In Shadows

by Chandler McGrew

  “Where is your grandson?”

  “Why you want him?”

  “That’s not information you need. Now tell me, or Paco over there will start tearing this little nuthouse apart.”

  Torrio waved at the Mexican in the altar room. The man lashed out with a sweeping hand. Glass crashed and pottery shattered as Agwe’s altar was desecrated. Memere started to scream, but Torrio slapped her again.

  “Tell me!” he shouted.

  Paco kicked at another altar like a man stamping out a fire. Memere could feel the ire of the nations rising. There was no telling what they’d do. Sometimes they could be fierce for almost no reason. Other times they reacted not at all to the worst insults. But she hoped this time their vengeance would be stern.

  She closed her eyes and called on Ogou, Cramer’s protective spirit and her own. Of all the spirits, Ogou was the most unpredictable, but he could also be one of the most dangerous. After offering him her grateful service in the future, and stroking his male ego by envisioning him in all his warrior glory, she asked for added protection for Cramer and herself.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” said Torrio. “I never killed anyone’s grandmother before. But you’re going to tell me what I need to know.”

  She cringed. “He gone out of town.”

  “I know that. Where out of town?”

  “What for you want my boy?”

  Torrio’s laugh was something Memere thought no one should have to endure for long. It sounded to her as if gas were escaping the lips of a day-old corpse. “I don’t want your boy, old woman. I want his friend. But your boy will lead me to him.”

  Memere nodded. Jake’s baggage was falling on them after all. This Jimmy Torrio was no spirit. But he worked his own evil in the spirits’ employ, whether he knew it or not.

  “So? Are you gonna tell me what I need to know?”

  She shook her head, and he backhanded her again, not quite so hard this time.

  “If I tell you, it not good for you,” she mumbled through swollen lips.

  Torrio smirked at the poto mitan. “I’m very, very afraid. Now where did they go?”

  She shrugged. “You go there, maybe you die.”

  “Tell me!”

  She wiped blood away with her sleeve. “Place called Crowley. Like Jake. In Maine.”

  “Where in Crowley?”

  “That all I know.”

  Torrio studied her with hard eyes, and she met them with her own. Finally he nodded and waved at his two gunmen. Paco scurried out of the altar room, like maybe he was being followed, and Memere smiled despite her aching jaw. The big, white, fish-looking man opened the door and stepped out onto the landing, but Torrio stopped on the threshold, turning to the Mexican. “You stay and watch her until we get back.”

  “Me?” said Paco, looking around as though the icons on the walls might come crawling out of their frames at any minute.

  “What’s the matter, Paco?” asked Torrio. “You scared of spirits?”

  Paco shook his head. “This place just gives me the creeps, boss. Why not make Jules stay?”

  Torrio laughed again, but his eyes narrowed as he glanced from man to man. Finally the big white monster shrugged, and Paco breathed a sigh of relief.

  “All right,” said Torrio, shaking his head. “Come on. You might come in handy at that.”

  As Paco hurried out to join Jimmy, Jules stepped back into the apartment and closed the door without another word. He and Memere studied each other like a pair of boxers sizing up their opponents.

  “You like snakes?” she asked, hissing the word through her gums, and grinning.

  RAMER LEANED PAST JAKE to stare out the window at the blanket of green below. Casco Bay rolled deep and blue off to the other side of the plane. But it was the vast swath of forest that fascinated him.

  “I’ve never seen that many trees in my life.”

  “Wishing you hadn’t come?”

  Cramer shrugged. “Just want to know what I’m up against. The whole state must be loaded with dangerous animals.”

  Jake laughed. “The biggest predator out there is the black bear. They’re few and far between anymore, and they don’t attack men except in self-defense.”

  “Right. That’s why you hear all those stories about bear attacks.”

  “Why are you so afraid of the forest?”

  “Never been in one.”

  “Never?”

  Cramer shook his head. “Memere didn’t have a lot of money for tours of the National Parks. I know you’re supposed to be able to frighten off bears with whistles or pepper spray. Think I’d rather trust my pistol.”

  “Do you know what spoor is?”

  Cramer nodded. “Animal poop.”

  “Black bear spoor is filled with berries and nuts, okay?”

  “So?”

  “Grizzly spoor is filled with pistols and containers of pepper spray.”

  “Very funny.”

  “There aren’t any grizzlies within a thousand miles of Crowley.”

  “My luck, there will be when we get there. What about wolves and coyotes and mountain lions?”

  “No wolves. Coyotes don’t attack people, and if there are any mountain lions I never heard of them.”

  “Bobcats, lynx, wolverines?”

  “How come you know so many predators?”

  “Been doing research for the trip.”

  “Any bobcat, lynx, or wolverine that’s stupid enough to attack a man your size I wish the best of luck.”

  “You’re saying the woods are perfectly safe, then?”

  “No. I’m saying you’re not going to get attacked by a predator. You can fall in the river and drown. You can get lost and die from exposure. And before you start, there are no poisonous snakes in Maine.”

  “You’re absolutely sure.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’ll take your word.”

  “That’ll be a first.”

  Their landing and debarkation was uneventful, despite two old ladies who seemed to be much more interested in staring at Cramer than in getting out of the airport. Jake spotted Pam through the glass separating the secure space from the waiting area. Her wavy auburn hair hung to the shoulders of a blue cotton dress, and there were new lines on her forehead. A frown darkened her face as she crossed her thin arms, watching him passed through the turnstile. He stood nervously in front of her, searching for an opening that seemed impossible to find.

  Despite the years, his cousin’s eyes were the same deep blue he remembered staring into on those long-ago summer nights when they sat up late on the porch and discussed their futures. Pam was going to be a movie star back then—at least that was one of her ambitions—and he was going to work with Virgil in the sheriff’s department. Neither of them ended up where they’d thought they would, and he wondered if she was any happier with her final destination than he was. In the end he just sighed loudly, opening his arms wide.

  She fell into them, burying her head in his shoulder. He winced, and she glanced up.

  “Got a scratch there. It’s kind of sore.”

  She stared at the bump of the bandage under his shirt. “A scratch?”

  He shrugged, still holding her. “I missed you.”

  “You didn’t act like it,” she said, easing out of his arms. “Who’s your friend?”

  He introduced Cramer, and Cramer told them he’d take care of their bags.

  Pam nodded. “Thanks. You can meet us out front. I have an old yellow Jeep.”

  She led Jake down the stairs and across the street to the parking garage.

  “All these years,” she mused, shaking her head.

  “I’m sorry, Pam.”

  “You say that like you mean it. But why, Jake? You never told me why.”

  “It was just best for everyone that I went.”

  “Why in the world would you think that?”

  Jake didn’t answer. They got in the Jeep and drove around to the baggage claim area.
>
  “Is there any new information about Albert’s killing?” asked Jake.

  “How much do you know?”

  Jake shrugged. “Cramer managed to get a deputy to fax him a report of the investigation. But it’s a week old.”

  “He was attacked in his house. Beaten to death. It was . . . Virgil said it was brutal.”

  Jake stared out the window at people bustling by. The old man had never even looked at anyone crosswise in his life.

  “Why was it so important I come home?”

  She sighed, focusing on the steering wheel. “I just needed you, Jake. Is that too hard to understand? We’re family.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Did you ever think about coming back?”

  Should he tell her just how many times he’d thought of it? That some nights he sat up until dawn thinking of it?

  “Some.”

  She nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat.

  “Pam,” he said. “You have to believe me when I say I couldn’t come back. Not to stay, I mean. I’m not sure it was even a good idea coming back now.”

  “Didn’t you miss Mandi at all?” she whispered.

  How could he tell her that Mandi hadn’t left his thoughts in fourteen years? That the few women he had touched in that time had never satisfied, had never been Mandi, that every one of them had finally realized that they were competing with a phantom that he couldn’t even bring himself to name, let alone exorcise?

  He sighed again, staring out the window as Cramer exited the terminal towing two large suitcases.

  “We’ll talk later,” said Pam, as Jake escaped to help with the luggage.

  BLUE JAY SKITTERED THROUGH THE TREES as Cramer wandered down Pam’s long gravel drive. Only moments before he had been eavesdropping, hoping to find out more about what there was between Jake and Pam—maybe why Jake had run out to begin with—but neither of them wanted to talk about it while he was in the house. So he’d slipped out of the kitchen while they were still arguing about the church social she wanted them to attend that night.

  The sun moved behind a cloud, and Cramer stopped in midstride, surprised by how suddenly the forest changed. The trees wrapped around the winding drive and hovering overhead reminded him of a narrow alleyway, triggering an old warning buzzer in the back of his head. And it was so damned hard to focus. A man’s eyes were constantly trying to rest at different depths in the woods. It was dizzying.

  A twig snapped somewhere to his left, and he spun in that direction.

  “Hello?” he yelled, recalling Jake’s reassurances about predators.

  The forest seemed to soak up his voice, but he thought he heard an answer, like a whisper, or maybe the lightest verse of a song on the wind. Just enough to tease his imagination.

  “Who’s there?” he shouted.

  He looked up and down the narrow lane as the sun struggled vainly to escape from behind the clouds. There wasn’t a breath of a breeze.

  He glanced at the weeds, bracken, and pine needles, and then at his shoes. Bad enough they were getting dirty from the driveway. But just then he could have sworn he heard the voice yet again, light as a feather, still not quite discernible.

  Against his better judgement he stepped off the road and between twin spruce trees, joined at the roots. To his right the slippery terrain sloped toward the valley road somewhere below, while ahead the ground rolled away around the curve of the mountain. In places the trees were sparse. In others timber, brush, and early-growth conifers barred his view.

  “Who’s out there?” he called again, traipsing deeper into the woods. “Show yourself!”

  The sound—fluttering in and out like an annoying insect—slipped around the hill, and he considered turning back. Jake had told him how easy it was to get lost in the forest, but he was only twenty yards from the drive and could surely find his way back to the house.

  His street shoes skidded down the side of a steep gully, slicing through the thin frosting of pine needles. By the time he reached the bottom he was cloaked in shadow. He glanced slowly up and down the length of the narrow, overgrown cleft and realized that if there were man-eating beasts in the woods, this was where they would hold their feasts. But the most dangerous animal he encountered was some sort of giant beetle that scurried across his sock and then away beneath a rotting log.

  By the time he clambered up the far side of the gully, his hands were covered with scratches and his forearms itched. He wiped sweat from the back of his neck with his handkerchief. Rocks or brush had sliced thin gashes in his shoes, and when he glanced at his sports coat he noticed brown brambles covering his sleeves and matching chinos. He tried pulling the burrs out, but he’d no sooner remove one than another would appear out of nowhere, stuck to some other part of his anatomy.

  “Fuck it.”

  He turned slowly in a full circle, experiencing again the awful sensation of not being able to focus amid all the trees and bracken. But the murmuring sound was even clearer and now seemed to have a fixed direction. He ignored the brambles, slapping and shoving his way through a thick stand of pines, finally stumbling into a small dell. The sun burst through the clouds like a battering ram, cascading golden light across the tall grass.

  “Looks like a park,” he muttered in surprise, searching for the source of the whispering.

  Suddenly the eerie sound stopped, the air in the clearing went deathly still, and he instantly recognized the jittery sensation in his arms and hands. He’d experienced the same feeling just before a man with a gun had stepped out of a doorway and pumped a bullet into his chest. He squinted, trying to put form to the shadows that clustered beneath the wall of trees. But separating anything of substance from the surrounding gloom was like trying to spot one fish in a school.

  “Ogou, now the time to watch this boy,” he muttered, crossing himself.

  He strode into the center of the dell, snatching his pistol from its holster and targeting what appeared to be a very large man crouching amid a clump of small firs. “Who are you? Come out where I can see you.”

  But the shadow didn’t move. After a couple of long, deep breaths, he crept nearer, steadying his two-handed grip on the pistol. The closer he got the more imposing the shape of the man appeared, until it seemed impossibly large.

  “I don’t want to hurt you!” he said, feeling silly. “Identify yourself.”

  Hesitating at the tree line, both he and the forest held their breath. Sweat burned his eyes, as he took one tentative step beneath the canopy of trees, then another. As he approached the dark form it began to reveal itself as a branch here, a clump of gnarled limbs and brush there. He glanced right and left, but there was no giant, no lurking killer or violent wacko. No bear. He backed into the clearing and stared into the trees again.

  What the hell was going on? The sound had been real. He’d swear to it. And he didn’t think any animal had been making it. But he just wasn’t forest savvy enough to say for certain.

  He searched for the way back out—more frightened than he wanted to admit when he didn’t instantly recognize his path in. But finally he spotted the edge of the gully through the trees. All the way down and then back out of the ravine he kept one eye over his shoulder. As he dusted himself off on the far side he could hear the eerie whispering starting again.

  He turned, but there was only thin yellow sunlight and sharp black shadows delineating the trees.

  HE DAY WAS ALREADY SURRENDERING to evening by midafternoon, white tufts of clouds thickening to gray, the air so heavy it clung to the walls of the house. By six o’clock the darkness outside seemed impenetrable. It was the kind of weather that bred its own sense of gloom. Mandi fought to break through the depression that gripped her by getting ready for the fellowship meeting at the church, but Pierce was running behind schedule as usual.

  “Hurry up, honey,” she called, out of habit.

  She often spoke to Pierce, even though he heard not a word.

  Her son spat toothpaste into the bath
room sink, wiping his face unhurriedly with a towel. She tapped his chest, and he buttoned his shirt, and when she wrapped the tie around his neck he completed the knot himself. When he was finished she took his hand and used the American Sign Language that was faster than simply finger spelling each letter into his palm. We’re going to be late.

  He signed back into her palm. Makes us seem important.

  She laughed, kissing his cheek. You are important.

  She handed him his cane, waiting patiently as he made his way down the walk to the car, letting him find it. But she made sure he buckled up before she started the Subaru station wagon. As they drove, Pierce leaned back against the seat, tapping his fingers lightly on the armrest, where she knew he could feel every vibration of the engine and the road.

  Mandi always volunteered to help out at church affairs. That was why she and Pierce had to be there early tonight, to get ready for the small group of staunch parishioners. Every Sunday morning she and Pierce sat in the front pew next to Pam, and Mandi would sign the service into Pierce’s palm. When he was younger he had missed a great deal because he kept stopping her to ask questions, but as he grew older Pierce became quite a Bible scholar.

  Mandi was torn between wishing that the state had more money to fund better schools and equipment for kids like Pierce and being happy that he was homeschooled. What he had lost in socialization with children his age, she thought he had gained in the time to learn to deal with his disability free from the hazing of other kids. She knew she was often overprotective, but Pierce seldom complained unless she got into what he considered his personal territory. The government had at least been good about supplying her with teaching aids and books on how to work with the deafblind. And when Pierce was a toddler, a nice old woman from Portland had driven up almost every day for three years to help Mandi reach him. It had been a major breakthrough when Pierce suddenly realized that he could communicate. Little things at first.