by Hank Early
“How are you?” she said.
Her voice was filled with something unmistakable. Not pity. Mary was far too empathic for that. But maybe concern. I understood she was worried about my generally fragile mental state without her. And probably curious as to how I was taking losing the sheriff’s election.
“All good here,” I lied.
“Yeah, right.”
“Why do you doubt me? I’m fine. Got a new case,” I said, and immediately wished I could take it back.
“Oh, tell me about it. I’d love to help, if I can.”
I winced, trying to decide what to say. “It’s pretty boring.”
“Well, I’m pretty bored. Tell me.”
“I’m looking for a guy. A man. He came up to the Fingers and vanished.”
“What? That doesn’t sound boring at all! What’s his name?”
Shit. “Hey, I got to go. Let me call you back later, okay? There’s someone at the door. I think it’s about the case.”
“Oh, go. Take care of that. I’m glad you have something to keep you busy. Be safe, and remember I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I ended the call and pushed myself back in the recliner and closed my eyes.
When I woke, it was afternoon and Goose was barking at something in the yard.
I went to the kitchen window and saw the Hill Brothers, shimmering ghosts in the midday heat. They were on their way down the mountain and had taken a shortcut through my yard, as they often did. I found myself wondering if they were twins. They both had dark complexions and long, fragile faces. Their eyes didn’t move; they flitted, never lingering on anything long. They ignored Goose as he barked at them and trudged on through the shade of the oaks, out into the open sun. They were dressed in dark T-shirts and ripped blue jeans split open at the ankles to fit around their oversized boots. One brother’s hair was longer than the other’s, and he was thinner too, lending him the appearance of a strung-out rock star. The other one looked more like a character from a Flannery O’Connor short story. He had short hair, cut as if he’d worn a bowl for a crown and gone to work with the scissors himself. He was the taller of the two and walked with an easy athleticism, chewing a blade of grass as he moved past the house and toward the dirt road connecting me with the rest of the world.
Before thinking it through, I went to the front door. I opened it up, whistled at Goose to stop barking, and then called out to them.
“Could I ask you boys something?”
The long-haired one turned to look at me, his eyes sliding over my face as if he already knew what I was going to say and had no patience for it. The other brother didn’t even acknowledge me.
I jogged over to them, trying to catch up with their long, relentless strides.
“Did you boys hear any shooting up this way last night?”
This time the short-haired one with the piece of grass looked at me. His expression was wilder, more feral, like a dog kept in a cage for too long that can’t wait to get out to bite someone, anyone.
“No,” he said, his voice soft but ragged with something that might have been scorn.
I stopped, a little stunned by the animosity I felt from him. I’d heard stories that they’d both been born addicted to drugs, that they’d never known either of their parents and had grown up more like animals than people. I should have known better than to try to engage them.
They disappeared onto the dirt road and over the rise. I watched the dust gather in the wake of their passage, and I wondered at how many mysteries these mountains could hold.
And if any of them could ever truly be unlocked.
8
Susan Monroe was the library director and my go-to for information about the area. She was also one of the nicest people I’d ever met. In her midfifties, she’d been single since her husband died a decade before and had never remarried because, in her words, “the men in this area couldn’t hold a candle to David.” I didn’t know David, but I figured he would have had to be a good man to deserve Susan.
“Let me guess,” she said, grinning at me as I approached her near the front counter where she stood behind a stack of hardback books. “You’ve got a case.”
“How did you know?” I reached over the counter and gave her a side hug. She squeezed me back tightly.
“Well, I could say it’s the only time you ever come to visit me, but I’m too nice for that. So, I’ll just say you’ve got the look.”
“The look?”
She moved her hand across her face, waggling her fingers. “It’s in the eyes, and maybe the cheekbones. You look perplexed.”
I laughed. “That’s one way to put it.”
“So I was right?”
“You were right.”
“Well, let’s go to my office.”
I followed her through the stacks toward her office, where just last fall I’d sat with Rufus and Ronnie’s niece and nephew, trying to figure out how we were going to bring down Jeb Walsh. That still hadn’t happened. In fact, he had a better foothold in the area than ever now that Argent was sheriff. Suddenly, I felt more down than I had in a while. We’d accomplished nothing. I’d accomplished nothing. Not only that, Mary was on the other side of the country and now I had a dead man to deal with.
Susan sat down at her desk and motioned for me to do the same. “You look down.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You don’t hide your emotions well, Earl. You never have.”
I shrugged. I didn’t like this line of conversation. The truth was, as much as I liked Susan—or maybe because of how much I liked Susan—she always made me a little nervous. She was an attractive woman, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t noticed some spark between us. Or maybe that was just my ego talking. It had a helluva mouth sometimes.
“It’s Mary, right?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “You must miss her terribly.”
“I’m okay.”
She gave me a searching look as if trying to read what was behind my eyes. “Long-distance relationships are always hard. Are you sure you’re doing all right?”
“I’m sure. We talked this morning. She’s coming for a visit soon.”
“Oh, that’s good news, Earl. I’m so excited for you.”
“I’m pretty excited myself.”
“So, how can I help you?”
I told her I’d found a phone while hiking and was trying to get it back to its owner.
She wrinkled her nose at me. “That doesn’t sound too interesting.”
“Sorry. My life is pretty boring right now.”
“Give it time,” she said. “Danger always finds Earl Marcus.”
“Yeah, can’t wait.” I said it sarcastically, but there was more than a grain of truth in her words. If danger didn’t find me, I usually found it. It wasn’t so much for the thrill of it as it was the pure adversity. I’d never been very good at the mundane tasks of day-to-day living.
She laughed and asked to see the phone.
“Oh, I didn’t bring it. It’s at the house. See, I’m trying to find out a little bit about the person who last called the phone.”
She looked confused. “Why?”
“Well …” I said, not sure how best to handle this.
“Never mind. I’m prying.”
I smiled at her. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“I’m sorry. Listen, if I ever start being nosy, just tell me, Earl. Sometimes …” She trailed off, her eyes going distant. “Sometimes I forget myself and treat you like I treated David.” She reached over the desk and touched my shoulder. “I’m not trying to be weird.”
“It’s okay.” The thing was, I believed her. She wasn’t flirting. If she knew it sometimes seemed like flirting to me, I was pretty sure she would have been mortified.
“I’m assuming you tried calling the number?” she said.
“Yes. I even know his name. Dr. Blevins. I’m trying to find out the scoop on him. Who he is, where he works, that
sort of thing.” I winced and shook my head. “I suppose I might as well tell you this is a tad bit more complicated than just finding the phone.”
“I picked up on that. And say no more. I’ve got a meeting in thirty minutes, but after that I’ll see what I can come up with. You going to stick around?” She looked hopeful, but I had to disappoint her.
“No, just give me a call when and if you find out anything.”
“Will do. And Earl?”
I was already making my way out of her office.
“Yeah?”
“I hope things work out with you and Mary. You two are so good together.”
I didn’t know exactly how to respond to that, so I just smiled and walked out.
* * *
She called me later that evening. I’d spent the afternoon scouring the front yard for any evidence of the shooting. I found nothing except some more blood in the grass, which I took care of by mowing again, mulching the grass over and over until all traces of the blood were invisible to the naked eye. I was sitting near the ridge where Mary and I had set up some chairs to enjoy sunsets together. It was still hot, and the day didn’t want to let go. Dusk got tangled up in the sunset, and it was probably the most gorgeous thing I’d seen in a long time.
When she called, I was drinking a beer and trying not to think of the dead man’s face. There was something in his countenance I found disturbing, something all too familiar. As long as I could think of him in the abstract, as a mystery and not a man, I was okay, but when I remembered his face, I felt a kind of aching loneliness I couldn’t shake.
He was dead and buried, and nobody but me and the killer knew it. Whoever he’d left behind didn’t know where he was or if he was ever coming back. Didn’t they deserve more than that?
“Thanks for getting back to me,” I said to Susan.
“No problem. I didn’t find a ton. This guy has absolutely no social media footprint, but he’s made the papers a few times, so that helped.”
“The papers? For something bad or good?”
“Both, actually. In 1984, he was named the Coulee County teacher of the year.”
“Teacher?”
“Science, apparently.”
“Okay, what’s the bad news.”
“He was fired in 1988 after allegations of sexual harassment came to light.”
“Against students?”
“The article isn’t clear. It just says sexual harassment during … let me see … the 1986–87 school year. The principal at the time went to bat for him, but it says a suit was filed and he was ultimately let go from his job.”
“Interesting. Were you able to access the court filing?”
“Tried, but this is Coulee County, you know? I don’t need to tell you that when Hank Shaw was the sheriff, paperwork was not a priority. Apparently the county courts followed his lead. They said there was a room with some boxes that I was welcomed to peruse …”
“That’s all right. You’ve done plenty. I’ll look into it at some point if necessary.”
“I don’t mind. I mean, for all we know he’s innocent. Or, even if he’s guilty, there are all kinds of levels of that sort of thing, not that they aren’t all gross, but I think the key is to know whether he was harassing a student or an adult.”
“Yeah, that makes a pretty big difference, but I’d hate to ask you to do that. Where did you say he taught?”
“Coulee County High.”
“Okay, I wonder if anybody around there would still remember him.”
“Maybe, but I have more.”
“You do?”
“Yep. Apparently, he used the time off to get his doctorate in abnormal psychology, which he then parlayed into another job here in Coulee County.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“The Harden School.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Well, you haven’t been paying attention. It’s been around for a while. It’s a reform school on the eastern side of the county, not far from Brethren. Apparently, now he’s the behavioral therapist and science teacher there.”
“Interesting. Do you have an address?”
“Yeah, but Earl, you should know this school has come under some fire in the last few years.”
“What kind of fire?”
“It’s vague, and I get the feeling there’s been an effort to cover it up. I can only find a few articles that mention it, but there’s been some lawsuits filed by parents against the administration’s discipline methods.”
“That sounds about right. Do they have a website or something?”
“You’re still limited to your phone, right?”
“Like that’s a bad thing,” I said.
“Well, computers do have larger screens.”
“Yeah, but if I had one of those, I’d feel obligated to turn it on occasionally.”
She laughed. “Facebook is not coming for Earl Marcus anytime soon.”
“God, I hope not.”
“I’m going to text you the website address. You can find the physical address on the website. Are you going to pay them a visit?”
“Probably.”
“Well, be careful. I’ve heard rumors about Randy Harden, the school’s founder, for years.”
“What kind of rumors?”
“Well, women talk to each other, you know. Especially about men like Harden. He’s a predator, Earl. Definitely not the kind of man who needs to be working with kids.”
“Got it,” I said. “Thanks, Susan.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You’re the best.”
I ended the call. Goose nuzzled his snout against my knee as I clicked on the link Susan had sent over.
It was a pretty sparse affair. The home page showed a photo of the school, which looked more like an antebellum plantation home. The headline read The Harden School: Excellence in Alternative Education Since 1984. I clicked the About link and was taken to a separate page with a short blurb.
The Harden School is a boys only school created specifically for young men who lose their way and require discipline and therapy in order to rediscover themselves. Our curriculum is based on traditional Christian values, and our educators and administration believe strongly that these values form the bedrock of a young man’s life. We also affirm the Biblical admonishment of “spare the rod, spoil the child,” while still embracing cutting edge therapeutic techniques designed to unlock the true “male” instead of the watered down version too often popularized in our modern, increasingly pagan culture. To discuss your boy’s unique circumstances, call for an appointment.
A phone number was listed below along with the address.
I decided to make an appointment. What did I have to lose?
9
There are some people you meet who you connect with immediately. Claire of Ghost Mountain New and Used Books was one of those people for me. She was my age, or maybe a few years younger, and had the kind of engaging personality that could light up a room. Her eyes were somewhere between blue and the color of cold steel. There was an air of subdued intelligence about her, a sense she knew more than she was letting on, and that was one of the things I liked best about her from the beginning. Maybe I’d spent too much time with men like my father and men like Ronnie, who threw it all on the table as soon as you met them, leaving it up to you to sort through what was worthwhile and what wasn’t. At least in Ronnie’s case, I’d found there was a lot that was worthwhile. My father, unfortunately, had been made of bluster and unchecked ambition, and there was nothing about his life or legacy that didn’t make me feel ashamed.
“Earl Marcus,” Claire said, with just the slightest emphasis on my last name. She said this even before I introduced myself.
“That’s right,” I said, hesitating as I tried to decide how to best explain that I was nothing like my father.
I never got the chance. “I’ve read about you in the papers.” She beamed at me. “In fact, I even voted for you. Too bad you didn’t win. Th
e one we got is an asshole.” She covered her mouth. “Oops. Sorry. I forget myself sometimes.”
“No worries. I appreciate the vote and agree with you one hundred percent.”
She continued to beam at me. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Did you come to buy books, to browse, or to talk?” She leaned in conspiratorially. “Between you and me, I’d love to just talk. Gets a little lonely in here sometimes.”
I smiled and looked around, taking in the store. The bookshop was a renovated old home just down the street from the library. The entire first floor was the bookstore, and I appreciated that the owner hadn’t knocked down any of the walls to create a larger space but instead had just made each room a kind of surprise. We were standing in what I believed had once been the dining room. There were three tables and several bookshelves, all loaded down with used books. Mystery/Crime and Thriller Room, the sign on the wall read. How appropriate.
I picked up a James Lee Burke novel I hadn’t read. “I’ll buy this, but I would like to talk too.”
“Best of both worlds. Come with me to the kitchen and I’ll ring you up. Then we can have coffee.”
I followed her down a hall flanked on either side by smaller rooms, each one overflowing with books of every sort. There was one room that focused on transportation and seemed to contain both nonfiction and some fiction. We passed an “occult” room with stacks of books about magic and weird studies. There was a small table dedicated to H. P. Lovecraft and some other authors I’d never heard of who obviously wrote in that same vein. Two other rooms went by in a blur before we reached the kitchen.
This was the only room without books. Well, that wasn’t exactly accurate. There was a shelf of books behind the kitchen table, but on the wall above the shelf was a sign that said Not for Sale. Claire sat down at the table by an iPad and an old cash register.
“Cash or credit?” she said.
I gave her a ten and told her to keep the change.
“How long have you been working here?”
“About a year, but I don’t want to talk about me. I want to talk about you. And hopefully something juicy you’re working on.”