Shatter the Night

by Emily Littlejohn

  It was a town full of character, with great natural beauty.

  Avondale, on the other hand, had been hastily developed in the late 1960s. Its buildings were low and squat, ugly concrete structures that sat like hulking sulky monsters around a monotone downtown that was more strip mall than main street.

  As I slowed and entered the town limits, I took in just how bad Avondale had been hit by the recent recession. Letters on the town’s movie theater marquee hung crooked, advertising a blockbuster that had been popular six months before. A couple of older men shuffled along the sidewalk, shooting me dirty looks as I drove past. Two women, perhaps the men’s wives, sat huddled together against the wind in a nearby bus stop shelter, where vandals and the weather had taken turns etching and pitting the plastic windows.

  As I left the strip and headed into the country, I acknowledged that Avondale had a few things going for it. One of the largest freight railroad networks in North America ran directly through the center of town. A small museum had been built next to the original train station, and the collection was world-class. In addition, the woods-product industry had been revived over the last decade, with beetle-killed wood turned into usable, beautiful lumber at a recently reopened sawmill. There was a cider brewery and some lovely trails, but at the end of the day, the town had never taken off the same way Cedar Valley had.

  And so, fair or not, Avondale sat, rural and somewhat sad, in the shadow of Cedar Valley.

  Aimee Corn’s house was therefore a pleasant surprise. It sat on a couple of acres of land, her drive framed by a series of pine trees. In addition to the bright yellow farmhouse, there was a red barn, a couple of sheds, and a small greenhouse with nearly transparent polycarbonate siding.

  As I parked and got out of the car, two young girls ran by on the heels of three clucking, frantic-looking chickens. The girls, in brightly patterned rain boots, indigo jeans, and matching yellow sweaters, cornered the birds near one of the small sheds and laughed as the hens squawked loudly.

  At the house, the front door banged open. A woman stepped out, drying her hands on a dish towel, and yelled, “Emma! Rebecca! Don’t you scare those chickens! I’ll set Brutus on you.”

  The girls stopped running. They stared at each other with wide eyes, their mouths falling open. Then, ignoring me completely, they skipped away from the chickens and disappeared into the woods behind the house, maniacal laughter trailing behind them.

  I joined the woman on the front porch. She had reddish-brown hair, piercing green eyes, and an infectious, charming grin. Her sweatshirt had all the stains of a busy morning in the kitchen.

  She extended a hand. “You must be Gemma. I’m Aimee. Those two hellions are my daughters.”

  “And Brutus?”

  Aimee winked at me. “Brutus is our rooster. He’s a mean son of a bitch; I rescued him from a cockfighting operation two years ago. Of course, I’d never really set him on the girls. I’m not a monster, after all. Emma and Rebecca would scare the poor gent to death. Come on in. Watch out for the pig.”

  Pig?

  I stepped into the house and set my bag down on a narrow bench. The room was small but warmly decorated. Potted plants, books, and craft projects seemed to compete for every available surface space, and on the floor were hooked rugs and more piles of books.

  A timid snort at my feet caused me to look down and watch as an adorable pink pig, the size of a small dog, scampered by.

  “That’s Pliny. He rules around here,” Aimee said. “Coffee? Tea? Hot cocoa?”

  “Coffee sounds great, thank you. Brutus … Pliny. I sense a theme here.”

  “You’re good; usually it’s not until folks meet Socrates that they get it. My undergraduate degree is in philosophy and I spent a few years in Italy and Greece,” Aimee replied. “Make yourself at home, I’ll be right back.”

  The pig had disappeared, but an enormous gray-and-white-striped cat with three legs sauntered in. I stepped over it and made my way to the bookshelves. They were crammed with books about military history, philosophy, and homesteading. Looking closer, I saw that a number of them listed Aimee Corn as the author.

  She appeared behind me. “Here you go; I took the liberty of adding cream and sugar. I hope that’s all right? It’s my opinion that black coffee is tar. Let’s sit down. Watch, Archimedes will be in my lap in less than a minute.”

  Aimee moved to the couch, while I chose a seat in an armchair facing her. The three-legged cat, who must have been Archimedes, bounced up from the floor and curled next to Aimee. She stroked its head as she sipped her tea, and the cat began to purr loudly.

  I was curious as to Aimee’s background. “What got you interested in military history?”

  “You could say the military is in my blood. My grandfather served in World War II. He met my grandmother overseas, who was working for the Resistance in France. Their son, my dad, is a Vietnam veteran.” Aimee paused, sipped her tea. “The Corn family has been serving this country for generations. Thomas Corn, my great-great-great-grandfather, was a soldier for the Union Army … Ansel Corn, his cousin, was a drummer boy for the Confederacy. Incredibly, both Ansel and Thomas passed on September 17, 1862, at the Battle of Antietam. Ansel was twelve years old; Thomas, nineteen, with a wife at home. They were just boys.”

  “That’s awful. How have you managed to trace your family tree back so far?”

  Aimee shrugged. “It’s not so hard anymore, so much history is available through the internet now. In fact, even the teaching I do these days is mostly online. That, plus the history books I write, keep the old homestead lights burning. Speaking of online … Gemma, I know we’ve just met, but I can sense you are the kind of woman who appreciates bluntness. After I received your message last night, I spent some time on research. And I think you should be worried. Very worried, in fact.”

  “Oh?” I leaned forward and set my tea down. “What did you find?”

  “Are you familiar with a man named Josiah Black?”

  I racked my brain, coming up empty. “No.” I started to say more when the front door banged open with a tremendous boom. Aimee and I both jumped and the cat let out an angry hiss. One of the Aimee’s daughters ran into the room, panting, out of breath. She was followed shortly thereafter by the second daughter.

  The taller of the two shouted, “Momma, Momma, we saw the witch! She was in the barn again!”

  “Emma, calm down. I told you, Mrs. McCready is storing a few things in the empty horse stalls for the winter,” Aimee said in a patient yet firm voice. “She won’t hurt you. Why don’t you two monkeys play down by the old orchard? I bet we missed a few apples when we went searching yesterday.”

  The girls scampered off and Aimee called after them, “Watch the water, Emma. Keep your little sister away from the pond.”

  Aimee turned back to me. “Sorry about that. Old Widow McCready is the bane of Emma’s existence. McCready is a sourpuss, and she certainly can be a bitch on wheels, but she’s no witch. Though she does mutter a lot and dead frogs are always turning up in her yard. Actually, now that I think about it…”

  From outside came loud shrieking and then muted laughter. The sound of the girls faded away as Aimee pointed to a plain manila folder laying atop a stack of books in the middle of the coffee table. “That folder is for you. In it is everything I found on Josiah Black, though I’m sure there’s much more information out there. You can access the trial notes, the murder reports more quickly; if I did it, I’d need to file a request with the county. And then there would be a record and I’d prefer not to have my name associated with any of this.”

  I opened the folder, feeling a momentary sense of dizziness as I did so, as though it were somehow a door to a strange and different universe. A portal. And in a way, it was; it was a door to the past.

  The first item in the folder was a piece of paper, obviously printed from a website. It showed a young man, handcuffed, maybe thirty years old, in the process of being escorted out of a courthouse by ha
lf a dozen men in uniforms. In the background, a mob of people watched the prisoner, their faces twisted in angry grimaces.

  The picture was black-and-white; judging by the clothes and cars in the images, the photograph had originally been taken in the 1940s or ’50s. Most disturbing was the handful of small children in the mob, their tiny hands raised to mimic their parents.

  “Anything look familiar?” Aimee asked softly.

  I started to shake my head no, then peered at the courthouse. “This is Cedar Valley.”

  “Yes. October 1949,” Aimee said. “The man in handcuffs is Josiah Black, aged twenty-seven, husband, father, and veteran of the Second World War.”

  “What was he charged with?” I asked as a sudden gust of wind shook the windowpanes. Aimee glanced over her shoulder, watched for a moment as more clouds moved in. She sighed. “I hate this time of year. Everything seems to turn dark, to die.”

  “Aimee? What was Josiah Black’s crime?”

  “Murder, multiple counts. Black returned to the States from a tour in the Pacific with what we would nowadays diagnose as post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD. You’re familiar with the condition?” Aimee asked.

  I nodded. “I’m no expert, but I did take a few psych courses in college and at the police academy. I’m aware of the basics.”

  “Black came back to Cedar Valley a changed man. The things he’d experienced and the things he’d seen … They say war makes men out of boys. I don’t believe that’s true. I think war devastates boys and the men who emerge from the wreckage have wounds that go far deeper than we’ll ever know. Black came home and for a few years, things were okay. He got a job at a local grocery, and worked up to manager. Along the way, he married his high school sweetheart. Her name was Amelia. Life was good. Then, in October of 1948, a madman struck.” Aimee’s voice grew quiet. “At first, the cops couldn’t connect the dots. His crimes seemed random, unconnected.”

  A veteran. A series of random, unconnected crimes. My flesh broke out in goose bumps. “What did Black do?”

  Aimee was grim now, all trace of joviality gone. “I’ll tell you, and you’ll see why I think you should be worried. The first thing he did was lace a truck with explosives. A local doctor, on his way to dinner, was blown to bits in the middle of Main Street. On Halloween. Five days later, Black slipped on a gas mask and robbed a bank. Though no one resisted, he shot the guard in the chest, twice, killing him almost instantly.”

  “My God,” I breathed. Sour acid rose in the back of my throat as I realized the full scope of what we were dealing with. “We’ve got a copycat killer.”

  Aimee nodded. “Unfortunately, it gets worse. Less than a week after the man robbed the bank, he barricaded the front doors of a popular tavern and set fire to it. Twelve people died. Josiah Black was eventually arrested, tried, and convicted of the crimes. He received the death sentence but maintained his innocence throughout the trial and after. Appeals kept him alive for years.”

  I skimmed the first couple of pages of the trial transcript, coming to a dead stop when I saw the presiding judge’s name.

  Henry Montgomery.

  Caleb Montgomery’s father.

  What had Gloria Dumont said? That Caleb had tried to atone for the sins of his father. Had Henry Montgomery put an innocent man away?

  “Can I take this research? I’ve got to get back to town, now. Right now. I have to inform my chief.” I was unsure how to adequately thank this woman who’d just given me the key to hopefully not just solving two murders, but to preventing a massacre as well.

  Aimee moved the cat from her lap and stood, her eyes still deeply troubled. “Yes, please, take the file—it’s yours. I’m only sorry I couldn’t find out more information for you. I’m a wiz with the national military databases, but when it comes to parolees, I’m dead in the water.”

  “Parolee?” I froze. “Black was released? I thought he was sentenced to die.”

  “He was, but he was freed in 1995. He was seventy-three years old. He was released on a technicality after some hotshot law student writing an article for his law review discovered the error. Incredibly, the student graduated, passed the bar, and then spent the next three years working pro bono to get Black released. And he succeeded. But as I said, the trail grows cold with his release.”

  I did the math. “Black would be in his late nineties if he were still living. I’ve seen footage of the man who robbed the Bishop Mine and footage of the man who shot Mike Esposito; there is no way that either man is nearly a hundred years old.”

  I was left with the terrible thought that someone had resurrected a ghost and brought him back to life to kill, again and again.

  * * *

  I got two miles outside of Avondale before I had to pull over to the side of the road. My hands were shaking, my heart racing. If my suspicion was correct, there would be a terrible act of violence in my town in mere days.

  But where would the killer strike?

  There were seven bars and more than a dozen restaurants in Cedar Valley, not to mention the movie theater, the Shotgun Playhouse, and all the other public places like the hospital, the schools, the parks.

  We were a small police force; we’d never be able to cover them all.

  I balled my hands into fists and squeezed until they stopped shaking, ignoring the pain this caused my still-healing palms. Then I fished my cell phone out of my bag and dialed Chief Chavez’s cell. I reached him at home, the sound of a radio and his kids in the background.

  “Come on by, we’re carving the last of the pumpkins. I could use the break; I don’t know why the hell my kids think Halloween is a monthlong holiday,” Chavez said. “We can talk outside.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Chavez, his wife, and their four young children lived in a newer subdivision on the eastern edge of Cedar Valley. I made good time, quickly putting distance between the mist-shrouded town of Avondale and myself.

  I parked in his driveway and realized I’d never been there at this time of year. With the trees bare, I could turn to the north and see the edge of the Ashley Forest, the Old Cabin Woods. Funny how I hadn’t been in the woods in years, and now, everywhere I turned, they seemed to be right there.

  Chavez must have heard my car. He stepped out of the large, two-story house with a can of beer in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. It was disconcerting to see him in jeans and a casual sweater.

  “Come on in,” Chavez said. “Want a beer? Coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Inside, the house was warm, decorated in the bright colors of Lydia Chavez’s birth country, Jamaica. I followed the chief into the kitchen, where I kissed Lydia on the cheek and said hello to each of the kids. All of them ignored me, intent on carving their pumpkins. Spooky Halloween sound effects were blaring from a set of speakers set high on the wall. The kids worked at the kitchen table; there were seeds and pumpkin innards splattered everywhere. Fake cobwebs, plastic spiders, and rubber rats completed the tableau.

  As the chief and I stepped out onto the porch, Lydia pulled a tray of chocolate chip cookies from the oven, the smell wafting across the room and nearly drawing me back into the pumpkin-carving circus.

  Lydia grinned at the conflicted look on my face. “I’ll save you a few.”

  Though the backyard was fenced, it was the fencing that was popular in so many subdivisions: low, open slats, so that the fence was more a token of boundary lines and not necessarily designated to keep things in … or out.

  The yard had recently been raked. Mottled leaves that had once been the color of flames in a fireplace sat in three tidy piles. The trees were bare and there was a sense of weight in the air, of something soon arriving, or something recently left.

  We stood against the railing, resting our arms on it, leaning forward.

  “Terry Bellington is dying,” Chavez said. He finished his beer and crushed the can, then tossed it at the closest pile of leaves. “Cancer.”

  “I’m sorry to he
ar that.” Terence Bellington was the former mayor of Cedar Valley and one of Chavez’s best friends. The year before, though, his family had been involved in a murder investigation, the ripples of which tore apart both family and friendships. “Have the two of you stayed in touch?”

  “No, not really,” Chavez said, “In fact, until yesterday, we hadn’t spoken in ages. He’s on hospice care now, at his home. The cancer came back four months ago. It sounds as though Terry’s made peace with it.”

  “Will you see him?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t ask for me to come. Do you think I should? What would I say?”

  I shrugged. “You two were close once, for a long time. Dying shouldn’t be lonely, Chief. If the situation was reversed, what would you want?”

  At my side, Chavez was silent. I studied him out of the corner of my eye, the pockmarked skin on his face, the receding hairline, the way his ears seemed too big for his face. These descriptions sound like petty things, but in a society where first impressions are everything, his features marked the chief as plain, average. Some might even say ugly.

  Chavez was one of the best men I knew, with a razor-sharp intellect and a heart of gold. His beauty lay on the inside, in his heart, his character.

  After a moment, he said in a low voice, “I’d want to see him. Everything that happened last fall … you know none of that was Terry’s fault. He lost everything, including his whole family, and why? Because of other people’s choices, other people’s decisions. He’s a broken man. A broken, dying man.”

  “Go to him, Chief.”

  “I will. Enough melancholy. What’s going on, Gemma? When we spoke earlier, I heard fear in your voice.”

  I pushed off the fence and turned to the north, looking out at the Old Cabin Woods. Though the sun was still high in the sky, and clouds were few and far between, the woods remained dark, under shadows of their own. “The truth is, I am scared. Have you ever heard of a man named Josiah Black?”

  “Sounds vaguely familiar…” Chavez thought a moment. I knew that after he moved to Cedar Valley, when he first started on the force, he took it upon himself to learn as much history as he could. Finally, he shook his head. “I can’t pinpoint it.”