Shadow by the Bridge

by Suzanne Zewan

  “It can’t be dark. I saw Travis walk by the store less than a half hour ago. Then I saw him cut over toward his house, so he’s gotta be home.” Merle fumbled with the radio dial. He looked over at me. “Fritz, do ya want to go next door with me to see what’s keeping her? I don’t want her to miss any of the show,” he asked with a tinge of anxiousness.

  “Sure, I’ll go,” I threw my cap on and grabbed my coat off the rocking chair.

  “I’ll go too,” Matt said. “Travis might be wondering who left their pail on his porch.”

  The door swung open and Leon’s father, Everett, walked in. A gust of blowing snow and frosty air filled the store again.

  Merle looked over at Senior and then at Everett. “Do ya mind watching the store for a few?” he asked. “We’re going to see what’s keeping Martha next door. Maybe she lost track of the time.”

  “I don’t think they’re home. There ain’t no lights on,” Everett replied.

  “That’s strange,” Merle said in a baffled tone. “Grandma said the same thing.”

  “I’ll be here. I ain’t going anywhere,” Everett replied as he shrugged off his jacket and removed his hat, then tossed them on Grandma Harrison’s rocking chair.

  “Thanks.” We headed out the back door, then up the slight hill. I heard Travis’ cow bellowing not too far away.

  I turned to Matt and Merle. “Huh. They’re right: the house is dark.”

  Merle stepped onto the small back porch and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He placed his hand on the door knob and tried to turn it. “It’s locked.”

  Matt and I stood on the icy back steps, not far from Matt’s tin pail. We moved away from the porch. Merle tramped through the snow over to the fence and knelt down at the cow’s udder.

  He ran back. “She’s bellowing because she ain’t been milked yet,” Merle said.

  “Well, where the hell is Martha then, if Helen and Travis aren’t home?” I asked, puzzled and frustrated.

  Matt shook his head, perplexed. “That’s strange.”

  “Doesn’t Travis always milk her as soon as he gets home from work?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he always does.” Merle shook his head with a bewildered expression on his face. “Maybe he didn’t go right home after I saw him walk by the store,” Merle said as he scanned the nearby houses. “Martha already went to the post office, so she wouldn’t have gone there.”

  I yanked my pocket watch out of my trousers and held it to catch the moonlight. 7:00. “The show is about to start.”

  I realized that we hadn’t tried the front door, so we ran through the snow to the front of the house. I stepped onto their small, snow-covered front porch, and jiggled the door handle. “Locked!”

  We tried to look into the window, but the drapes were closed. Merle followed me as Matt walked around to the other side of the house. We circled the house, peeking in every window. Oddly, all the drapes were closed.

  “I smell smoke. Do you smell it?” Merle asked as he stepped through a snowdrift to reach the first floor bedroom window.

  “Yeah, I do,” I replied with uneasiness in my stomach.

  Merle placed his hand on the glass. “It’s hot,” Merle yelled, and then looked up. He pointed at the smoke leaking from the roof.

  “Help!” Merle yelled. I ran over to him and Matt, who were now both standing by the bedroom window.

  “Go get Everett and Senior! And anyone else you can find!” Merle yelled in a panic. My spine began to prickle with fear. Matt turned and ran down the hill toward the store, yelling Everett’s and Senior names.

  Minutes later, Everett, Felix, Leon, and Senior came running up the hill. We ran over to the back door again. The only way in was to break the kitchen window and crawl through it.

  Merle smashed the kitchen window, and Matt helped him quickly clear the glass out of the windowpane. “Helen!” he yelled. “Anyone home?”

  I stood at the window. “Travis! Helen!”

  No answer.

  “Leon, you’re slim enough to fit through the window,” Merle said.

  “I might be.” Leon gave a quick, anxious glance at all of us before shaking off his coat and laying it on the windowpane.

  Merle and Felix formed a step with their hands.

  “On three,” Merle said.

  “One… two… three.” We counted and shoved Leon through the opening, and he tumbled to the floor. I could hear the sound of the table and chairs moving across the wooden floor as he made his way through the dark kitchen. The light flicked on. Leon unlocked the back door and let us inside.

  We walked into a gray smoky haze. My eyes began to burn, and I bent over coughing. As I hacked my lungs out, something red caught my eye.

  “What the hell?” I asked as a sharp, frozen grip pierced my gut. It looked as if a bleeding deer had been dragged through the kitchen. My heart pounded, sending raw panic through my veins. Then, something with a dull shine on the floor caught my attention. It was bullet shell. And then I saw another one by the sink.

  “I’m going to call the police,” Everett said in an unsteady voice as he ran past me.

  “That’s a good idea,” Felix replied.

  “Helen! Travis! You here? Martha!” Merle yelled as he coughed on the smoke. He pulled out a hankie, and then covered his nose and mouth.

  My eyes continued to water from the smoke. My heart thrashed against my chest.What the hell happened? I stared at the bloody path leading through the house to the bedroom. My body trembled. Black smoke was seeping from the bottom of the bedroom door. My coughing and hacking became too much, and I ran to the back door to breathe for a few minutes. After I caught my breath, I stepped back into the house.

  Matt pointed out the back door. “Go grab the ladder out of the barn. I’m going upstairs to let the smoke out,” he yelled in panic, and then began choking on the smoke.

  “I’ll grab some water!” Merle shouted.

  People were beginning to gather around the back of the house. My watery eyes rested on Mertie’s for a moment. Her eyes were full of distress and pooling with tears. I didn’t see Valerie—and was glad.

  I helped Matt set the ladder against the side of the house.

  “Go help Merle!” I yelled to Senior, who was standing near the back door coughing. Leon was right behind him.

  “Merle’s filling buckets!” Leon yelled to me.

  I held the ladder steady, and Matt climbed up to the second story window. He turned his head and smashed the window with his arm. A cloud of black smoke spilled out, choking him, as he took a few steps down the ladder. After the smoke thinned, he made his way back up the rungs.

  “Tell Merle to hurry! I need some water, now!” Matt shouted down to me in a raspy voice.

  I ran over to Irvin Packard, who ran the train depot. He was standing on the edge of the crowd surrounding the back door. “We need water! Fast! There’s fire upstairs!”

  Irvin and I ran into the kitchen. I could see into the parlor. The wall of black smoke was now a thin gray haze. Everett and Leon were helping Merle fill the buckets. Irvin grabbed two buckets full of water that were sitting next to the sink. I grabbed the other one, set it by the back door, ran in to the room where Travis kept his firewood, and picked up another tin bucket.

  “What the…” I said under my breath. A set of false teeth was lying near the stack of Travis’ firewood. A chill ran over my skin and landed in the deepest pit of my stomach as the blood drained from my face. But there was no time to think about that. I picked up the tin pail and kept moving. I set it down near Merle, not mentioning what I just saw.

  “I need this filled!” I said. “Matt’s on the ladder—the fire’s upstairs!”

  “Take these.” Merle shoved the one he just filled toward me and pointed to the one on the floor, not bothering to look over at me.

  I ran out the back door with the two sloshing tin pails of water. Irvin climbed up and handed them to Matt. He tossed the water through the window, then threw the p
ails down into the snow. We watched Matt crawl in head first. A few seconds later, the sound of shattered glass came from the other upstairs window as Matt kicked it. Shards of glass stabbed the icy snow like knives.

  “Matt, come on! Get down here,” I yelled as Irvin jumped off the fifth rung of the ladder.

  “It’s out!” Matt yelled from the window. “I’m coming down!”

  Matt and I ran back in to the kitchen. All of Travis’s eight tin pails were filled with the water Merle had pumped.

  Merle rushed over to the bedroom door, “Ready?” He grabbed the door handle. “Shit!” He shrieked and drove his hand into one of the buckets of water. “It’s hot!” He waved his hand around in the water for a moment. “We’re gonna have to kick it in!”

  Senior and Merle stood in position, ready to bust down the door.

  “On three,” Everett yelled. “One… two… three!”

  Senior and Merle kicked the door open, and a storm of thick, black smoke filled the two rooms. We stumbled through the kitchen and out the back door, coughing and choking. The crowd around the house had grown.

  Minutes later, the smoke had turned into a thin haze, and we entered the house again. We stood at the bedroom door, trying to see what was on fire. The flames were shooting up in the center of the bedroom. We formed a line, and Irvin filled the empty buckets as Senior passed them back to him.

  A few minutes later, the smoke began to fade and the flames fizzled out. Merle had found a flashlight, and we made our way into the bedroom. The pungent smell of burning hair hit me. I stood there, trembling and terrified. My eyes were burning and watering. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, shaking uncontrollably. It was Senior.

  “God be with us,” he whispered.

  I nodded, trying to make out what it was that was heaped in a pile in the middle of the room. Merle aimed the dim flashlight around the room. We took a few more steps. The mattress was overturned and shoved against the far wall. In the middle of the floor, there was a pile of burnt rags and an overturned chair. Merle shined the light on the pile. I moved a little closer. I gasped in horror.

  Twenty-Two

  I stared in horror, my bones trembling.

  “No, no, no,” Merle shrieked.

  On the floor lay three bodies covered with burnt linens. Martha’s body was strewn on top. Her face was beaten and mutilated, her eyes swollen shut and forehead bashed in. Her skirt was above her waist as if she was dragged by her feet, and then thrown away like garbage.

  I took a step closer.

  Helen’s body was off to the side, near the cot, set against the wall. Her glasses were still on her bloody face, her hair soaked in blood. The right side of her body was covered in burns. I saw Travis at the bottom of the pile. His upper body and face, charred. I could barely tell that it was him.

  Sickened by the sight and smell of burnt hair and flesh, I broke down crying. The only one I could think of was my mother.My God, how am I going to tell her? “My God!” I cried. “Who could do this?” I screamed.

  “No, Jesus, no! It can’t be.” Senior’s words seeped out under his breath as he stepped to the other side of Merle, who was sobbing while he kneeled on the floor near Martha’s head.

  “Why? Why? Who could? …Who could do this to them?” Merle cried.

  I wiped my eyes, trying to keep it together, but the tears kept flowing. I reached over and placed my hand on Merle’s shoulder. “Come on. There’s nothing we can do.” Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a bloody adz handle a few feet from Martha’s bare legs.

  He looked up at me, shaking his head and trembling. “No, this couldn’t have happened,” he whispered. His face was covered in soot and tears, carved with devastation. He put his face in his hands and wept. He looked up at me again. “She just went for milk.” His voice was weak. “How could this happen?”

  I slowly pulled him up and guided him out of the bedroom and into the kitchen as Everett headed toward the bedroom, holding a kerosene lantern.

  “Jesus Christ!” he shrieked. Moments later, he came back into the kitchen and set the lantern on the kitchen table. His face was pale and green. “They’re dead! They’re all dead,” he said softly with disbelief as he pushed his hair back out of his face. Tears began to swell in his eyes, and he began to cry.

  My chin quivered. My eyes burned. My stomach twisted and ached. I turned to Merle: “We’re too late,” I said softly. I grabbed his arm again. “Let’s go. The police will be here soon. And we don’t want to be in their way.” I noticed the bullet hole in the wall by the sink as I guided him out the door behind Senior.

  “They’re dead. By God, they’re dead,” Senior said, sobbing as he told the neighbors who were standing around the house. “Who the hell would do this? Who?” He cast his eyes over the crowd. Mertie ran to him and threw her arms around him, crying.

  The shrieks and cries echoed through the night as the news traveled from mouth to ear.

  “Martha!” It was the faint voice of Gerry Morgan off in the distance.

  I grabbed Merle’s arm. “Gerry’s headed over here! We have to stop him!” I ran out the door and jumped off of the porch. “It’s Gerry! We can’t let him in here!” I said to Senior as Mertie started walking down the slight hill, toward the road.

  Merle and I ran past Mertie and met Gerry at the side of the house.

  “You ain’t going in there,” Merle said, holding his arm.

  “Where is she? Where is she?” Gerry began to cry, struggling to pull away from Merle’s grip.

  “Gerry, you’re not going into the house!” I demanded as I threw my arms around him from behind. His strength was overpowering. He was determined to go into the house.

  “No!” Gerry yelled as he shook his arm loose from Merle and flung my arms off of him.

  Senior ran up to him, stopped him and gripped Gerry’s shoulders. “No, Gerry, you’re not going in there. You’re not,” Senior sobbed.

  I glanced up and saw Everett and Matt running toward us. Gerry was still trying to break loose from Senior. Everett ran up and grabbed Gerry by the coat lapels. “She’s gone. They’re all gone,” Everett cried. “We ain’t goin’ to let you see her like that.”

  “How, how?” Gerry fell to the ground and pounded his fists into the snow.

  “They were shot, and then whoever did this set the house on fire,” Senior cried.

  “I’ll kill him! I swear to the day I die, I’ll kill him!”

  Tears fell down my face as I watched Gerry cry like I’d never seen a man cry. The night turned into a nightmare. As I watched Gerry try to pull himself together and stand up, I heard the sound of car engines. Three trooper cars pulled up to the side of the Wilsons’ house.

  I reached over and grasped Senior’s arm to gain his attention. “I need to talk to you.” Senior stepped over to me. “Valerie: she can’t stay there alone. She’s done staying there alone with Mrs. Adleman!” I said.

  “That’s where Mertie was headed. We don’t want her staying there alone either. Mertie was going to call Ted and let him know what happened and that we can’t have our daughter there alone with his mother. He’ll have to figure out something else.”

  “I’m going over there right now.”

  “All right. I’m going to stay here with Gerry. I don’t want him to get any ideas about going into the house.”

  “I’ll let Mertie and Valerie know where you are,” I said as I turned and trudged through the snow toward the road. I glanced back and saw five officers walking toward the back of the house.

  Mrs. Adleman’s door swung open before I set my foot on the first step. Valerie was standing at the door with tears streaming down her cheeks. I could hear Mertie’s and Mrs. Adleman’s voices in the kitchen. I stepped through the doorway and threw my arms around Valerie as she wept.

  “How could this happen? How could this happen, again?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, feeling a warm tear fall down my cold cheek. “I don’t kn
ow.”

  “I’m really scared!” she cried. “I’ve never been so scared.”

  “I know, I know. We all are.”

  She pulled away and wiped her eyes. “My mother said that my dad was with you when you found them.”

  I nodded and said nothing else.

  “Was it bad?”

  I nodded. “Yeah,” I replied softly. “I can’t… I can’t talk about it.”

  “Okay. And I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “You don’t,” I whispered.

  “Ted is on his way here to take his mom back to Warsaw with him. She’s going to be staying there for a while. She’s really scared, too.”

  “That’s good. Your father will be here later; he is staying with Gerry for a while.” I looked around the parlor. “Where’s your gun?”

  Valerie pointed to the fireplace. It was leaning against the mantel.

  “Keep it close to you.” I wiped away the tears that were streaming down my cheek. “I have to go.”

  “Where? Where’re you going?” Valerie asked with panic.

  I began to weep again. “To Batavia. I have… I have to go tell my mother… that, that… Martha, Helen, and Travis are all dead. That they were murdered! And I don’t know how I’m going to tell her.”

  I began to sob uncontrollably for a few minutes. Valerie wrapped her arms around my body as my tears fell into her soft blonde hair. “My God, they were like family to her. How… how do I tell my mother that they’re now all dead?” I asked as I tried to pull myself back together.

  “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe it happened again!” Valerie cried.

  “I know… I know.”

  “Are you coming back tonight?”

  “Yeah, but my mother isn’t. I don’t want her to come back here.” I paused for a moment. “I don’t want my mother to come back here at all. She is just going to move out of here a little sooner than she planned, that’s all.”

  “I can’t live here anymore either!” Valerie cried. “Let’s just get married and move away from here! No waiting.”

  “We will. But right now, I have to get to my mother before she leaves Batavia. I’ll be back in a little while.”