Harper Connelly [3] An Ice Cold Grave

by Charlaine Harris

  After that, things really went downhill.

  THE deputies did their digging and found the aforementioned cat, a dog, some rabbits—baby rabbits—and a bird or two. They kicked around the stalls, making dust from the stale hay rise up in thick clouds. All they discovered was the stalls had bare-board flooring, so there couldn’t be any animal corpses underneath. The father, Tom Almand, seemed absolutely stunned. Since he was a counselor at the mental health center, he would know as well as anyone there that one of the early signs of a developing serial killer was the torture of animals. I wondered how many kids who tortured animals didn’t grow up to be murderers, but I assumed that would be impossible to document. Was it possible to do something so vile and yet become a well-adjusted adult with healthy relationships? Maybe. I hadn’t studied the phenomenon, and I sure didn’t plan to do any research on it. I saw enough in my day-to-day work life to convince me that people were capable of dreadful things…and wonderful things, too. Somehow as I looked at the tear-wet face of Chuck Almand, age thirteen, budding sadist, I couldn’t feel optimistic.

  I was sure that Sheriff Rockwell would be pleased. We’d kept the locals from making a foolish mistake, we’d uncovered a genuinely disturbed source of future trouble, and I wasn’t going to charge a penny on my own behalf for the distress I’d been put through. They did owe Xylda some cash, though, and I wanted to be sure they’d pay it.

  The sheriff was not looking sunny, though. In fact, she looked tired, discouraged, and disheartened.

  “Why so glum?” I asked her. Tolliver was making conversation with Manfred; he’d forced himself to do the polite thing. Xylda had hold of the arm of one of the officers, and she was giving him an earful of talk. He looked dazed.

  “I hoped we’d wrap it up,” she said. She seemed too down to disguise her thoughts and emotions. “I hoped this would be it. We’d find more bodies here. We’d find evidence—maybe trophies—tying someone, maybe Tom, to all the murders. It would all be over. We would have solved the case ourselves, instead of having to turn it over to the state boys or the FBI.”

  Sandra Rockwell was not the clear pool she’d seemed at first.

  “There aren’t any human corpses here. I’m sorry we can’t wave a magic wand and make that come true for you,” I said. And I was sincere. Like most other people, I wanted the bad guys caught, I wanted justice to prevail, and I wanted punishment of the wicked. But so often you didn’t get all three at the same time, or in the same degree. “Can we leave now?” I asked.

  The sheriff closed her eyes, just for a second. I had a creepy-crawly feeling in my belly. She said, “The SBI has asked that you remain on site for another day. They want to question you some more.”

  The creepy-crawly feeling resolved into a knot of anxiety. “I thought we’d get to leave after we did this.” My voice must have gone up, because a lot of people turned to look at us. Even the boy at the heart of this brouhaha turned to look. I stared right into Chuck Almand’s face, and for the first time I consciously looked into another human being.

  “You might as well shoot him now,” I said. It was an awful feeling. I wondered if this was how Xylda saw things, if this was what had made her so peculiar. I wondered if Manfred would go the same way. It wasn’t like free choice had been taken away from the boy, that he was doomed from the beginning by his nature. It was more like I could see what choices he would make. And they were almost all on the side of becoming one of those people who end up as the subject of a documentary on A&E.

  Was what I was seeing the truth? Was it inevitable? I hoped not. And I hoped I never experienced it again. Maybe I was able to see inside Chuck Almand only because I was close to two genuine psychics, and their proximity sparked a touch of it in myself. Maybe it was the rumble of thunder far away. That sound always triggered the lightning feelings in me—a jittery combination of fear and agitation. Maybe I had the completely wrong perspective.

  “Tolliver,” I said, “we have to find a place to stay. They’re not going to let us leave after all.” We should have taken off from the pharmacy, taken off and never looked back.

  My brother was beside me instantly. He looked at Sheriff Rockwell for a long, long moment. “Then you have to find us a place to stay,” he said. “We gave up our motel room.”

  With unexpected lucidity, Xylda said, “You can stay with us. It’ll be cramped, but it’s better than staying in the jail.”

  I thought of squeezing in a bed with Xylda while Tolliver and Manfred slept two feet away. I thought of other possible sleeping arrangements. I thought the jail might be better. “Thanks so much,” I said, “but I’m sure the sheriff can help us find something.”

  “I’m not your travel agent,” Rockwell said. She seemed to be glad to find something to be mad about. “But I realize you had planned on leaving, and I’ll try to think of something. It’s your fault the town’s this crowded.”

  There was a long moment of silence in the barn, as everyone within hearing range stared at her.

  “Not exactly your fault,” she said.

  “I think not,” I said.

  “Everyone in town has rented out every room they’ve got,” a deputy said. His uniform said he was Tidmarsh—Rob Tidmarsh, the neighbor, then. “The only place I can think of is Twyla Cotton’s lake house.”

  The sheriff brightened. “Give her a call, Rob.” She turned back to us. “Thanks for coming here, and we’ll figure out what to do with the juvenile delinquent here.”

  “He won’t go to jail?”

  “Tom,” the sheriff said, raising her voice, “you and Chuck come here.”

  The two looked relieved that someone was finally talking to them. I didn’t want Chuck anywhere close to me, and I took a couple of steps back. I knew he was only thirteen. I knew he wasn’t going to hurt me there and then. And I knew that his life was still full of choices and possibilities, and he could change himself if he saw the need to.

  Sheriff Rockwell said, “Tom, we’re not going to take Chuck away from you.”

  Tom Almand’s narrow shoulders slumped in relief. He was such a pleasant-looking man, the kind of guy who’d be glad to accept your UPS package from the carrier or to feed your cat while you were out of town. “So what will we need to do?” His voice caught on the words as though his mouth were dry.

  “There’ll be a hearing with the judge. We’ll work it all out. What would help is you getting Chuck into some counseling—that should be easy, huh?—even before the hearing. And you gotta keep a watch on your kid.”

  Sheriff Rockwell looked down at the boy, so I did, too. For God’s sake, he had freckles. There’d never been an Andy Griffith episode called “Opie Skins a Cat.”

  Chuck was looking at me with almost equal fascination. I don’t know why most young men are so interested in me. I don’t mean guys my own age, I mean younger. I sure don’t intend to attract them. And I don’t look like anybody’s mom.

  “Chuck, you look at me,” the sheriff said.

  The boy did look toward Rockwell, with eyes as blue and clear as a mountain lake. “Yes’m.”

  “Chuck, you’ve been having bad thoughts and doing bad things.”

  He looked down hastily.

  “Did any of your friends help you, or was this all your doing?”

  There was a long pause while Chuck Almand tried to work out which answer would give him some advantage.

  “It was just me, Sheriff,” Chuck said. “I just felt so bad after my mom…”

  He paused artistically, as if he could not speak the word.

  Tolliver and I knew lying when we heard it. We had lied convincingly to everyone in the school system in Texarkana to keep our family together as our parents circled the drain. We knew this boy was not telling the truth. I was ashamed of him hiding behind his mother’s death. At least she’d died of something honorable. She hadn’t wanted to leave her family.

  The boy made the mistake of glancing back at me. He probably thought he could pull any adult female under w
ith that little hitch in his voice. When my eyes met his, he twitched—not quite a flinch, but close.

  “Maybe the psychic could tell us more,” Sheriff Rockwell suggested. “Such as whether he’s telling the truth about working alone or not.” I don’t think she meant it; I think she was looking for a reaction from the boy that would tell her what she wanted to know. But of course, the psychic in question took her quite seriously.

  Xylda said from behind me, “I’m not going within a yard of the little bastard,” and Tom Almand said desperately, “This is my son. My child.” He put his arm around the boy, who made a visible effort not to throw it off.

  I turned to look at the old psychic. Xylda and I exchanged a long gaze. Manfred looked down at his grandmother and shook his head. “You don’t have to, Grandmother,” he said. “They wouldn’t believe you anyway. Not the law.”

  “I know.” She looked sadder and older in that moment.

  “Lady,” said Chuck Almand. His voice was very young and very urgent, and I found he was talking to me. “It’s true that you can find bodies?”

  “Yes.”

  “They have to be dead?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded, as if confirming a suspicion. “Thanks for telling me,” he said, and then his father drew him away to talk to a few more people.

  After that, the day was out of our hands. After a lot of chatter right out of our range of hearing, Sheriff Rockwell told us that Twyla had said we could use her lake house.

  “It’s at Pine Landing Lake,” Sandra Rockwell said. “Parker, Twyla’s son, is coming to lead you there.”

  It was a huge relief to have a place to stay, though if no one had supplied a bed, they would simply have had to let us leave town. I was definitely feeling just like a person who’d been released from the hospital that morning; not seriously ill, but tired and a little shaky. The police were digging for the animal corpses, I suppose to make sure there weren’t any human remains mixed in. We were shunted over to the side of the barn where the earth was clearly undisturbed. Tolliver and I, Manfred, and Xylda stood in a silent row. Every now and then someone in uniform would dart a curious glance in our direction.

  By the time Parker McGraw got there to take us to his mother’s lake house, the media had discovered the police were at the old barn and were swarming around like flies on a carcass, though they were kept at a distance by the town cops. They were yelling my name from time to time.

  After a handshake with Tolliver, Manfred led Xylda out to draw them off us. “Grandmother loves the photographers,” he said. “Just watch.” We did. Xylda, her flaming red hair outlining her creased round face like a scarf, strode off across the empty meadow with Manfred in colorful attendance. She paused by her car, with a reluctance so fake it was almost funny, to give the eager reporters a few well-chosen words. “She’s ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille,” Manfred said. He leaned over to kiss my cheek and followed her.

  While Xylda was enjoying her moment, Tolliver and I did an end run around the mob to reach Parker’s truck. Though I had only a faint recollection of what the truck looked like, Tolliver had admired it when we’d seen it in Twyla’s driveway and he led me right to it.

  Twyla’s son was big and burly, dressed in the usual jeans and flannel shirt and down vest. His boots were huge and streaked with dirt. His mom hadn’t had enough money when he was young to take him to the orthodontist.

  He shook Tolliver’s hand heartily. He was a little more tentative about shaking mine, as if women in his milieu didn’t often offer to shake.

  “Let’s get out of here while the getting’s good,” he said, and we slid into his truck as quickly as we could. Tolliver had to give me a boost. We were really jammed in, since Parker had brought his son Carson. He introduced us, and even under the circumstances, Parker’s pride in the boy shone through.

  Carson was a dark boy, with a husky build. He was short; he hadn’t gotten his growth yet. He had a broad face like his grandmother, and his eyes were clear and brown. He was subdued and silent, which I guess was no wonder, since the body of his brother had been discovered.

  “Our car’s at the back of the police station,” Tolliver said, and Parker nodded. He seemed friendly enough, but he was a man of few words.

  However, once we were clear of the media traffic Parker said, “I didn’t get a chance to thank you the other day. We didn’t show you any hospitality, either, but I guess you can understand why.”

  “Yes,” I said, and Tolliver nodded. “Don’t think twice about it. We did the job we came here to do.”

  “Yes, you did it. You didn’t take my mama’s money and run for the hills with it. She’s a woman who’s always done what she thought was right, and she thought calling you two in was right. I don’t mind telling you, I disagreed with her real strong, and I told her so. But she knew her own mind, and she was right. Them other two…” He shook his head. “We didn’t know how lucky we was with you-all until we saw those two.”

  He meant Manfred and Xylda. I glanced to my side to see how Carson was taking all this. He was certainly listening, but he didn’t seem upset.

  “I’m glad you have a high opinion of us,” I said, struggling to find a way to express myself tactfully. “But you really can’t judge a book by its cover, at least in Xylda Bernardo’s case. She’s the real deal. I do realize that the way she looks and acts does put some people off.” I hoped I’d been conciliatory enough to coax him into listening to me.

  “That was real Christian of you,” Parker McGraw said after he’d thought over my words for a few minutes. Just when I was beginning to think the subject was closed he added, “But I guess we’ll be coming to you for all our supernatural needs.” He had a sense of humor after all. But it went back behind the cloud of his grief as soon as I’d glimpsed it. “It don’t seem right, enjoying anything, when our son is gone from this earth.” In a gesture that just about broke my heart, Carson laid his head on his dad’s shoulder just for a second.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I wish I could tell you who did it.”

  “Oh, we’re going to find out who done it,” he said, without a shadow of a doubt in his voice. “Me and Bethalynn, we got to. We got Carson here, he deserves to grow up without being afraid.”

  Carson’s eyes met mine. He didn’t seem afraid right now, but he had his dad beside him. The boy’s calm eyes told me that Carson had been brought up in the expectation that adults would protect him from harm. Nothing had happened to shake that expectation. Even though his brother had been taken, Carson was sure he would not be. I hoped he was right.

  Parker seemed to think that Doraville would be safe if he discovered and eliminated the man who’d killed his son. He seemed to think it would be easy to do this. For a moment, I jeered at him in my head; but then I reminded myself of what this man had gone through. He had a right to any fantasy he chose if it would help him get through this life.

  We all have our fantasies.

  Seven

  THE cabin at the lake had been used by the Cotton family for forty years or more. In recent years, the McGraw family had enjoyed it. Parker said that at first they’d felt like intruders, but the surviving children of Archie Cotton were well into their sixties and had no children of their own living in Doraville any longer. They seemed content to let the children of their dad’s wife enjoy the old place.

  “Jeff loved it out there,” Parker said. “Me and Carson, we’ll stay out there and go fishing in the spring, won’t we, Carson?”

  “Sure,” Carson said. “We’ll catch some fish for Mom to clean. She loves to clean fish so much.” That startled a smile out of his dad.

  The deputy on duty had buzzed us into the fenced parking lot behind the police station. Tolliver and I scrambled out of the truck and got in our car. We followed Parker out of the parking lot.

  Pine Landing Lake was about ten miles out of Doraville in a northeastern direction, and those ten miles were up a twisting, narrow two-lane road. We had met
light traffic along the way. The lake seemed to be close to a community much smaller than Doraville, a dot on the map called Harmony. We didn’t drive all the way around the lake, but at some points I could see its farther shore quite clearly. There were dwellings scattered around the lake, ranging from homes that looked year-round habitable to structures that were little more than open-air pavilions.

  “This would be beautiful in summer,” I said, and Tolliver nodded.

  We followed Parker’s truck at a respectful distance, and when he turned into a narrow driveway we followed, going sharply downhill for a few yards until we could park beside the truck at a broad flat spot by the shore.

  The Cotton property was on one of the larger lots. It was a two-story building of very modest size, and you could tell it had been there a lot longer than some of the others because of the huge trees around it. Maybe it had just been built with more landscaping care than the others. Appropriately rustic, with cedar shingles on the roof and cedar siding, it blended into its surroundings better than most of the others we could see.

  The bottom level appeared to be a storage area for the boats and other recreational miscellany. There was a heavy padlocked set of doors on this ground-level entrance, facing the lake. Stairs went up the south side of the building to a landing outside the main door. The outer door was screen, of course, the inner a heavy wooden door. Parker unlocked this door and gestured us in.

  “Lots of the cabins out here don’t have heating or cooling,” he said, “but this one does. Mr. Archie did things right. Now, if the electricity goes off, which it does out here with some regularity, you’ve got your fireplace there, should be in working order. We had the guy clean it out last month.”

  I looked around. The interior was pretty much one big room. There were two double beds set up with their heads against the west wall, and there were several folding beds rolled up against the wall by them, covered with plastic cases. The air in the cabin felt musty, but not unpleasant. The smell of old cedar was strong. The fireplace was in the east wall, and it was faced with natural rock. The walls were unpainted cedar boards, adding to the feel that we were really roughing it. There was a small stove, an ancient refrigerator, and a couple of cabinets by the door where we’d entered, and a walled-off west corner indicated a tiny bathroom. Besides the fireplace, the east wall facing the lake was almost all glass, and through the glass we could see a screened-in porch inhabited by a few heavy wooden rocking chairs.