Music of Ghosts

by Sallie Bissell

  “So you’re saying that Smith killed Lisa?”

  “It’s not impossible.”

  “But wouldn’t he be too old?”

  “He’d be in his seventies. Not prime of life, but if he kept himself fit, he could be our guy.”

  “Saved by a ghost,” he whispered. He shook his head, then for the first time in weeks, his mouth curled in a smile. “Hey, I’ve got a bit of news for you, too.”

  “What?”

  “Rachel Sykes and Tony Blackman drove over from Charlotte this afternoon. They’d been up to the center and said the barn owl you brought in was ready to be released.”

  Mary had forgotten about the little creature she and Lily had worked so hard to save—it seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “They’re going to help Artie release it tonight.”

  “Tonight? Where?”

  “Up on a bald, on the back of our land. It’s clear there; she can find a tree to roost in.”

  Mary remembered the strange sense she had of Jonathan and Lily being home, waiting for her. If they were there, bringing the owl back home might be a promise of mended fences, healing. “Do you think they might release it at my house?” she asked. “At my barn?”

  “Sure,” said Stratton. “But you need to get in touch with them fast. They’ll start for that bald pretty soon.”

  She whipped out her cell phone and called Artie, but all she got was Dr. Lovebird’s answering machine.

  “They’re probably at the bird barn,” said Stratton.

  Mary frowned. “Where’s that?”

  “Take the path to the right at the totem pole. If you drive like hell, you might get there in time,” said Stratton.

  “Thanks!” Mary leapt from her chair. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She hurried to her car, still trying to raise Artie on the phone. In the parking lot she saw Cochran, revving up the black Camaro he loved to drive.

  “Hey,” he called, lifting a hand in greeting. “When did you get back from Oklahoma?”

  “Just now,” she said, backing her car out of its space. “Gotta go out to the bird center. See you!”

  She waved, squealing her tires as she sped out of the parking lot. For a moment she feared he might give her a ticket, but he turned right as she turned left, out of town and into the mountains.

  She drove fast, her little Miata hugging the curves. Once again she came to the turnoff to her farm; once again she ignored it and drove deeper into the mountains. She turned on to the road that led to the raptor center, her car skidding on the gravel pavement. She smiled at the memory of the night she and Lily had driven up here holding the owl in a cardboard box. “Please let me get there in time,” she whispered. “Maybe if we had something like this, we could all start out fresh.”

  She twisted up countless switchbacks, then finally, her headlights flashed across Nick’s totem pole. Pulling to the side of the structure, she got out of her car and followed Nick’s directions up the right prong of the path. The gravel was several inches thick and in her light sandals she felt as if she were trudging through damp sand. As she hurried up the steep hill a clammy sweat began to dampen the back of her neck. She was wishing she’d changed out of her jeans and into shorts, when she heard the screech of a bird just ahead. She started to run, thinking it must be the interns with the barn owl. As the gravel path curved into a clearing, she saw the high roof and narrow windows of the bird barn.

  Quickly, she headed toward the open door. She’d just stepped on to the porch when suddenly, she heard the sound of a bow scraping across the strings of a fiddle. The noise took her by surprise; then she remembered that all Stratton’s interns seemed to strum or pluck some kind of instrument.

  She hurried to announce herself, to tell them that they needed to release the owl at her place. She was almost inside the door when the fiddle scraping became real notes, a real tune. Mary listened for a moment, then a gravelly voice began to sing.

  In my cabin in the woods, my dear sweet love lies bleeding.

  In my cabin in the woods, my bloody knife lies reeking.

  Though the one I love is gone today, her memory never leaves me

  Her cold lips and sightless eyes will forever grieve me.

  She listened, horrified. Someone was singing the tune Lige McCauley had learned in Central Prison—the same tune carved on Lisa Wilson’s body!

  For an instant she stood there, unable to move, then some deeper instinct took over. She turned and started to run, except her right foot caught on one of the pillars that supported the porch. Down she went, her ankle twisting as her body thudded on the wide plank floor. She lay there for an instant, stunned, then she realized the music had stopped.

  Oh, God, she thought. They heard me.

  She rolled off the porch, trying to scramble to her feet. Her ankle wobbled more than supported her, making a funny crunch with each step. Still, she forced herself to go on, limping across the clearing, her footsteps scuttling through the gravel. She lumbered along as fast as she could, seeking the forgiving darkness of the trees. Down the mountain she went, racing toward her car. She listened, desperate for the sound of that fiddle to start again but all she could hear was the ragged sound of her own breath. Then, all at once she heard a new sound—not fiddle music, but footsteps running in the gravel behind her.

  Ignoring the pain in her ankle, she willed her legs to pump faster, not daring to glance back. She considered veering off into the woods, but a twisted ankle would only slow her down more in the thick underbrush that grew along the path.

  She ran, gulping deep breaths of air. Finally, blessedly, she saw the totem pole, her car just beyond that. A hundred more feet, she told herself, digging in her pocket for her key fob as the footsteps behind her grew louder. A hundred more feet, then you’re inside the car, locking the door, getting the hell off this mountain. She raced on, growing aware of a ragged kind of grunting joining the footsteps behind her. She slipped once in the gravel but regained her footing. Now she was coming up to the totem pole—the raven, owl, and hawks all staring into the darkness with cold, raptor eyes. You’re almost there, she told herself. Just fifty more feet … .

  Suddenly, a massive weight struck her on her shoulders. Arms twisted around her torso, another pair of legs entwined around hers. Though she tried to keep running, she couldn’t. Her car keys slipped from her fingers and she hit the ground hard, gravel digging into one side of her face. As hands grasped at her clothes, hot, sour breath enveloped her face. It was then she realized that Lige’s tune was, indeed, cursed. It presaged death just as surely as a rope around your neck or a knifeblade to your heart.

  Forty-two

  Before she could draw a breath, he’d flipped her over, on her back. She looked up. Immediately, she recognized him. Though the red hair was now a fringe of snowy white and the boyish face now wrinkled, it was an older version of the picture in Ginger’s article. The only thing different was the eyes—the ones she’d only known squinting beneath a baseball cap were now grotesquely wide.

  “Artie?” she gasped, astonished.

  He laughed, his eyes seeming to take up half his face. “Who’d you think it was? That pissant Jenkins?”

  She grabbed a handful of gravel from the path, hurled it into his face, then rammed the heel of her right hand into his nose. He screamed as blood spurted on both of them. She felt his weight lift off her. She tried to squirm into the darkness of the trees, but he grabbed her arms, twisting a leather cord around her wrists as a cowboy might rope a calf. After he’d bound her hands numbingly tight, he pulled a razor from his pocket and held the blade so close against her throat that it quivered with her every heartbeat. Fiddlesticks killed her with his razor. Slit her throat and then forgave her. The old jump rope rhyme in Ginger’s article echoed in her head.

  “Now you just lie the hell still,” Artie snarled, straddling her. He
grabbed at his crotch. She panicked, anticipating rape, or his penis forced down her throat. I can endure the one, she thought, but not the other.

  The notion of either made the bile bubble up her throat. She turned her head and vomited, bits of complimentary airline peanuts spilling all over her left shoulder and Artie’s right knee.

  “You little bitch!” he cried. Furious, he scrambled to his feet, kicking her in the head, the shoulder. New waves of pain crashed over her as her vision shimmered with white lights and shooting stars.

  “Fucking cunt!” He wiped the vomit from his trousers. “You’re all alike. Every damn one of you spewing something from one end or the other!”

  She lay there, her pain a monster with a life of its own. As it reached to claim new territory along her neck and spine, she heard his footsteps on the gravel close to her head. Keep him talking, she told herself. Keep him talking and maybe he won’t kick you again.

  “Where’s Rachel? And Jenkins?” she croaked. “Stratton said you were letting my owl loose.”

  “Jenkins has gone to his cockfights,” Artie replied, wheezing for air. “Them interns didn’t want to hang around after dark.” He cackled. “They’re afraid the murdering lunatic might get ’em!”

  She tried to answer, but breathing seemed to require all her effort. She watched dimly as he grabbed her purse, pulled money from her wallet. He dug deeper, examining her cell phone and makeup bag. Finally he pulled out her little recorder. As he toyed with the buttons, Lige McCauley’s fiddling began wafting into the air. Artie cocked his head, listened. “Where’d you get this? Who’s singing my tune?”

  “A guy who knew you back at Central.”

  Artie punched more of the buttons. When he managed to get the music turned off, he tossed the recorder and the rest of her purse to the ground. “You play that for anybody else?”

  “Lots of people,” she lied, each word sending a new jolt of agony through her neck and jaw. “I’m surprised Sheriff Cochran’s not here already.”

  He frowned, as if trying to decide whether to believe her, then gave a snide little laugh. “If Cochran knows so fucking much, how come he’s still got Stratton in jail?”

  She had no answer for that. All she knew was that her only chance was to keep him talking. Maybe if she could get him to drop his guard, she could plaster his nose again and crawl off into the woods.

  “Cochran knows you killed Lisa Wilson,” she said. “He’s just trying to figure out how you did it.”

  “Well, it wasn’t too hard. I just played my tune and out she came. Any fool could have done it.”

  “How can you play the fiddle with only half your fingers?”

  He held up a mangled hand. “I bow with this one. Play the notes with the other.”

  “But why kill Lisa Wilson? She liked you … I read it in her diary.”

  Smith fingered his swollen nose. She must have done some damage when she’d hit him. “I didn’t have nothing against her,” he said, “She was just the easiest one to get … I knew she’d slip out if she thought Nick was waiting.”

  Mary swallowed hard. Smith had held no grudge against the old governor; any of the interns would have sufficed. “But why kill any of them? They were just a bunch of dumb kids in an old rotten shack.”

  Those wide eyes sharpened. “Because that rotten shack was my home! They were mockin’ it, mockin’ my wife! Everyone that goes up there mocks my Bett!”

  She’d punched his hot button. He started twirling the razor between his good fingers, his eyes on fire.

  “You know how long people have been tromping through my house? Lookin’ for Bett, telling terrible tales about me and her. And that little Givens prick was going to make a TV show out of us!” He shook his head. “Bett comes to see me when people start doin’ that. She makes me take care of ’em. People should know better than to mess with holy places.”

  “Holy places?” As she looked up at him she saw how close the woods came to the graveled path. If she could scoot over just a little, she might be able to make a run for it. Woozy with pain, she sat up. “What makes that old shack so holy?”

  “My wife died there. My best friend, too.”

  “Yeah,” she said, inching toward the trees. “You killed them.”

  “I did not!” He kicked her hip so hard her body left the ground. “Ray, yes; I never laid a hand on Bett.”

  She fought a wave of nausea, wondering if he’d broken her leg. “That’s not … not what they said in court.”

  “You think I’m gonna tell the whole county my wife was suckin’ off another man? No way. But she was. I came in the door and they were hard at it—her on her knees, right in front of the fireplace. You should have seen the look on Ray’s face. ‘Bobby!’ he cries. ‘You ain’t supposed to be back yet!’”

  “But you came back early,” Mary said, holding her hip as she inched closer to the woods.

  “Surprised ’em. Ray went white as a sheet. Bett turned, looked at me over her shoulder. Next thing I knew Ray grabbed her by the hair and dragged her up in front of him, a knife at her throat. She was naked. His britches were to his knees. ‘Stay away from me, Bobby,’ he said. ‘If you don’t, I’ll kill her.’”

  Smith gazed into the darkness, back into that long-ago night. “I couldn’t stand the thought of him touching her. I lunged for him, thinking he’d just push Bett away. But he didn’t. He took that knife and raked it hard across her throat.” He shuddered as he spoke. “I never knew one little girl could have so much blood.”

  Mary remained silent, moving another half-inch.

  “He made to get away, then. Tried to jump out the window, but he couldn’t run because of his britches. I went after him like a crazy man. I got the knife away from him and he started to cry. ‘Please, Bobby. I didn’t mean anything. She wasn’t nothing but a whore, anyway.’

  “I grabbed him by his collar. I was short, but I’d long since made it my business to be mean. ‘Your first mistake was pulling down your pants,’ I told him, turning his own knife on him. ‘And your last mistake was calling my wife a whore.’ I cut his dick off, then. He grabbed the thing and ran around that cabin, howling like some animal, clawing to get out the door, but I blocked the way. Finally, I guess he just ran out of juice. He lay down on the hearth and died.”

  She watched as he stood there, reliving a murder fifty years past. His story was vastly different from the transcript of the trial. “So you only killed Ray Hopson?”

  He nodded. “I took the blame for both of ’em. But I swore I’d never hang for it. And I didn’t. At Central I buddied up with a simpleton and bribed a couple of guards with my grandmaw’s money. That got me off death row. Then I laid low and acted addle-pated. They sent me first to the nut house, then to some old nursing home. That place was almost fun—cases of rubbing alcohol, all over the attic.” He laughed. “It just took two matches to get those old folks up and running for their lives.”

  “All to come back here and kill young girls?”

  He looked at her. “I got to do what Bett says—she doesn’t like it when strangers go there.”

  “But isn’t Bett dead?” Mary asked.

  “Not to me, she ain’t.”

  He stood there for a moment, then he took off his belt and looped it around her neck. Wrapping one end around his good hand, he jerked her to her feet. “Come on.”

  He’d just begun to push her toward the bird barn when she made her move. She shoved him, hard, catching him off balance. As he struggled to regain his footing she drew her bound hands back over her shoulder, as if clutching an imaginary baseball bat. She was just about to swing into his jaw with all her weight when he stepped to one side. He flicked her once with his razor. She heard a sound like ripping silk as blood began to gush from her shoulder to her elbow. For an instant she felt nothing, then a new, different pain began to zip up her arm.

&nbs
p; “Don’t fuck with me, Mary Crow,” he warned, tightening the belt around her throat. “Or I’ll write a new verse of my tune all over you.”

  Forty-three

  For the last ninety minutes, Ginger had squirmed through dinner at Tony’s restaurant. Though they’d ordered their favorite meal—chicken calabrese and a bottle of ciro rosso, all she’d done was pick at her food and check her cell phone every five minutes. Cochran had brought the engagement ring; tonight was the night. After dinner he was going to ask her to be his wife.

  “Are you okay?” he finally asked.

  “Yeah.” She gave him a distracted smile. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because all you’ve done tonight is check your messages.”

  “Sorry—I’m expecting an important call.”

  Suddenly he grew irked—what could possibly be more important than dinner with the man who hoped to make her his fiancée? “About your mountain music feature?”

  “No, something else,” she said, checking her phone yet again

  “Some other boyfriend promise to call you?”

  “Mary Crow promised to call me the minute she got home,” she replied, irritated. “I just wonder if her plane was delayed.”

  “No, she’s here,” said Cochran.

  Ginger’s green eyes flashed. “How do you know?”

  “Because she almost broadsided me as I was leaving work.”

  Ginger frowned. “She was at the jail?”

  “She was around six thirty.”

  “Then she must be home by now.” Ginger whipped out her cell phone again. “I’m sorry, Jerry, but I really need to talk to her.”

  He sat back, exasperated, sipping his wine as Ginger called Mary’s home, then Mary’s office, then, finally, Mary’s cell phone. No one answered at any number; each time Ginger left a growingly insistent call-me-immediately message. When she finally put the phone aside, he’d drained his glass.