On the ninth ring, Astrid slams her telephone into the cradle hard enough to rattle other items on her bedside table. “Dammit!” Now what should I do? “I’ll call the front desk.” (The young woman has developed the endearing habit of talking to herself. Especially when she is alone in the ancestral family home.)
“Excuse me, Mr. Andrew Turner?”
The owner of Granite Creek Electronics and Computers looked up from a four-thousand-calorie slab of cherry cheesecake, flashed a smile at the young man who had addressed him. “That’s me.”
“I apologize for disturbing you, sir.” The hotel employee offered a cordless telephone to the guest. “You have a call from Mrs. Turner.” He lowered his voice, added discretely: “Urgent.”
“Thank you.” Turner held his hand over the mouthpiece. “She’s probably just lonely. Or there’s a problem with the plumbing.”
The young man, who also had a wife, smiled. Excused himself.
Turner pressed the electronic appliance to his ear. “Hello, dear. What’s up—well pump on the fritz again?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Ah, you’re lonely then.”
“I always am when you’re away.”
“You should have invited one of your splendid sisters over to spend the night.” He smiled. I’d be glad to spend the night with either one of ’em.
“I called Bea and Cassie just minutes before I rang your cell phone. But neither one answered.” Which is odd, because they’re usually at home on a Monday evening. “Andy, I hate being here all by myself. Especially at night.”
“Tell you what, babe—next time I come to Denver, I’ll bring you with me. And I’ll take you to the telecommunications show in Vegas. We’ll take in some great floor shows, donate a few dollars to the casinos.”
“I’ll take you up on that.” Her shudder reverberated along the telephone line. “It feels awfully spooky in this big house.”
“Spooky? Really, now—Cassie is the one who talks to ghosts of long-dead Egyptians and such.”
Astrid sniffed and said, “I don’t mean like ghosts and goblins. It’s a different kind of spooky.”
“Different how?”
“For one thing, there’s this peculiar odor.”
The smile slipped off Turner’s perfectly tanned face. “Probably the septic tank. I’ll have someone take a look at it.”
“It’s not that kind of odor, it’s more like—” She paused to listen. “And I hear strange noises.”
“Define ‘strange noises.’” This is the sort of response one learned to expect from the Andrew Turners of this world. “Creaks and squeaks, chains rattling in the attic?”
“Please don’t be flippant, Andrew.”
“Uh—sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to seem—”
“I hear it at our bedroom window—like something shuffling around outside. And just a few minutes ago, I heard a snuffing-snorting sound.”
“Probably a wandering porcupine looking for some bark to chew on.”
“I certainly hope so. But I’ve made certain that all the downstairs doors and windows are securely closed and locked. Except for the French window in our bedroom—I can’t shut it. It’s stuck. So there’s nothing between me and whatever’s out there on the patio but the screen—” This remark was interrupted by a shriek, a thump as the telephone slipped from her hand, struck the floor.
Turner spoke loudly enough to startle other guests in the restaurant: “Astrid—what’s wrong?” His wife’s pitiable, pleading screams were intermixed with guttural growls. Abruptly—the screaming ceased. The absence of sound was so utterly complete that he assumed the line had been broken. The dead silence was suddenly interrupted by gruesome sounds that Andrew Turner would never be able to speak about—not to Astrid’s sisters, not even to the police. But the haunting memory would never, ever leave him. In his darkest nightmares, he would hear it again and again—the ripping of flesh, crunching of bone, gluttonous, snarling grunts—and finally, as the meal progressed—the smacking of the satisfied diner’s lips.
Despite the mind-numbing circumstances, there were things to be done. Turner proceeded to do them with a relentless, some would say cold, efficiency. Astrid’s husband broke the connection, removed a card from his wallet, scanned a list of telephone numbers, and dialed one that was underlined.
The police dispatcher responded on the first ring: “Granite Creek Police.”
“Clara, is that you?”
“Yes, it is. Who’s this?”
“Andy Turner. I’m in Denver, at the Brown Palace.” His words had the effect of a hammer striking nails. “I was just speaking to my wife on the telephone. I am certain that she has been attacked in our home. Please get someone there as soon as you can. I’m going to have my car brought around; I’ll call you on the way home.”
Flinching at the decisive click in her ear, Clara Tavishuts alerted the nearest unit, which was dealing with a bar fight on Second Street. The officer who took the call agreed to check out the possible assault at the Yellow Pines Ranch, gave her an ETA of forty minutes. At best. The second unit was responding to a domestic dispute, where the wife was threatening to decapitate her mate with a seven-hundred-year-old samurai sword. Clara knew exactly what to do—pass the buck up to the boss. An effective dispatcher always knows where all the cops are, including the chief of police. On this particular evening, Scott Parris was a guest at Charlie Moon’s ranch, and the Columbine headquarters was not all that far from Yellow Pines. Clara steeled herself. Whenever I call him on his poker night, the chief always grumbles. But if I don’t contact him, he’ll get all red in the face and tell me I should have alerted him to the emergency call.
Scott Parris was holding a pair of fives and some trash. After asking for three cards, the player was holding a pair of fives and some trash. He looked over his hand, across the table at Charlie Moon’s world-class poker face. “How’s your aunt Daisy getting along?”
“About the same.”
“And that orphan girl that’s staying with her—what’s her name?”
Moon pretended to be shocked. “You don’t remember?”
Parris pretended to be offended. “If I did, would I be asking you what her name was?”
“Sarah Frank,” Moon said. “First the memory goes and then the hearing….”
Parris leaned forward. “What?”
Moon repeated the statement at full volume.
“Charlie, nobody likes a big smart aleck.”
“That’s not so, pardner. I like you.”
Parris snorted, pushed a pair of shiny Tennessee quarters to the center of the table. “There’s not a thing wrong with my memory.”
“Okay, then what’s Sarah’s cat’s name?”
“That’s not fair. Nobody should have to remember the name of a cat.”
“Don’t let Sarah hear you say that.” Moon glanced at his hand, then: “I’ll see you.” He sweetened the pot with a crisp new dollar bill. “And raise you four bits.”
Parris folded, glumly watched the Ute rake in his winnings. “Charlie, how come we never get to play any big-time high-stakes poker like them high rollers on TV?”
“Because we ain’t got the ante.”
“‘Ain’t’ ain’t good grammar,” Parris muttered. The cop, who had been dating an English major, was attempting to improve himself.
“Okay, we isn’t got the ante, and even if we did—” The Indian’s response was interrupted by the rude warble of his guest’s cell phone.
“Who’d be calling me this time of night?” Maybe it’s Sweet Thing. The chief of police glanced at the caller ID. “It’s dispatch.” The middle-aged man pressed the instrument against a once presentable ear that now sprouted unsightly tufts of reddish brown hair. “Why’re you buggin’ me on my poker night, Clara?” He listened to the dispatcher’s terse report. “Okay, I’m practically on my way.” Aiming a sly grin at his best friend, he added, “No, I won’t need any backup—I’ll be taking Charlie Moon alo
ng.” I’d rather have the Ute with me than a battalion of National Guard. He thumbed the End button.
Moon shed his poker face, which enabled him to assume a mildly inquisitive expression. “Taking me where?”
“Old man Spencer’s Yellow Pines Ranch.”
“I thought the place had been vacant since Mr. Spencer died.”
“Not since Astrid—his youngest daughter, who inherited all six thousand acres of Daddy’s ranch—moved in with her new husband.”
Moon searched his memory. Came up with “Andrew Turner.”
“That’s right. And Turner, who’s in Denver tonight, just called in a report, claimed that while he was talking to his wife on the phone she was assaulted. It’ll probably turn out to be a false alarm, but I’ve got to go check it out and I might need some backup.” Parris had pulled on a jacket, was jamming a decades-old felt hat down to his hair-sprouting ears. “So don’t give me no static about how a big-shot tribal investigator like you ain’t—hasn’t got any jurisdiction offa the Southern Ute reservation.” The broad-shouldered man lumbered down the hallway to the parlor. “Grab your revolver, Charlie—and consider yourself duly deputized!”
Moon was unlocking the gun cabinet. “What’s the compensation?”
“Twelve fifty an hour and the pleasure of my company.”
Strapping on a heavy pistol belt, the brand-new deputy grinned. “Make it ten bucks per and I’ll take the call by myself.”
Six miles north of Castle Rock, Andrew Turner made the second call to GCPD, interrupted the dispatcher’s standard greeting: “Clara—it’s me. Andy Turner. What’ve you found out about my wife?”
“Nothing yet. But Chief Parris is on his way to your home.”
“The moment you hear from him, call me.”
“Will do. What’s your cell number?”
The husband recited the requested digits. Twice.
As he sped south along the interstate, Turner attempted to gain control of his emotions. I have alerted the police. Now, I must call Astrid’s sisters. He entered the preprogrammed number for Beatrice Spencer. No answer. Bea is out rather late. He tried Cassandra. Seven rings of the TV celebrity’s unlisted number got him Cassie’s answering machine. I’ll call them again another hour down the road. He took a deep breath. Another. Whatever has happened, I must be prepared to deal with it—and in as rational a manner as humanly possible.
A cool customer? It would seem so.
But from that electric instant when Astrid’s scream had seared a wound in his soul, Andrew Turner had moved like one suspended in a horrific dream. He would awaken, of course, to live for a few hours in the sunshine—only to fall asleep when darkness came around—and dream again. And so would the cycle go. As this long nightmare rolled toward a veiled finale, the rational man would discover that logic and reason are applicable only to a certain limit…take one step beyond that invisible boundary, the unwary pilgrim falls into the Deep, twists and flows in dark currents—never to surface again.
Four
The Gathering Storm
Most of the graveled road between the Columbine headquarters and the state highway was sufficiently well graded that a motor vehicle could roll along at a reasonable clip, but a two-mile stretch of tooth-rattling “washboard” spiked Scott Parris’s blood pressure, flushing his beefy face a ruddy hue. Because his countenance was illuminated by greenish dashboard lights, this crimson display went unappreciated by Charlie Moon, who was riding shotgun, so to speak, in the passenger seat. The moment the GCPD unit’s wheels got traction on the paved road, Parris switched on the emergency lights and siren, heavy-booted his almost-new black-and-white into a hair-raising sideways skid, straightened it, grinned while he watched the speedometer climb. Tranquil as a man of his temperament can ever be, his BP gradually drifted down toward normal, which in this instance was 138 over 93.
As Charlie Moon checked his revolver, counted the shiny brass cartridges in the cylinder—he caught a definite whiff of gun smoke. Now where did that come from? The Ute was overwhelmed by a sudden suspicion that the cartridges were empty—that someone had fired all six shots from his gun and not reloaded. To make sure the ammo wasn’t spent, he removed the bullets for careful inspection. All was well.
Up yonder, a moon glistening with reflected sunlight was about to be gobbled up by a hungry thundercloud. A great horned owl circled overhead, dragged a winged shadow across the highway. As the automobile roared past a clump of galleta grass, a startled cottontail bolted. In the wake of the black-and-white, hungry Ms. Bubo Virginianus blinked her bulbous eyes, made the practiced dive. Though he would not see another sunrise, Mr. Rabbit was, for the moment, intensely alive.
But back to the chase.
Along the stretched-out miles between the Columbine gate and the entrance to the Yellow Pines Ranch, the two-lane highway was mostly straight, except for a three-mile section where it snaked over a cluster of undulating ridges that, even at the posted speed limit, produced a stomach-floating roller-coaster effect in which children and well-adjusted grown-ups took childish delight. At a steady ninety-five miles per hour, the low-slung Chevrolet hugged the highway in the dips, went almost airborne on the peaks. After the road leveled, the speedometer ticked its way up to 110.
Having checked his sidearm, Citizen Moon, the more intellectual of the pair, was pursuing the pleasant pastime of musing about this and that. By way of example: how responding to a trouble call was a small parable of life. Nine times out of ten, when the cop showed up at the other end, things would be okay. The prowler would be gone, the lost child found, the frightened lady unharmed. But then, there was always the possibility of—Number Ten.
As they neared the turnoff, the chief of police shut down the high-pitched siren. When he could see the gate in the high beams, he switched off the emergency lights. If the assailant (assuming that there actually was an assailant) was still lurking on the property Astrid Spencer had inherited from her father, Scott Parris did not want to scare him away. I’ll trap the bastard. There was one narrow lane connecting the Yellow Pines Ranch to the highway, and Granite Creek’s top copper was about to plug that jug with his black-and-white stopper.
As Parris jammed on the brakes, did a stomach-turning, skid-sliding turn under the massive sandstone arch and onto the darkened mile-long ranch road the deceased millionaire had spent a fortune to blacktop, the Chevrolet sedan seemed, by some uncanny automotive instinct, to sense the driver’s sense of urgency. It kicked out a few extra horsepower, the all-terrain tread grabbed on to the roadway. As they slipped swiftly along, passing through isolated congregations of dark evergreens, the warm rubber tires hummed a thrumming whine, while in the darkened forest, melancholy woodwinds mourned and pined for a first glimpse of morning sunshine. It was to be a long, long night.
The blacktop, which was never intended to approach too close to old man Spencer’s semirustic abode, terminated abruptly at the outer arc of a long, elliptical driveway. Parris braked again, stopping a few yards from the extensively remodeled home that had once been the headquarters of a working ranch.
Before the hot V-8 engine had stuttered to a stop, two pairs of boots hit the ground.
Parris and his recently deputized Ute sidekick did what sensible lawmen always do before they rush to the rescue: For a half-dozen heartbeats, they stood as still as the trunks of trees. Looked. Listened. And employed other, more primitive senses.
Aside from the yip-yipping of a distant coyote and the discontented rumble of thunder over Spencer Mountain, there was not a sound. Aside from dusty-winged moths batting about the wrought-iron lantern at the center of the porch, there was no movement. The slate roof of the century-old, two-story log house glimmered in cloud-filtered moonlight.
It seemed a scene of perfect peace—a serene night, made for restful sleep.
The lawmen knew better. Neither man could have explained how he knew, but this holding-its-breath quiet, this anemic, lifeless light—it did not feel right. Whoever slept here w
ould awaken nevermore. Not in this world.
Exchanging nods that conveyed what words cannot, the lawmen split up, Parris to the left, Moon took the direction that was left, which was right, and so the man-shadows melted into the night. Slowly, warily, guns in hand—the hard, silent men began to close the circle around the still dwelling.
God have mercy on any two-legged scoundrel they might encounter.
But whoever had been there was long gone. Which was lucky for him. Or her. Or them. Or it.
It was the Ute whose nostrils first picked up the unmistakable scent of fresh blood, his dark eyes that perceived the glint of broken glass on the sandstone patio, a crumpled door screen, and—with the aid of a hazy shaft of moonlight—caught a glimpse of mangled flesh. What he presumed to be the remains—the what-was-left-behind of Astrid Spencer-Turner—was beyond all human help.
The lawmen spent a long, long three minutes peering about the wrecked, blood-soaked bedroom. Much of what they saw was the ordinary stuff of life. A battery-operated clock on the wall, second hand clicking away precious seconds. On a shelf above the clock, an antique china doll with shy, painted eyes that, no matter where you were, never looked at you. Flung into a far corner, a hardcover novel, crocheted bookmark still in place. The book leaned against a dusty pair of hand-tooled horsehide cowboy boots that were small enough for a girl to wear. In contrast to the overturned bed, the torn quilt, the ripped, blood-splattered sheets—the hideously mutilated corpse—the personal belongings were so normal, so shockingly commonplace. And though it is not always the case, there is often something odd at the scene of a homicide, something queerly out of place—an object or feature that grabs the eye. It might be a hole in the heel of a rich woman’s stocking. A box of crayons and a Peter Rabbit coloring book in a house where there are no children. A “lucky” rabbit’s foot on the victim’s key chain. Astrid Spencer-Turner’s bedroom was not to prove the exception. Almost lost among broken furniture, fractured glass, and torn bedclothes, at the edge of a slightly dusty rectangle of carpet that defined the place where the overturned bed had stood—there was something else. Something that simply did not belong; something a passerby might have left behind.
Three Sisters Page 3