Lance Brody Omnibus

by Michael Robertson Jr

  Lance sighed and turned and walked down the steps, heading around the side of the cabin to the rear. Here, he found the driveway. A crude gravel trail that led down a small decline and then connected with what looked like a dirt road. Lance followed the dirt road with his eyes, tried to imagine where it led. Most likely it fed into the main road that wound up the side of the hill from town.

  There was no vehicle in the driveway. They’re not home, Lance thought. He quickly tried to think about where they might be. Where he could find them.

  Then he remembered what day it was.

  Sunday.

  Sunday morning.

  (“She watches him in Kids’ Group at church on Sundays.”)

  The snippet of last night’s conversation doused Lance’s fire of excitement.

  Jacob Morgan and Ethan were either at church or headed there. Susan too, likely.

  Lance contemplated his options. He could wait. Take a seat in one of the rocking chairs and wait for the sound of tires on gravel. Or he could go to the church, hang out in the parking lot and wait for the doors to open and the stream of people to trickle out.

  Either option carried with it a whiff of stalker. Despite Lance’s urgency, he didn’t want to appear aggressive, or too eager. And he certainly didn’t want Jacob Morgan to feel he was being accosted.

  The third option seemed best. Breakfast at Mama’s.

  Lance needed coffee. Boy, did he need coffee.

  And since he had more questions, he might as well talk to the town’s best source of information.

  28

  Halfway down the mountain, Lance started to feel light-headed, his arms and legs taking on a bit of a floating feeling. He closed his eyes and took three deep breaths, counting to ten each time. With the final exhale, he opened his eyes and shook his head to clear it. He felt better, but he scolded himself for waiting so long to eat. He was running on empty. With his size and metabolism, last night’s pizza was ancient history in terms of fuel. But this was nothing Mama’s pancakes wouldn’t solve.

  He slowed his pace and tried to put his mind to work, keep himself occupied with thoughts other than his empty stomach and low blood sugar. He made a mental list of things that he knew, or at least had been told, about the night of the Benchley family murder. Then he made a list of all the things he didn’t know. Questions he had. Item number one on this second list was obviously Who had killed the Benchleys? But there were two other items that Lance felt more pressed to answer first, thinking that perhaps the answers to one or both of these might have some bearing on the answer to the question of the Benchley family killer.

  What was Sheriff Ray Kruger’s real involvement?

  The vision Lance had seen of the sheriff’s abused childhood certainly played a role in the man’s preoccupation with the farmhouse. On some disturbed level it seemed to Lance that the sheriff was both simultaneously repulsed by the home and somehow concerned about its well-being. There was a deeper connection here that Lance was missing.

  Why had Mary Benchley’s body been burned?

  Lance hadn’t given much thought to this part of the story until last night, when he’d relayed to Susan and Luke that the cleaning company didn’t come to the farmhouse because they believed that Mary Benchley had been a witch. It was then that he’d remembered the fact that her body, or at least what very little was left of it, had been found burning on a brush pile in the backyard. Assuming that Mark Benchley had not killed his family and himself, why had the killer left Mark and Natalie Benchley’s bodies where they’d fallen after the shotgun blast had done its work, yet he or she had gone through the trouble of disposing of Mary’s body in an entirely different manner.

  Some sort of sacrifice? Lance thought. A ritual?

  Thoughts of what he’d encountered in Westhaven trickled in, forcing Lance to acknowledge that something as sick as human sacrifice could certainly not be ruled out as an option. Maybe there were witches in Ripton’s Grove, but Mary Benchley wasn’t one of them. Had she been their victim?

  Why?

  Lance stepped out of the woods and into the park. Out from under the cover of the trees, the temperature picked up a few degrees. Lance lowered his hood and headed toward the parking lot, back the same way he’d come after the Bellowses had dropped him off yesterday afternoon. There were a few morning joggers in the park, winding around the path. Those who were not quite God-fearing enough to put Him before their cardiovascular system. An elderly man sat alone on a bench near the baseball fields, staring across the empty playing area with something like nostalgia on his face. A folded newspaper sat beside him, weighted down by an iPhone. Lance considered his flip phone, how the older gentleman on the bench had infinitely more access to information and services and the rest of the world in the palm of his hand than Lance could ever have. He really should try and upgrade. But the phone had been a gift from his mother, all those years ago. It was the last thing he had from her. And he couldn’t quite bring himself to give it up quite yet. It would feel too much like chipping away at her memory. He remembered the look of excitement on her face the day she’d given it to him. She’d put it inside a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle box and then wrapped it in newspaper. Lance had torn away the paper to find a picture of what looked like a hundred kittens surrounded by balls of yarn and wicker baskets. He hated cats, and his mother was well aware of this. She’d found her joke hilarious. Lance had been too happy with the surprise inside the box to even give her a hard time about it.

  And then Pamela Brody had shown Lance that she’d purchased a matching phone for herself, and they’d spent the rest of the afternoon sending silly text messages to each other and calling each other from different rooms of the house.

  Lance found himself standing in front of Mama’s, smiling like a fool. He had no idea how he’d gotten here but was thankful he’d somehow managed to cross two streets without getting plowed over by a truck. Or a police cruiser.

  He pocketed the cell phone memory and made his way past the handful of cars in the parking lot, then pushed open the door.

  The dining room was mostly empty. The booth right by the door was taken, as were two of the tables along the rear wall near the kitchen. The smell of bacon and coffee hit Lance like a wave, and his stomach grumbled in excitement. He stood by the hostess stand and waited, scanning the room again and looking for Joan.

  A woman pushed through the kitchen door, carrying two plates of food to one of the tables along the wall. She spotted Lance and said, “Sit anywhere you’d like, sir. I’ll be with you in a flash.” She was tall and lean, with red hair and a heavy dose of freckles. Maybe midthirties. She was all smiles and graceful movements. She’d called him sir.

  She was not Joan.

  Lance smiled and nodded and made his way to back corner booth. Where he’d sat yesterday. Where Sheriff Ray Kruger had sat and read his Kindle the night before that, staring into that black-and-white screen and trying to suppress who knew how many awful memories.

  Lance slid his backpack into the seat next to him, and when he looked up, the red-haired woman was at the table, smiling with big bright teeth that almost looked too large for her mouth. She smelled like strawberries and sugar, and her hair looked like something from a shampoo commercial.

  She was not Joan.

  “Good morning!” she started. “I’m Jen, and I’ll be taking care of you this morning. Can I get you something to drink? Water, juice, coffee?”

  “Coffee, please,” Lance said. “Black.” Then he proceeded to order the same breakfast he had the day before. Jen stared at him while he spoke, smiling and nodding and never letting her eyes leave his. It was almost unsettling. When he finished his order she said, “Got it. Anything else?”

  “Actually, yes,” Lance said. “Is Joan working this morning?”

  Jen was all too happy to answer. “She should be here in…” She checked her wristwatch, a small silver thing that sparkled in the light when she brought it up to her face. “Maybe another hour. She
and I alternate the Sunday morning shifts. That way we can let the other one get to church.”

  Disappointed, Lance thanked the woman, and she went back to the kitchen to give his order to the cook.

  The thought of Joan in church was comical. Surprising, actually. She didn’t seem the type. But then Lance figured it was possible she went every other week purely because she didn’t want to miss out on any good gossip. With towns as small as this, drama would be everywhere, church not excluded.

  Lance’s coffee and food came, and once he assured Jen that he didn’t need anything else, she left him alone to devour his food at a rate that made him appear as if he were in some sort of contest against unseen competitors. Jen came by and refilled his coffee and took away his empty plates, and with his stomach full and his body beginning to feel normal again, Lance sipped on his fresh cup and decided that he didn’t want to just sit in the booth and wait for Joan to show up. Plus, if she was coming in after church, a lunch rush would likely soon follow. She’d be too busy earning tips and listening for juicy details to stop and have another heart-to-heart with the town’s newest reporter.

  Lance paid the check and left Jen a nice tip. As he handed over the cash, Jen leaned in closer and whispered, “You’re him, aren’t you? The fella writing the book about what happened up at that farmhouse?”

  Lance said nothing.

  Jen leaned closer and her voice grew even quieter, her eyes darting around to see if anybody was listening in. “Between you and me,” she said, “I always knew Mark Benchley was trouble. He just had this look about him, you know? Something about his eyes, the way he looked at people.” She shrugged. “It was creepy.”

  Lance was quiet for a second, then asked, “Can you tell me where the library is?”

  Jen smiled with those big white teeth and told him it was two blocks behind the courthouse. Lance didn’t have to ask for directions. He just had to head toward the bell tower.

  Lance thanked her and left, calling over his shoulder as he opened the door, “Tell Joan that Lance says hi.”

  A new idea had struck, and since he figured he had to wait till church let out before he could talk to Jacob Morgan and Ethan, he had the time to kill to check something out.

  Pun intended.

  29

  The streets of Ripton’s Grove were essentially empty, only two or three cars driving lazily through downtown as Lance used the courthouse’s bell tower as his North Star and walked the sidewalk. The cloud cover was still gray and rolled across the sky like a protective film, giving the whole town a very noir appearance. Lance, feeling very much like an private investigator, didn’t miss the irony. If I had one of those smartphones, I could put my headphones on and listen to some jazz and really set the scene.

  He made a left turn and walked by the courthouse, looking up at the bell tower. The architecture was impressive—almost gothic in appearance—and Lance wondered what year it’d been built. How long had Ripton’s Grove been Ripton’s Grove? How many generations had walked these streets and opened businesses in these buildings? How many sheriffs had there been before Ray Kruger … before Bill Willard?

  How many murders?

  Lance walked another block and found the library, a one-story concrete building with a green roof and a small glass atrium at the entrance that looked up to the clouded sky. There were large flowerbeds around the building with dark mulch and bushes that looked freshly trimmed. No flowers now, though. Gone until the spring, when they’d yawn and stretch their limbs and pop open with color.

  The place looked very inviting, just as a library should. Lance stood on the sidewalk and allowed himself a brief image of his mother, wandering amid the stacks of the Hillston Public Library, her fingers tracing the spines of books and her head cocked at such an angle, with the tiniest hint of a grin on her face, that she appeared completely at ease. Blissful. Home.

  How many hours had they spent together in that library? How many hundreds of books had they read? Since Pamela Brody had worked there part-time, Lance and she had spent many evenings there after the last guests had left and the front doors had been locked, just lounging silently on the couches and chairs scattered about, silently reading whichever new adventure they’d started. There was something magical about being alone in a library. Just you, surrounded by endless books, letting your imagination take you away.

  The front doors of the Ripton’s Grove Library opened with an electronic purr, and a woman and small girl exited. The woman, with a stack of books tucked under her arm, was holding the little girl’s hand and practically having to tug her along the walkway because the girl was trying to hold open her own book and look at the pictures with one hand. Lance smiled at them as they passed. The woman smiled back.

  He walked up the walkway and entered the library, looking up through the high glass ceiling of the atrium as he made his way in, knowing how much his mother would have loved to sit right in that very spot, book in her lap, reading under the stars late into the evening.

  Being just the single story, the library’s floor plan was simple and meant to utilize the space. A large open area in the front held two banks of computer stations for patrons to use, as well as a handful of large tables. To Lance’s right were the restrooms and water fountain, to his left the front desk. Two women with gray hair stood behind the desk, each using a handheld electronic scanner to zap the barcodes in the backs of a large stack of books on the counter between them.

  Lance walked over, hearing the faint beep-boop from the women’s scanners with each new book they zapped. When he reached the counter, both women looked up slowly like some sort of two-headed guard dog. Their expressions were stoic, if not unpleasant.

  “Can we help you?” the one on the left said, peering over the top of her glasses, which were pushed down on her nose.

  Lance smiled. “Yes, ma’am, I hope so.” He cleared his throat. “Does your library keep an archive of the town’s local newspaper?”

  This time, the woman on the right answered. She set her scanner down and straightened her posture. A small gold cross swung from her necklace. Her glasses were atop her head, and she pulled them down and settled them in place. Better to scrutinize you with, my dear, Lance thought.

  “Of course we do,” the woman said.

  “Great,” Lance said. “I was hoping you could help me find a particular issue, or at least point me in the right direction to get started in the appropriate timeframe. Are they digital archives, or physical?”

  The woman on the left scoffed. “Digital, he asks.” She shot the woman on the right a look that made it apparent she was questioning Lance’s intelligence, perhaps ready to point him in the direction of the children’s section and ask him if he preferred Sesame Street or the Muppets. “You see these here guns?” She held up one of the electronic scanners for Lance to see. “We just got these in the last two years, and they don’t work right half the time. I don’t know why folks can’t just read a gosh dern paper with their hands any more. Why’s everything have to be on a daggone television screen?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I don’t know, ma’am,” Lance replied, unsure what to say or how this conversation had gotten out of hand so quickly. Or, honestly, whether the woman had actually answered his question. But he wasn’t deterred. “So, may I have access to the archives, please?”

  The woman on the right sighed. “Do you have a library card?”

  Lance figured she already knew the answer to this question. “No, ma’am. Do I need one if I’m not taking anything out of the building?”

  The women looked at each other, their eyes searching for a reason to protest. Finally, the woman on the right sighed again and said, “Follow me.” She turned and walked out from behind the counter and rounded the corner out of sight.

  Lance thanked the remaining woman, who nodded and gave a soft grunt, and then hurried around the corner to follow the woman with the gold cross necklace.

  She was standing at a closed door near the rear corner of th
e building, the rows and rows of bookshelves casting shadows on the wall and forming more of an alcove than a walkway. The woman was searching through a small keyring when Lance approached, sliding them along the ring excruciatingly slowly in search of the correct key. Lance felt he could have picked the lock quicker, and he didn’t even know how to pick locks.

  Without a word, the woman suddenly shoved a key into the lock on the door handle and turned. There was an audible click, and then she pushed down and swung the door open wide, standing aside for Lance to enter. The door had a frosted glass pane with black stenciled letters that read: ARCHIVES – SEE FRONT DESK.

  Lance stepped inside the room, which was cooler than the rest of the library had been. There were no windows, and when the woman reached inside the door and flipped the light switch on the wall, the overhead lighting was dim and mostly unhelpful.

  “Apparently it’s easier to read the screen this way,” she said, not hiding the disapproval in her voice. She nodded to the back wall, where a large microfiche reader sat on a wide table. The entire rest of the room was lined with storage cabinets, no doubt containing decades worth of Ripton’s Grove’s history.

  “Have a seat,” she said.

  Lance sat. Obedient. He wanted to stay in the woman’s good graces.

  Without question or instruction, the woman with the cross around her neck walked to one of the cabinets, leaning in close to read the labels on the drawers. She moved to the next one over, tapped one of the drawers with her finger and then yanked it open. She riffled through what looked like folders from where Lance was sitting, her fingers flicking through sheet after sheet, and then she paused, her thumb and index finger pinching one of the sheets and raising it out just slightly. She peered down at it, her eyes squinting behind her glasses. Then she pulled the sheet completely free and shut the drawer.