by Edie Claire
Allison let out a giggle.
“So, are you convinced now?” Adith asked, looking at Leigh intently.
“Convinced of what?” Leigh grumbled.
Adith frowned. “That the farm is under the evil influence, that’s what! That Archie’s gone missing because of the spooks!”
Leigh hesitated. She didn’t believe in the supernatural elements of Dora Klinger’s tale for a second, and despite all appearances to the contrary, she’d always suspected that Adith didn’t really believe in such nonsense, either. But it was getting harder and harder not to link Archie’s baffling disappearance to the mounting evidence that for the last half century, someone had been searching for something at Frog Hill Farm.
Oh, Arch. What have you and Lester gotten yourselves into?
“There’s evil out there, all right,” Leigh agreed soberly. “But given the choice between an orb and a flashlight… I’d rather run into the orb.”
Chapter 10
The Sunday morning sun shone bright and pleasantly warm for the season, even at the ungodly early hour at which Leigh found herself heading off for a quick check on the mother dog and pups. She hadn’t slept well. Again. Warren and Ethan had returned quite late after the baseball game went into extra innings, and although Warren had dropped off immediately into peaceful slumber, Leigh had continued to toss and turn for hours. Giant pottery crocks had danced in and out of her vision, all dull and boring as dirt, except that a few had tiny black puppies hiding inside, and one had a baby in a police uniform. When her mind’s incarnation of Theodore Carr had shown up in blue overalls and started firing at the crocks with a rifle, she had jerked awake in a cold sweat.
Being up and fully conscious was better. Even if she was exhausted.
Listening to the birds chatter and admiring the maple leaves just beginning to turn color, Leigh could hardly believe that anything bad could happen in a place as peaceful as the banks of Snow Creek. She smiled as she passed the low spot in the Sullivan’s yard, where every spring she and the children would collect hundreds of wood frog and toad tadpoles from the dwindling rain pools, raise them in myriad tanks on her sun porch, then watch as they hopped back into the wild. She was thinking about the herons that inevitably staked out the same spot—and not watching where she was going—when she stumbled, nearly twisting her ankle.
She looked down to see another recently dug and filled-in hole. But this one hadn’t been filled in so well, with mounds of dirt still piled nearby while the turned-up earth in the hole sank well below the grass line.
Amateurs.
Leigh’s brow wrinkled. Was the current digger the same person or persons who “haunted” the farm in Dora Klinger’s day? Certainly not if Archie and Lester were the culprits. She didn’t know the men’s exact ages, but even if they were older than they looked, they couldn’t have been more than toddlers in the days when Dora had intruders rattling at her door.
No, it seemed far more likely, if less pleasant to think about, that the mysterious map of which the children had found a photocopy must have been in various hands before theirs, and before Archie’s as well. It might even be the rumored “paper” that came to the attention of Harvey’s historical society back in the sixties. Then again, it might not. The search could be for something far more sinister than a Civil War general’s hat.
Oh, hell, Leigh berated herself. She was starting to think just like Dora.
She spent the rest of her walk attempting to soothe herself with the blissful ambiance, but her anxiety was too deep-rooted to shake. Lester was a good and decent man, but he was not the brightest bulb in the ceiling. He might think he was helping Archie’s cause by staying silent about the search, but Leigh would have to convince him otherwise. And soon. The police would need the whole story to get Archie home safe and sound, and that couldn’t happen quickly enough—for any of them.
She reached the tool shed and leaned down to pull aside the cellar doors. Her arms stopped in midair when she realized the doors were already open, with the loose one flung wildly askew. She froze a moment and listened.
No sound met her ears.
Her heart beat rapidly as she pulled her small flashlight out of her back pocket and brandished it in front of her. The steps were well illuminated with sunlight, but she knew that dark corners remained below.
“Momma dog!” she called out, her voice quavering slightly. “Has someone been bothering you?”
It’s probably just Scotty again, she told herself. He couldn’t resist sneaking another peak at the puppies, and of course he would forget to close the doors again afterwards.
There was nothing to panic about.
She took a steadying breath, held out the flashlight, and started carefully down the stairs. “Momma dog?”
The cellar was silent.
The near side of the room where she had first seen the pups was empty, and her heart skipped a beat. Only after several seconds’ panic did she remember that yesterday the dog had moved the litter to the far corner.
Calm down, you idiot, she chastised. Everything is fine. She forced herself to take the last few steps at a quicker pace, then spoke again to the dog as her flashlight illuminated the newer nesting spot.
“I should have known you—” her voice broke off.
The mother dog and her litter were gone. They had been replaced with the prone figure of a man.
And he wasn’t moving.
“No!” Leigh exclaimed out loud. She cast her flashlight quickly around the remainder of the room, but there was nothing else to see. “No, no, no!”
She centered the beam back on the man, her heart pounding against her ribs. He was curled away from her, facing the wall. Nevertheless, he looked familiar.
Trembling like a leaf, she forced herself closer. She shone the light full on his face.
It was Lester.
Her heart fell into her shoes. She stood as if frozen, staring in horror at the paleness of his damp skin, a stark contrast to the oozing ribbon of blood that began at his temple and streamed down over his eye and across his cheek.
The cool stone walls of the cellar felt suddenly claustrophobic. Like an animal trapped in a hole she panicked, whirling around to seek the exit and run up and out and as far away as she could get…
She had gone halfway up the steps before her brain caught up with her.
Oozing blood? Damp skin?
She stopped and turned around again. Was there really some cosmic rule that every horizontal person she came across on the ground, near the ground, or inside a major appliance had to be dead?
Not Lester. Please.
She stretched out a shaky hand and shone her beam on the figure’s chest. To her amazement, his ribcage jiggled slightly. Then it let loose with a full-fledged cough.
“Oh, thank God!” Leigh exclaimed, reaching the man in two strides. She patted his warm cheeks, and his eyelids promptly fluttered. “Lester! Lester, wake up! Can you hear me?”
Lester moaned. His lids opened only halfway, revealing bloodshot eyeballs that rolled in their sockets. The lids shut tight again.
Leigh put her fingers in the hollow beside his Adam’s apple and was relieved to feel a decent pulse. She examined his face more critically and could see that despite the blood, the cut on his temple was neither deep nor serious. Whether it had been delivered along with a concussion was another matter.
“Hang on, Lester,” she said soothingly. “You’re going to be just fine. I’m going to get some help now, okay? I promise I’ll be right back.”
Lester made no response, but his breathing and pulse remained steady.
Leigh made a beeline for daylight and didn’t stop until she was fully under the clear blue sky. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911. She might or might not have been able to get reception in the cellar, but regardless, she felt safer above ground. The valley, creek, and woods looked as bucolic and innocent as ever. The only beings up and moving at this hour were her and the birds.
&nbs
p; She requested an ambulance immediately but refused to stay on the line, as she needed to reach Emma and did not want to leave Lester alone. The Brown’s phone rang four times before a bleary-sounding Emma picked up, her voice hoarse with sleep. “Hello? Leigh?”
Caller ID was a wonderful thing. Leigh was sure that if Emma’s phone had read “private caller” or nothing, she would never have stirred at all.
“What’s wrong, honey?” Emma asked with a yawn. Then her voice seemed suddenly to sharpen. “Is it about Archie?”
“No,” Leigh responded, wondering if Emma usually woke up alone. “It’s about Lester.”
“Lester?” Emma repeated, sounding bleary again. “He’s around here somewhere. You want me to fetch him?”
“I’m with him already,” Leigh explained. “At Archie’s tool shed. I’m afraid he’s been injured.”
Emma’s voice snapped to full alertness. “Injured? What? He was sleeping right here… I mean…” there was a pause. “Where did you say he was? Is he all right?”
“I’m sure he’s going to be fine,” Leigh assured. “But he has a bump on the head and he seems to have passed out. I’ve called an ambulance and I’m waiting for them here behind the tool shed. He’s—”
“I’m coming!”
The line cut off.
Leigh cast a nervous glance back at the entrance to the cellar. Her fingers itched to push Maura’s number on the speed dial, but she refrained. It was wretchedly early, and she knew that the detective had been on duty last night. Maura had asked to be kept informed, true, but under the circumstances Leigh refused to interrupt her friend’s sleep and jack up her stress level without a darned good reason. Despite every instinct in Leigh’s body screaming foul play, she couldn’t be certain that Lester had been assaulted. The man was sick as a dog and had been for days. He could have snuck out in the middle of the night, overexerted himself, passed out, and hit his head falling down.
The township police were already on their way; she would let them and the EMTs figure it out. She took a deep breath, collected what little courage she possessed, and headed back down the cellar steps.
Lester was groaning slightly as she entered. Feeling guilty at having left him, even for two minutes, Leigh hastened to his side. He had rolled over on his back and was pawing at his head with one flailing hand.
“Emma’s on her way, Lester,” she reported. “And the ambulance will be here any minute.”
His mumbling coalesced into words.
“Arch,” he muttered, his low voice filled with angst. “Who’s… nobody knows… somebody… I have to… I’ve got to get… Arch… maybe I can… don’t want you hurt… can’t be hurt… everybody loves Arch…”
Even as Leigh strained to understand, she worried at his agitation. His body rocked from side to side, and clammy sweat beaded up on his brow. His forehead felt feverish.
“Just lay still,” she ordered. “You shouldn’t be moving your head around.”
“My head!” he exclaimed suddenly, reaching for his temple with his hand again. “Damnation! What the—” he launched into a stream of curses that could only make Leigh smile. Now that was a healthy man’s reaction to waking up on a hard dirt floor with an aching skull.
But all too soon, the mournful mumbling began again. “I’m trying… I am, I’m trying… hang in there, Arch… I won’t… don’t worry…”
He continued with more of the same, and as Leigh continued to gently shush him, one word suddenly jumped to her attention.
“Harvey…”
“What, Lester?” she asked quickly. “What about Harvey?”
“He knows, Arch… He knows…” Lester’s hand flew up to his mouth, making his next words indecipherable. Leigh gently pulled the hand away.
“Lester,” Leigh asked, not at all certain he could hear her. “Do you know who hurt you?”
“Steal it!” his voice became suddenly clearer. For the first time his eyes opened fully and his gaze, though still unfocused, showed real fear.
“Don’t trust…” he said fiercely, “anyone!”
***
Leigh tapped her feet nervously on the carpet of the Brown’s sitting room. One of the women in Adith and Pauline’s bedroom was snoring like a freight train, but otherwise, the house was still and quiet as death. It was a metaphor Leigh could do without.
Emma, who could generally be counted on to remain calm in a crisis, had been near hysterical when she reached Lester’s side after having run across the backyard and creek in a nightgown, robe, and slippers. She couldn’t understand how he had gotten there, since he had been in bed asleep when she retired for the night. His fever had spiked again last evening, and she had dosed him up with over the counter meds and tucked him into bed early, worried that he might be coming down with pneumonia.
Had he been sleepwalking? Was he delirious with fever? Emma had had no other explanation to offer the EMTs or the police except that he might have gone to check on the stray dog. Why he would do that in the middle of the night while sick, however, she had no clue.
Leigh had deftly managed to avoid talking to the police in front of Emma, busying herself instead with running to the Brown’s house and fetching the woman’s purse and a change of clothes so that she could ride up front in the ambulance and accompany her husband to the hospital. Having something constructive to do had helped soothe Leigh’s own panic. She had overheard the EMTs describe not one, but two head wounds. She had also heard that Lester was running a fever of 103, which made it entirely possible that he had passed out first, then hit his head falling down, perhaps stumbling repeatedly.
It was also possible, she thought grimly, that he had been deliberately struck and then fell and hit his head, or even that he had been struck twice. But how could anyone tell? The stone walls of the cellar were roughhewn, and although the floor was primarily dirt, it had plenty of natural stones embedded in it. The only loose object she had seen near Lester was his own lightweight flashlight, but that was little comfort. If he had confronted someone, that person could have conked him on the head with their own, heavier flashlight, or a shovel, or any other convenient tool—and then fled with it in hand.
Leigh stared down at the phone numbers Emma had scribbled on a piece of notepaper borrowed from one of the policemen. The residents at the personal care home could not be left alone, and Leigh had agreed to call in one of the Browns’ regular relief staffers. But the first two on the list had not been available. One was already working another job, and the other was out of town and couldn’t make it back until afternoon. The third and last name on the list was Nora.
Leigh sighed. Nora was a nursing home aide by profession and had moonlighted for the Browns for years, even before she moved in next door. But Nora’s working overtime had come to a halt after the baby was born, and this morning seemed a particularly lousy time to resume it. Every time Leigh had opened her door to put her corgi in or out last night, she had heard little Cory screaming.
“Oh, I hope you don’t have to call Nora,” Emma had said worriedly. “She’s been so overtired lately. But if the others can’t make it, you’ll have to. I don’t like to bring in strangers.”
Leigh really had no choice. Emma’s directions had been explicit, and the home was a business that needed coverage by someone officially trained in direct care, which Leigh was not.
She picked up the Brown’s landline and dialed. The phone rang interminably, until at last an answering machine picked up, interrupted almost immediately by Nora herself. “Emma?” she said with alarm. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Leigh,” she corrected. “I’m really sorry to wake you up, but I’m afraid it’s an emergency. Emma’s on her way to the hospital with Lester, they need someone to stay at the home, and no one else is available until this afternoon. I know it’s—”
“Oh, no!” Nora exclaimed. “Of course I’ll come over. I knew Lester wasn’t right when I saw him yesterday! I told Emma he needed to slow down or he was going to ma
ke himself even sicker! Oh, my. Did his fever go up? Can’t he breathe?”
Leigh jumped in as soon as she could. Once Nora got going, the woman seemed able to speak without breathing herself.
“He got a head injury somehow,” Leigh offered simply. Whatever details Emma chose to share later, Emma could share herself. “He got out of bed with a fever and they don’t know if he passed out and fell down or what, but he was unconscious for a while, so—”
“A concussion?” Nora effused. “Oh, how awful. Emma must be frantic!”
“Well, she’s—”
“I’ll be over in three minutes,” Nora continued, her voice bouncing as if she were moving around as she talked, “Derrick’s home all day so he can watch the baby. Emma doesn’t like calling in the temps, and I don’t blame her, Pauline’s so tricky about her meds, and I swear she’s been teaching Adith how to—. Oh! Where are my… Did I not finish that load of laundry?! I thought I—”
“Nora?” Leigh broke in. “I’ll stay till you get here. Thanks.” Not meaning to be rude, but in no mood to listen to the sleep-deprived young mother’s stream of conscious narration of the dressing process, Leigh hung up. Perhaps, after taking care of a colicky baby nearly 24/7 with a reclusive husband whose helpfulness was questionable at best, spending a quiet day with three elderly people would be a relief.
She returned the phone to its cradle, then rose and walked to one of the back windows. Most of Archie’s place was out of view, thanks to the trees, but there were a few open spots visible near the tool shed, and she could see parts of the farm’s driveway. The ambulance had left a while ago, but the township police lingered still; she could see them intermittently as they wandered the grounds around the shed. As she watched, another sedan cruised down the lane. It was a unit from the county police force—most likely related to the missing persons investigation. She could only guess what the two teams of detectives would make of this latest mishap. Would the county begin to take the treasure-hunting angle seriously? Or would they focus on Lester’s fever and write the whole thing off as unrelated?