Lance took a sip of his coffee, letting Joan finish her venting about something Lance felt had absolutely no bearing on the Benchley family’s murder. Maybe she was a gossip, after all. Though that didn’t necessarily mean she was spreading false information.
“Rumor has it,” Joan said, “he’d even gone so far as to build himself some sort of fallout shelter up at the farm. A bunker, or something. And knowing what I know about Joseph, I wouldn’t put it past his crazy ass. It’s like he only felt safe up at that farm.”
Lance couldn’t ignore the irony. Nobody seemed to feel safe at the farm now.
“Anyway, your food’s ready,” Joan said. Then she turned and vanished through the kitchen door, returning a moment later and delivering Lance his plates of food. “Enjoy,” she said.
Lance ate in silence, devouring the food—which was very good—and thinking about everything Joan had told him. Tried to see how any of it fit together, explored what he knew, looking for possible holes. But the truth was, if this situation had been a logic problem, the answer Lance would circle would be Not enough information.
When he’d finished eating, he paid his bill, leaving what he hoped Joan considered to be a generous tip, and then slung his backpack onto his shoulders and left the restaurant. He walked across the parking lot and then crossed the street, cutting across the post office’s parking lot and turning right on the sidewalk. He wanted to see if Rich Bellows was in his office. Lance thought the odds were pretty slim, considering it was a Saturday, and with Rich’s wife currently cleaning the farmhouse, somebody had to be watching the children Lance had seen in the office photographs. But still, he’d try. He wanted to ask whether anybody else had keys to the farmhouse, or if by chance the back door could have somehow been left unlocked the last time anybody had been there.
Lance made it two blocks from the post office when a quick whoop-whoop from a siren made him jump and spin around. A sheriff’s office cruiser was idling in the street, the passenger window rolled down. The officer behind the wheel motioned for Lance to walk over. Lance did, leaning down to look through the opened window. “Yes, Officer?”
“Are you Lance Brody?”
This can’t be good.
“Yes, sir.”
The officer nodded with his head to the back door. “Need you to get in, son.”
Nope. Not good at all.
14
Lance didn’t hesitate, because really, what would his options have been? Try to outrun a vehicle? Unlikely. Talk his way out of it? He didn’t even know what it was. So in the end, he simply asked, “Where are we going?”
The sheriff’s deputy said, “The station.” And Lance nodded and opened the back door and got in.
All at once, the memory of the near-life-ending ride in the back of a police car in Westhaven hit him hard. It was an almost nauseating sense of fear and déjà vu. But Lance was nothing if not strong-minded, a realist, and he took a couple deep breaths and calmed his nerves. Westhaven was different. There was unspeakable evil there. And he’d defeated it. Well, with the help of a few friends. Right now, in Ripton’s Grove, he was simply sitting in the back of a police car, being driven to the local sheriff’s office. Which in its own right caused an unshakable sense of dread, but on a more earthly level.
When the deputy was certain Lance was inside and situated, he picked up the radio from the dash and told whoever was on the other line what had happened and that he was en route to the station. The deputy had used the word suspect when referring to Lance, and Lance didn’t like that at all. He thought about asking more questions, but in the end decided to be quiet and see how things would play out. Unless people in Westhaven had somehow tracked him down to Ripton’s Grove and had questions, he suspected he was either currently being brought in because Sheriff Kruger still had a hair up his ass about Lance’s being in town, at the farm, or because of a misunderstanding. Misunderstanding had a habit of following Lance.
The deputy pulled the car away from the sidewalk and started to drive, slowly and carefully, occasionally glancing at Lance in the rearview. They drove in the direction of the bus station, a few curious pedestrians standing on the sidewalk and staring at Lance in the back of the car as he rode by, concerned expressions plastered on their faces. Lance had to wonder if Joan was already telling all the new customers at Mama’s that the new guy in town had just been picked up by the sheriff’s department and being brought in for questioning. The rumor mill would be churning hard and fast. The deputy made a right turn just past the bus station parking lot. Lance glanced toward the building and wondered what he’d be doing right now if he’d stayed on the bus, gone somewhere else. But he knew it was a silly thought. He was meant to be here. That much was becoming quite certain.
“You’re awfully quiet,” the deputy said, giving Lance an accusatory glare he didn’t appreciate.
Lance met the man’s eyes in the rearview and said, “Sorry, I didn’t know this was Taxi Cab Confessions.”
The deputy’s mouth opened, closed, and then the man shook his head and mumbled, “Smart-ass.”
Lance had been called worse. He felt only a little guilty for his outburst. He knew he was innocent of whatever situation they suspected he’d been a part of, and this entire side trip to the sheriff’s office was doing nothing but wasting Lance’s time. Not that he was pressed for time, exactly, but still, it was the principle.
The Ripton’s Grove sheriff’s office was a dated-looking one-story brick building that looked as though it might have once been a bank. The parking lot was large and mostly empty. A cluster of county vehicles and police cruisers much like the one Lance was riding in sat behind wire fencing to the right side of the building. The gate to this parking area was open, and Lance had no difficulty spying the black Crown Vic that had visited him earlier this morning. Lance looked back to the building. Kruger was in there somewhere. Waiting for him.
Lance’s deputy chauffeur pulled the vehicle up to the front of the building and parked, getting out and making a big show of stretching his back and checking his cell phone. If he thought this would irritate Lance—being forced to wait longer in the back of the vehicle with no explanation—he was sadly mistaken. Lance was incredibly patient. And, again, had nowhere he needed to be.
After the deputy was apparently satisfied he’d stalled long enough to get Lance’s blood boiling, he slowly walked around to Lance’s door and opened it. Lance hadn’t moved an inch before the man said, “Nice and easy, now. Take it slow.” He placed a hand on Lance’s upper arm and pulled. Lance grabbed his backpack from the seat next to him and allowed himself to be “helped” from the rear of the car. Standing at his full height, Lance was easily a foot taller than the deputy, and as if underestimating Lance’s height, the man took a small step back and said, “You aren’t going to be any trouble, right?”
Lance said nothing. Waited.
The deputy nodded, as if he’d somehow made his point. He stepped forward and grabbed Lance’s upper arm again, although this time he was noticeably gentler, and led Lance into the building.
They made their way through the lobby/waiting room, and the deputy waved to a middle-aged woman behind a pane of glass. She didn’t even look up from the romance novel she was reading to reach down and push a button that caused the door at the end of the wall to buzz and a lock to disengage. The deputy opened the door and nudged Lance through it. From there, Lance was forced to surrender his backpack to be searched—for evidence, they told him—and he agreed, only adding, “There’s dirty underwear in there,” which drew an uncomfortable stare from the other deputy, who’d been tasked with the job. Then the deputy who’d driven him here marched him to what felt like the back corner of the building and stuck him in a small interview room, telling Lance to sit down and not move and that somebody would be by shortly.
Lance sat. The door closed. Lance sighed and looked around the room.
At once, it looked like something you’d see on one of those TV crime dramas. Small
, cramped space. Single metal table in the middle of the room, with two chairs. There was dull fluorescent lighting overhead and a large mirror on the left wall (two-way, Lance presumed). No windows. The walls were a faded gray. Dingy was one word that came to mind, but depressing might be more apropos. Lance understood; this room was meant to make a person uncomfortable, meant to make them give answers and admit to crimes and do what they needed to do to get out and see a shred of sunlight again.
While Lance was mostly unfazed by the room—his life had prepared him well for less-than-pleasant situations—he felt the slow swell of impatience rise in his chest with each passing minute. Something was afoul here, and his curiosity was growing. Time was being wasted.
He leaned back in the uncomfortable chair and closed his eyes. Began to take a couple of deep breaths when he heard a man laugh and say, “Boy, we don’t even have time for all the stories I could tell you of the idiots I’ve had come through this room—on both sides of the table, mind you.”
Lance’s eyes shot open and found a man seated directly across from him in the other chair.
The man smiled, showing coffee-stained teeth, and winked. He wore dark khaki pants and a matching shirt. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled up around thick forearms; the buttons looked strained against a substantial stomach and broad chest. His face was weathered, the skin drooping around his neck and cheeks. His eyes shone bright, but the bags under them told a different story altogether. His hair was gray and lay in short, sloppy curls around his ears and forehead. To Lance, he looked well into his fifties, maybe early sixties, but he likely felt much older.
What struck Lance as more interesting than the man’s sudden appearance was what was pinned on the man’s shirt, chest-high and opposite a folding pocket with what looked like a pack of cigarettes tucked neatly away.
A gold star. The word Sheriff emblazoned on it.
Lance looked up and met the man’s eyes.
“Heart attack,” the man said. Then he looked around the room and smiled, as if recalling pleasant memories. “Right here in this very room.” He laughed. “Brought a kid in for shoplifting, couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen, and I was just having some fun with him, trying to put the fear of God in him, if you know what I mean. Wasn’t nothing serious. I knew his pops, and was just waiting on the old fool to get down here and pick his kid up. Well, about halfway through my fake interrogation I felt the ol’ ticker seize up and bam! Lights out.” He shook his head. “The whole town always said if I didn’t slow down some and take better care of myself, something like that would happen. But nobody would have thought it would go down while I was just trying to have a little fun.”
Lance said nothing. Waited.
“Not real chatty, are ya, kid?”
At this point in his life, Lance wasn’t certain of a great many things, but he had come to understand that spirits—ghosts, if you like—weren’t always visible to him. Lance had a theory that they had to expend some sort of energy to make themselves seen, and after a while they’d have to slip back beyond the veil to recharge their batteries, so to speak. Sure, Lance had had social visits from the lingering dead. That wasn’t unusual. But more often than not, they came with a purpose. Lance felt this was likely one of those times.
Instead of answering, Lance asked a question of his own. “How long ago were you sheriff?”
The man’s head looked down to the star pinned to his chest, his eyes suddenly looking sad. Then he grunted. “I was taking care of this town when Kruger here was still shittin’ his diapers.” He sighed. “Been a long time.”
“Why are you still here?” Lance asked.
The man smiled again, then shrugged, as if he knew his answer was going to disappoint. “This is what I was born to do. I got nothing else.”
Lance didn’t claim to have any understanding of what followed our mortal lives, no evidence specific to a Heaven or hell. But the simple fact that there were such things as spirits—like the man sitting across the table and countless others before him—did suggest that our souls have the ability to move on from this world and into another.
Beyond the veil, and then further still.
“Besides,” the man said, “I got nobody waitin’ for me anywhere. Been a loner my whole life. And don’t go getting sad for me, I preferred it that way.”
Lance said nothing. He was beginning to understand what it meant to be a loner himself.
“Anyway,” the man continued, “I didn’t pop in to talk about me—though you’d love some of the stories, trust me on that! I wanted to help you with the case you’re working on.”
“Case, sir?”
The man sat back and looked at Lance like he was trying to pull a fast one on him. “Yes, son! The case. The Benchley house. You’re here to figure out what really happened, right?”
Now it was Lance’s turn to sigh. “Apparently.”
The deceased sheriff nodded and leaned forward, resting his thick arms on the table. “And what have you learned so far? Got any leads?”
Lance began to feel even more like he was in a TV crime drama. He had to suppress a sudden urge to get up, slam his hand on the table and yell, “You can’t handle the truth!”
Wait … that was in a courtroom. Close enough.
Lance didn’t bother with asking such trivial questions such as how this man knew who he was and why he was in town. He went straight into the details. “I’ve got two sides of things. The most popular opinion seems to be that Mark Benchley was crazy and killed his wife and daughter before shooting himself. The second and most recent opinion I’ve heard is that Mark Benchley would never have hurt a hair on his wife and daughter’s head, so there was another sort of foul play involved.” Lance stopped and considered what he’d said. Shrugged. “So really, either Mark Benchley killed them all, or somebody else did. Not exactly a groundbreaking investigation I’m conducting here.”
The Ghost of Sheriff Past looked disappointed. “That’s all?”
Lance thought some more. “I’ve heard voices at the farm. A man and a woman. There’s nobody there but me.”
“So the voices are like me?” the man asked.
“I’m not sure. I know they’re otherworldly, so to speak, but I don’t see or feel any other presence along with the voices. It’s just sound.”
The man considered this for a moment, then sat up straight, excited. “Maybe it’s a message? A … recording of some sort? A clue that’s been waiting for somebody to find it?”
Lance crinkled his brow. “Waiting for me?”
“Waiting for you or someone like you.”
Lance didn’t allow himself to dwell on thoughts of other people in the world who shared his gifts. He’d never met anyone else who could do the things he could except for the Reverend. Though he liked to hope that they did exist out there somewhere.
“It’s not much of a clue,” Lance said.
“Maybe there’s more, and you just haven’t found it yet.”
“I don’t exactly know how to look.”
“You will,” the man said. “I can tell. You’d have made a hell of a deputy.”
“You’ve only known me a couple minutes,” Lance said.
The man smiled again, and Lance knew it was only a trick of the mind that he could smell the nicotine on the man’s breath. “You don’t know what it’s like on this side of the table, son.” He winked.
Lance got the meaning. Didn’t know what to say.
The man said, “Listen, I’ve got to go. They’ll be here soon—don’t worry, by the way, they’ve got nothing on you. But let me tell you this. I’ve been here for every interview they’ve ever performed regarding the Benchley case over the years. I’ve read every case file, every note. Heard every discussion, opinion, argument, and theory.”
Lance waited. Let the man enjoy his buildup.
“Something happened in Mark Benchley’s life after he moved here that changed him,” the lingering sheriff said. “And not in a good way. B
ut my gut tells me there’s a lot more to that night than anybody around here has even tried to understand. And I need you to help these idiots around here figure out what it was.”
Lance was about to ask for more, anything else to go on, but then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught the presumed two-way mirror to his left and he felt a cold chill of fear down his spine. What if they’ve been watching the whole time? What if they’ve been watching me talk to myself?
As if suddenly sensing Lance’s panic, the man turned to look at the mirror, laughed, and then raised his middle finger to the glass. “They can’t see, son.”
Lance didn’t take his eyes from the mirror, “I know they can’t see you, but I’ve been sitting here probably looking like—”
He stopped talking. Focused his eyes on himself in the mirror and then slowly and deliberately said, “I’m talking, but my mouth isn’t moving.”
And it was true. Lance felt all the muscle and movement in his jaw and mouth, heard the words leaving his throat, but the image of Lance in the mirror simply sat and stared.
“You didn’t know that’s how it worked with us?” the man asked, sounding genuinely curious.
Lance said, “No.” Lance in the mirror said nothing.
“Hmm,” the man grunted. “Interesting. People would think you were crazy if you just went around talking to people who weren’t there.”
Lance tried hard to remember if he’d ever been able to see himself while talking to a lingering spirit. A mirror, or reflective surface … anything. He couldn’t recall a single moment.
Amazed he was just now finding out this little secret of his, he turned back to the man who had once been the sheriff of Ripton’s Grove but found only an empty chair.
Then the door to the interview room opened, and Sheriff Ray Kruger walked in.
15
The sheriff—the current and very much alive sheriff—closed the door softly and turned to face Lance. Looked at him with weary eyes and sighed, as if he’d known this moment was inevitable.
Lance Brody Omnibus Page 44