Your situation is very much like my own, except you seek rebellion instead of understanding. Rebellion only works when it is righteous. Please reconsider this course of action. As you can see, going to the authorities isn’t going to work. The authorities believe in the same tenets we do, tenets as old as time and as unshakable. If you insist on pursuing this present course, I do not know how it will end. Well, that’s not completely true. I have an idea how it will probably end. These are powerful forces and not to be trifled with. Though they may, at present, seem evil to you, I assure you that they are on the side of good.
I hope you will come talk to me. We can work this out. God never creates a situation we can’t handle. Call me—706-308-9495
Dr. Blevins
I put the paper down on the ground. What was I supposed to make of that? Dr. Blevins? What the hell? And what was the talk of rebellion and going to the authorities? I read the letter again, this time more slowly, letting the words take hold in my mind. There was a lot that wasn’t being said here. In fact, I felt pretty confident after the second read that the entire letter was a veiled threat. So, was coming to see me the “course of action” he’d been asked to reconsider? The letter claimed he’d already tried the authorities and hadn’t received any help. The authorities believe in the same tenets we do. Two things struck me about that line: one, using the word we. It meant that this Dr. Blevins was only a spokesperson for a bigger group. The second thing that stood out to me was that word tenets. He seemed to suggest a set of rigid religious beliefs.
I didn’t think it was a stretch to assume he’d been coming to me for help and someone had stopped him because they believed I might actually be able to help him.
I looked at the bookmark again. I’d actually heard of the bookstore. My friend Susan had recommended I swing by and meet the manager, as she was supposed to be somewhat of an authority on the Fingers area and apparently eager to help me solve cases. The Fingers were the five mountains that surrounded the little town of Riley, and they had their own legends, lore, and history. I knew a lot of it from growing up here, but being away for thirty years had created some gaps in my knowledge.
As a general rule, I tended to stay away from people who wanted to help me solve my cases. Too many folks considered themselves armchair detectives these days, and it was far too easy to imagine some old lady who had read a lot of cozy mysteries and thought she was the next Miss Marple. But now it looked as if I’d be introducing myself to her after all.
I put the bookmark and the letter into my back pocket and grabbed the man’s keys. Maybe I’d find a phone in his car. Hell, maybe even some identification beyond his first name.
The doors were unlocked. I dipped my head into the vehicle on the driver’s side and saw no wallet or phone. Just a McDonald’s cup in the center cup holder. I lifted the cup, shaking it lightly. There was still ice in it, which meant he must have been by the McDonald’s in Riley before coming up the mountain. I wondered if that was before or after his stop at Ghost Mountain Books. I opened the center console, continuing to search for a wallet or phone, but found nothing but some change and fast-food receipts.
That was all. No phone, no wallet. I opened the dashboard and found only the car manual. I was stumped. Who drove without their wallet or phone?
Nobody, that was who. The answer, I realized, had to be that whoever had shot the man in the throat had also taken his wallet and phone.
I was about to get out when I heard something buzzing in the driver’s seat. A cell phone. He was getting a call. But where was the phone? I looked everywhere—the floorboard, the back seat, the dash—but couldn’t find anything. The buzzing stopped.
I got out of the car, slid the driver’s seat all the way back, and spotted a slim iPhone. Somehow it had fallen down under the seat. If it hadn’t buzzed, I doubt I would have found it. I picked it up and pressed the home button. The lock screen came up, revealing the number of the last call. I pressed the button again, and it asked me for a six-digit code.
Damn.
I let the screen go dark again, and this time when I touched the home screen and the phone number came up, I recognized it as the same number on the letter. So Dr. Blevins was still calling him, right up until the end.
I noticed the phone was about to die. I didn’t have an iPhone, so I looked around the car for a charger I could use to keep it going and found nothing. I slipped Joe’s phone in my pocket and opened the letter again. I dialed the number on my own phone, making sure to enter *67 before the rest of the number to keep my number anonymous.
It rang four times before a man answered. His voice was cold and suspicious. “Hello.”
“Dr. Blevins?” I asked.
“Who’s this?”
“Someone who wants to know what happened to Joe.”
“I don’t know any Joe.”
“You called him. And wrote him a—”
The line went dead. No surprise. Him talking to me had been a long shot at best. What now?
I looked at the body again and realized with a sharp chill that what I did in the next few minutes, the decisions I made, might be the difference between spending the rest of my life behind bars and remaining free. If Argent caught even a whiff of this situation, he’d be on the phone to Jeb Walsh in a heartbeat and be here to arrest me just as fast. The thorn in their side would be gone.
The worst part was that there was nobody I could call for help. Not Rufus, Mary, or Ronnie. Certainly not the police.
I was going to have to do it alone.
5
I worked quickly, taking down my shower curtain and wrapping the body up before heaving it into the back of my truck. I wore gloves, of course, and was careful not to let any blood get on my clothes or skin. Once Joe (God, knowing his name made it so much harder) was in my truck, I went to my shed and got out my lawn mower. I gassed it up and put on the grass catcher I’d never used. Then I rolled it around to the spot near where his body had been. I turned my headlights on and mowed the entire yard on the lowest setting.
It took me nearly a half hour before I felt like I’d done all the mowing and collecting of gore I was likely to do. Morning would tell the story of how much I’d missed, but for now, I had to call it quits. I pushed the mower into the shed and started around to my truck, carrying the grass catcher. I stuck it in the passenger’s side floorboard, shut the door, and turned to consider the man’s sedan.
I’d hide it for now. Getting rid of it was important, but not as important as getting rid of the body. I drove it into the woods behind my house, guiding the front end slowly into some pines until the entire vehicle was completely out of sight.
From there, I went to grab Goose, and he jumped into my truck, excitedly, before noticing the bag of grass and blood. He whined and sniffed at it as I started the engine.
Just as I was about to pull away, I heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. That was one of the advantages of living on the top of a mountain. I usually had plenty of time to prepare for visitors. I could hear an engine powering its way up the steeper inclines a mile or more away. And the last half mile to my place was a doozy of twists, turns, and sharp rising hills that could take an inexperienced driver as much as ten minutes to navigate.
But now this knowledge put me in a quandary. If I started down, I’d pass whoever it was, and on the off chance it was a sheriff’s deputy, I might be pulled over for questioning. That wasn’t something I was prepared to deal with while I was carrying a dead body in the back of my truck. I eased the truck forward, between the two live oaks where I liked to park. I kept going, nudging the front end over some small brush and into the trees until most of the truck was hidden in the woods behind my house, not too far from where I’d parked the sedan.
I killed the engine and the lights an
d waited, patting Goose’s head reassuringly. A long time passed, but I could still hear the sound of the engine revving as it worked its way up the mountain.
I thought of the whiskey I kept under the seat. A nip would go a long way toward easing my nerves. I picked up the bottle, wishing it wasn’t here with me because, as any drunk will tell you, having alcohol nearby is a sure way to make sure you drink some. I unscrewed the lid and took a sip, just enough to wet my lips and tongue, just enough to feel the sweet burn.
A light appeared in my rearview. I turned and saw a Coulee County sheriff’s Durango cresting the ridge. The bottle went to my lips and I took a real swallow, the kind that wasn’t a tease. The warmth spread out across my body, all the way to my fingers and toes, and I felt steadier, more clearheaded than before.
The Durango came to a stop and the lights blinked off. Two doors opened and two men stepped out. One was in a deputy’s uniform and the other wore a pair of blue jeans and a leather jacket. Based on his imposing size, the former was a deputy named Hub Graham. The man in the leather jacket was Preston Argent. I could tell just by the arrogant way he walked. Hub tossed a cigarette butt into my yard and they looked around. Not seeing anything of interest, they walked to my front door. I lost sight of them, but I imagined them standing there, knocking, waiting for somebody to answer. Would they notice anything amiss? I didn’t think so. The murder had been surprisingly clean, and I felt like I’d hidden the blood well enough, at least in the dark. Besides, Argent had had no real experience in law enforcement before winning sheriff, and as far as I could tell, there were actual police dogs smarter than Hub, whom Argent had clearly recruited for his intimidating size and brute strength.
Still, it was nerve-racking not to be able to see what they were doing. For all I knew they were in the house now. I’d taken care to clean up after myself, but what if I’d left a glove out or something else that would give them pause, make them look a little closer until they noticed my truck parked out underneath the pine trees?