Evil Harvest

by Anthony Izzo

  He chased the thing, but he would have had better luck trying to stop a runaway train screeching off its tracks. Up ahead, he could see Mikey nearing the edge of the ravine, screaming, “Mom! Mommy!”

  His little brother’s hat had fallen off, and Matt found it and picked it up off the ground. Stuffing the hat in his pocket, he watched as his little brother ran over the side of the sixty-foot ravine, the little voice rising to a shriek, then suddenly cutting off. Matt tried to tell himself that he didn’t really hear the sound of his brother hitting the rocks, a sound like a watermelon being smashed with a hammer. The creature followed.

  Upon reaching the edge, Matt peered over and saw the monster shimmying down the cliff face, lowering itself with its lanky arms.

  Once at the bottom, it picked up Mikey’s body as easily as a construction worker might pick up his lunch box and scampered across the ravine, disappearing into the murk of the forest on the other side.

  There was no saving his little brother, so he sprinted back toward the truck, his lungs burning. He glanced at the picnic area. Their bodies were gone. He reached the truck. Wasting no time and fearing they may return, he climbed into the Bronco, started it up and spun out of the clearing.

  Matt cleared his throat and took a final swallow of his drink.

  Jill’s heart went out to him: he sat in the chair, still staring straight ahead, but with tears streaming down his cheeks. There were puffy bags under his eyes, and he looked like he had aged ten years just by telling the story. It was an incredible tale, and Jill was convinced that his family had died in a catastrophic manner, but she wondered if maybe some part of Matt’s mind had invented the creatures to cope with his loss.

  After all, monsters from a B-horror flick coming out of the woods was a lot to swallow, even for someone with an open mind and a good imagination. Nevertheless, she set her drink on the coffee table, got up and went over to him.

  She leaned over, put her arms around him and whispered into his ear, “It’s all right.”

  The Barbieri basement stank of blood.

  The refrigerator had a splash of blood across it, as if an artist had thrown crimson paint across a canvas.

  Perpendicular to the fridge was a workbench stocked with shiny new tools. To Rafferty, they looked like they were used once, maybe twice, and pictured the owner as some prissy rich guy who bought them for show.

  He found the rest of the basement unremarkable. A furnace stood on the opposite side near a storage room. It was relatively damp in the basement and the walls gave off a stale, moldy odor.

  If he caught the one who did this, they would be wearing their own guts for a scarf. He didn’t need this kind of attention drawn to Lincoln.

  The amount of blood on the walls amazed him. It splashed in gory streaks on the block walls, the windows and the workbench. He guessed the victim struggled, maybe even got away briefly, before it finished her off.

  They had received a call at the station house about ten o’clock, one of the neighborhood locals telling Clarence that he heard some glass breaking and a woman screaming. The caller told Clarence he figured it was a domestic dispute. Rafferty had had a sinking feeling in his gut when Clarence told him the nature of the call because the house was on Dorchester Street.

  The houses in that area were all big Victorians. Hummers and Volvos were in the driveways, and landscapers did all the mowing and planting. The chances of domestic dispute in Dorchester were small. That led Rafferty immediately to believe something worse had happened.

  Clarence tramped down the basement stairs. “Holy shit, what a mess!”

  Rafferty looked over at Clarence. “What’d you find upstairs?”

  “Not much. Some clothes thrown in a ball on the bedroom floor and a can of Diet Coke on the kitchen table. Found her driver’s license in her purse. Name’s Rhonda Barbieri.”

  “No sign of entry up there? How about footprints, markings on the rugs?”

  “Nothing, Ed.”

  That confirmed what Rafferty already knew from the broken window. The perpetrator had smashed out the basement window, climbed in and waited for Rhonda Barbieri to come home. When she came down into the basement, it had attacked.

  Clarence descended the stairs and entered the basement. He looked around, eyes wide. “God, this was a bad one.” He stopped at a moist pile that looked like fleshy coiled rope. It was the woman’s intestines, lying in front of the furnace. “Tore her guts right out. That’s vicious, Chief. Even for one of us.”

  Rafferty secretly admired the savagery of the killing, even though it broke the rules of the Harvest. Whoever did this went about it the right way, caused maximum suffering. “Page Bolster and I’ll meet you in the backyard.”

  “Right.”

  Bolster and three other officers were in charge of cleaning up messes like this one. Rafferty didn’t want the county medical examiner, outside paramedics, the county sheriff or any other Outsiders messing in his business. Killings such as these had to be kept quiet. Which created a problem because the victim’s relatives always came around asking questions. He’d go through the motions, assure them the Lincoln Police were on the case. Hopefully he could hold any nosy family members off until Harvest. Then it wouldn’t matter.

  Crossing the basement to the stairs, Rafferty slipped on the woman’s blood. He threw his arms out to gain balance and silently cursed the one who killed Rhonda Barbieri.

  “I feel like a goddamned idiot,” Matt said, leaning forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees.

  “There’s no need. I know what it’s like to lose a parent. That was hard enough, but you lost your whole family.”

  She kneeled on the floor, her hand resting on his leg. She could feel the warmth of his skin through the jeans. He smelled of Polo cologne and soap. She wanted to kiss him on the forehead, hug him close, tell him things would be okay. But platitudes and shallow comforts wouldn’t bring his family back, would they? “What did you do when you left the park?”

  “Went right to the police station. Actually, when I got to the police station, there weren’t any cops there. The secretary told me they were out on a call, so I waited. About an hour later Chief Rafferty and one of his officers came waltzing in.”

  Jill took his hand. “Did you tell them what happened?”

  Still holding her hand, he leaned back in the chair. “When I said I never told anyone this story, I really meant it. When Rafferty walked in, I was in the front reception area of the station. He asked me what he could help me with, and I knew right then that he was the murderer.”

  “How could you know that?”

  “The smell of him. It was the same smell as the thing in the park. I’ve never smelled anything like that anywhere else. I wanted to turn around and run from there as fast as I could, but Rafferty took me by the arm and told his secretary to refer all his calls to Clarence, the other officer with him.”

  Matt knew Rafferty had recognized him from the incident at the park an hour earlier. Fear clenched his gut in an icy fist and he expected Rafferty to kill him, as well. The Chief escorted him through the office, out a back door and down three steps to the holding cell area.

  They went down the hallway outside the cells to a small room. Rafferty clicked on the bulb overhead and told him to sit down in a chair.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “I’ll ask one more time. What’s your name?”

  “Matt Crowe.”

  “Well, Matt, I imagine you’ve seen some strange things today.”

  “Well, Chief, I imagine you’ve done some strange things today. Especially for a cop.”

  “Look, smart-ass. One more remark and you’ll wind up like your fucking family, got it?”

  Matt shifted in his chair, wanting to burst into tears, trying not to break down in front of Rafferty.

  “Now just shut up and listen to me. You didn’t see anything today, no bogeymen, no fairy-tale monsters, nothing. Yo
u went for a walk down one of the hiking trails, and when you came back, your family was gone, got it? Maybe they were shot, maybe aliens abducted them, but you never saw what you did.”

  “I’ll go to the state police. You won’t get away with this.”

  Rafferty puffed out his chest. “Oh, I think I will get away with it. Because I run this town and there’s hundreds here just like me. Me and my boys will do a little investigation, but the case will remain unsolved. Or maybe I’ll find someone I don’t like and pin the whole thing on the poor schmuck.”

  “You can’t control everyone.” Matt hoped his voice didn’t crack too badly when he said that. He was scared shitless, but he didn’t want Rafferty to know that.

  “No, I can’t. You’re right. But I can control you. I find out that you told anyone what happened at Emerling Park, I’ll come after you. Put money on it. And when I do, I’ll make sure you suffer. Maybe I’ll tie you up and slit you open, tear your guts out while you scream. How’s that sound?”

  Matt didn’t answer.

  “Do you understand me?”

  Again, Matt didn’t respond and Rafferty threw the table out of the way, causing it to squeal on the floor and tip over with a thud. Rafferty grabbed a clump of Matt’s hair and pulled hard. Matt’s eyes watered.

  “Understand now? Not a goddamn word to anyone.”

  In a choked voice Matt said, “Yes.”

  “Good.” Rafferty let go and shoved Matt’s head for good measure.

  “Now get the hell out of here. Go out and wait for me near the front door.”

  Jill said softly, “That son of a bitch.”

  She believed that part of the story without hesitation; because of her run-in with Chief Rafferty she didn’t doubt his capacity for cruelty. Anybody would have trouble believing that monsters had come out of the woods and slaughtered a family on a picnic, and so did Jill at first. But Matt had told the story with a faraway look in his eyes, and she had seen how it affected him physically. His skin had gone pale.

  She remembered her great-uncle Henry, who had been in a Japanese POW camp, telling her father the story of how the Japanese soldiers had killed a man by filling his stomach full of water and kicking him until it burst. Uncle Henry had that same stare in his eyes, haunted by a horror show that played in his mind again and again. Matt was either a hell of an actor or he was certifiably insane.

  “Matt, look at me.”

  When he did, she saw the pain in his eyes. He looked a little shell-shocked, blank and uncertain.

  “I believe your story.”

  “Maybe you’re the crazy one.”

  “Let me finish, smart guy. I don’t think anyone could fake what you just told me, the reaction you had was too real. I believe your family was killed. One question, though. Why did you come back?”

  “Revenge,” he said. “I came back for revenge.”

  “That won’t erase what happened.”

  “I don’t care. Rafferty has to pay for what he did. And his accomplices too. I don’t want what happened to my family to happen to anyone else.”

  “So you’re planning something then?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Killing them?”

  “You’ll find out at our dinner. If you still want to go with me.” He removed his hand from hers and stood up. He set the wineglass on the coffee table. “Maybe you shouldn’t. If things go according to plan, I’m going to have to make a quick getaway. And I don’t want to hurt you. Or see you get hurt.”

  “I like you, Matt. But I don’t like this plan of yours. You know that these things exist, and you’re starting to convince me, but to everyone else it will look like you murdered cops. If that is what you’re planning,” Jill said.

  “I’ll just have to live with it.”

  What was it with men? She had never meet one who didn’t possess a few genes that made them to do a poor imitation of every Clint Eastwood character that ever graced the silver screen. He had just opened up to her, poured his guts out, and now he was trying to act tough. “Don’t go getting all stoic on me. I’d still like to go with you to that dinner. But can we talk some more about your plan?”

  “How about we go out tomorrow? Is Morotto’s still around? You’d like some more Italian?” Matt said.

  “Maybe I can talk some sense into you.”

  “You can try. But I’m pretty set on this.” He had a determined look on his face, like a mountain climber eyeballing Mount Everest, prepared to conquer it regardless of the cost.

  “We’ll see,” Jill said. “I can be pretty persuasive.”

  “This has been eating at me for years. I think about it every day. I have nightmares about it. And I can’t rest knowing that Rafferty is still alive after what he did. You say I’ve convinced you that these things exist, but I don’t know if you’re a hundred percent sure yet. You haven’t really seen one. Maybe if you did, you’d know why I want him dead.”

  “I told you I believed you.”

  Matt stood up and took his glass into the kitchen, Jill following him, watching as he rinsed it out.

  “Good manners. I like that,” she said, kiddingly, but glad that he had put the glass in the sink. Jerry had been a number-one slob.

  “Looking forward to tomorrow night,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  She wanted to stand on her tiptoes and give him a quick kiss on the lips, but she held back. Instead, she hugged him. He held on tight, then let go.

  She followed him downstairs and locked the door behind him, thinking that it would be nice when that kiss became a reality.

  CHAPTER 10

  Donna Ricci dreaded her meeting with Chief Ed Rafferty.

  Not that she was afraid of him, or anyone else for that matter, but she had heard stories about disappearances in Lincoln and investigations being covered up. She didn’t think that Rafferty would attempt to harm her, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She kept a Beretta Tomcat in a shoulder holster.

  She pulled her Ford F150 into the parking lot at Lincoln’s Police Station and parked it next to a squad car. She stepped from the car and slipped a white cotton blazer over her sleeveless blouse.

  Donna was the police chief in Marshall, a town that still had a general store and boasted the State of New York’s smallest post office. She had become a cop after trying a stint in the engineering program at the University of Buffalo and dropping out her sophomore year.

  A friend of her dad’s who had been on the Buffalo force for twenty-six years had told Donna that a police exam was coming up. “You’d be a great cop, Donna—you’re whip smart and you don’t take any crap from anyone. Take the exam and see how you do,” he had told her.

  So after talking it over with her parents, she studied for the exam and scored a ninety-eight. After passing the agility test with flying colors, she had gone on to the academy and become a Buffalo cop.

  After ten years on the force, being shot once and decorated for bravery twice, she had reached the rank of sergeant. And had been passed up for lieutenant three times; each time a man got the promotion, a man who had been on the force less time than her and did not have her stellar record. So she left the big city and joined the Marshall police when she heard they needed an officer.

  Within two years, she had been promoted to Deputy Chief, then appointed Chief when Hank Peterman retired. Small-town life was quiet and content. About the worst thing that ever happened was a kid busting a mailbox or breaking a window. But she liked it, because she was running the show and wouldn’t be shoved aside like she was in Buffalo.

  Things had been uneventful until her brother Bob had called her after returning home from a business trip and discovering yellow police tape across his door. Bob said the cops weren’t telling him much, and when he tried to press them for information, the officer on the phone got nasty.

  Although she suspected her brother was cheating on Rhonda (who’d kept her maiden name), Donna agreed to look into things because she had always liked
Rhonda. Rhonda was a tough-minded, driven woman and, outside the courtroom, one of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet.

  So she’d taken time off, the Lieutenant now acting as Chief, while she tended to Rhonda’s death.

  Strolling across the parking lot, she reached the front of the station. There was a garden filled with yellow, crimson and orange blooms. A fat bumblebee buzzed from flower to flower. The flag on the metal pole in front of the station hung limp, as if it didn’t have the energy to stand at attention.

  She walked down a small hallway lined with chairs to a desk where an elderly woman in a dark blue police shirt sat typing.

  The woman turned her head. “May I help you?”

  “I have an appointment with Chief Rafferty. Donna Ricci.”

  “Have a seat, Ms. Ricci, and he’ll be right with you. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  She said no thank you and sat down, crossing her legs. About five minutes later, a bearish man stepped around the corner and introduced himself.

  “Officer Ricci? Ed Rafferty.”

  He offered his hand and she shook it, not liking the sweaty feel of his palm.

  “Let’s have a seat at my desk,” Rafferty said.

  Donna sat down, leaned back and stretched her legs out in front of her. She wanted to appear calm and relaxed in front of Rafferty, not giving him the intimidation edge. She had heard from some guys at the state police that he was a ballbuster, and if you were a woman he really showed no mercy.

  Rafferty eased himself into his chair, leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head, elbows out. There were dark sweat stains under his arms. “So you’re here about the Barbieri woman.”

  “Rhonda. That’s right.”

  “What can I help you with?”

  “Any suspects so far?”

  “Nope. Not a one.”

  “Evidence?”

  “Not much.” Rafferty unclasped his hands and put them on the desk. He swiveled back and forth in the chair, as if bored by the conversation.