by B. E. Scully
Maybe ‘that angry white guy’ wasn’t just a white guy anymore. Maybe the whole damn world was angry at something or somebody.
Because no matter what Cal claimed, jumping out of your car and punching somebody in the face for cutting you off in traffic definitely does not qualify as “frustrated.” And it hadn’t escaped Rachel’s notice that the guy Cal assaulted looked Middle Eastern, and in fact had turned out to be a recent immigrant from Pakistan.
“Probably a green card hire for a programming position some privileged white male wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting,” Cal said after the charges had been dropped. Not long after that, Cal resigned from his job, but only to prevent being fired first. Then came the talk of leaving Los Angeles for a “more peaceful, sane place” like Oregon.
There was no question about the peaceful part. But Rachel wasn’t at all convinced about the “more sane” half of the bargain.
The drone of a chainsaw pulled Rachel out of her own thoughts—Cal, immersed in another of his never-ending “projects.” At least they’d gotten a contractor out to look at the main bathroom and sun porch. Next month a team was coming in to really get the remodeling going, and they’d go from there depending on how the money held out. Rachel would be back to work full-time by then and hopefully Cal’s freelance work would pick up.
Things were going to be okay. Rachel kept telling herself that, Cal kept saying it every time some new disaster cropped up—but so far, only Jackson seemed to believe it. And he’d been the one to get the death threat from Roy Crampton.
The day after Rachel had almost broken her neck being forced off the highway, they’d set out for Jackson’s daily walk the same as always. Only this time they took the public access path behind their house—and Roy Crampton’s. Cal had removed the barbed wire fence from the back of their property, and all they had to do was go down the short embankment and head toward the bridge. That is, once they made it passed the Crampus.
He was there, lurking beneath the apple tree as if he’d somehow known they were coming.
“See that great big tear right there?” the old man said, stepping forward and pointing to a freshly cut hole in his previously immaculate fence. “I can’t say for sure when I’ll get around to fixing that. Now, see those sheds over there?” Crampton pointed to the row of sheds by the highway, source of the mysterious grunting sounds. “That’s where the dogs live. Naturally, I sometimes let them run around the yard. Get some fresh air and exercise. A few of those dogs can be pretty territorial. Even downright savage sometimes, I’d say. Hunting dogs, you see. Not little showcase dogs like you’ve got there.”
Rachel leaned down and rubbed the spot at the base of Jackson’s curly tail, one of his favorite scratch-spots. But the little guy trembled beneath her hand as if sensing the threat across the fence.
“You see,” Crampton went on, “I’d sure hate to see anything happen to that dog of yours. But as long as you’re set on walking behind my property, I can’t guarantee that one of those dogs won’t be out in the yard sometime right when you’re happening by. And what with this fence down, that’s one dead dog right there,” Crampton said, jabbing one bony, gnarled finger in Jackson’s direction.
Cal couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you threatening us?”
“Nope. Just giving fair warning.”
“Well, thanks for that,” Cal said, “because I’m sure my lawyer will be glad to hear that you’re fully aware of the liability—potentially even the criminality—of deliberately tearing a hole in your fence so a vicious dog can break through.”
The old man chuckled. “Your lawyer from L.A., Mr. Gewd-man?” He drug out and distorted the pronunciation just like he’d done with “Cal-ee-forn-ia,” as if his neighbors’ last name was an obscene word.
“No, locally grown, just how the natives like it,” Cal said. “And if one of your savage mutts touches even one hair on my dog’s head, you won’t have to worry about anyone walking behind your property, because it won’t be your property anymore after I sue the living shit out of you. Have a nice day.”
Without another word, Cal had turned and marched passed Crampton’s house and down to the covered bridge. Only when he reached the canal pathway did he stop and turn around to make sure Rachel was behind him.
They took a long walk and purposefully didn’t mention Roy Crampton the entire time. On their way home, Cal picked Jackson up and carried him passed Crampton’s house, fully expecting a saliva-jawed killing machine to burst through the fence at any second. But neither the Crampus nor his dogs were anywhere in sight. While they’d been on their walk, though, he’d been busy nailing dozens of orange and black signs warning “KEEP OUT,” “BEWARE OF DOGS,” and “NO TRESPASSING ” to every available fence post.
But despite the signs, the Crampus’s spell had been broken. At first, only a few brave souls from the lavender farm walked behind the houses to get to the bridge. But when they didn’t disintegrate or burst into flames, more came.
Now the two Dell sisters used the access path to take a walk along the canal every day, right before dusk. In fact, a half hour earlier they’d passed beneath Rachel’s window, Mary’s garden clogs a flash of bright pink in the deepening shadows of dusk.
After that first time, Roy Crampton never reappeared in his back yard, although the hole in his fence stayed where it was. The blinds and curtains were always drawn shut in Crampton’s house now, but Rachel knew he had his own “observational post.” Once when she’d been on his side of the yard planting laurel bushes that would hopefully grow tall enough to block his view of their property, Rachel had spotted a tiny, almost imperceptible hole in the curtains on one of the back windows—one that just so happened to provide a view of both the canal pathway and the back corner of their yard. Sometimes sitting in her rocking chair watching the world go by, Rachel imagined the Crampus right next door at his own observational post, doing the same thing.
If so, then maybe he’d seen some of the same bizarre things she had.
It had started with the little old lady and the wiener dog. The woman’s name was Terry, and like Cal and Rachel, she walked her dog on the canal path nearly every day. She wasn’t a local, though—she drove out to the canal and parked her car along one of the pull-offs near the bridge just to walk her dog.
“It’s so peaceful out here,” Terry told them when they’d first stopped to introduce themselves. “It’s one of Roxie’s favorite spots,” she said, picking the dog up and rubbing its nose against hers. “Isn’t that right, Roxie? You’re such a good girl! She’s my baby—totally spoiled like a baby, too.”
“Oh, believe me, I know what you mean,” Rachel said as Jackson and Roxie got busy sniffing each other’s rear ends. “Ours is just the same.”
One day when Rachel was rocking away the afternoon with Jackson snoring beside her, she saw Terry and Roxie coming across the bridge. The pair turned left and started down the canal pathway. But then right across from Roy Crampton’s place, Terry stopped and stood staring over at the flat gray house as if looking for someone.
The longer Terry stood there transfixed on the Crampus’s house, the more anxious Rachel got. “Come on, move it along,” she whispered. Beside her, Jackson stirred in his sleep.
But Terry didn’t move along. Instead she bent down to Roxie, only instead of petting her like she usually did, she picked the tiny brown dog up by the scruff of the neck and started slamming her against the gravel pathway.
Rachel stood up and went to the window. Jackson, now fully awake, sat up and cocked his head sideways in curious-dog pose. On the canal, Terry picked Roxie up again and slammed her down once, twice, and then one more time before Rachel finally opened the window and yelled, “Stop it, Terry! What the hell are you doing?!”
But Terry was too far away to hear her. Rachel was about to go downstairs and chase the rotten old woman away from the dog if she had to, but just as suddenly as she’d started, Terry let the dog go. She stood there stupid
ly looking down at the leash in her hand like a woman waking up from a terrible dream she couldn’t quite remember.
Terry bent down to the dog again, and Rachel held her breath. But this time she rubbed behind Roxie’s ears and gave the frightened, bewildered pup frenzied kisses on the snout. Then she stood up, looked both ways up and down the pathway, and rushed back to her car.
Rachel never saw Terry and Roxie again.
A few days later, a young couple with a little boy had been walking along the path. The little boy was running around while his parents kept a watchful eye on him—that is, until they walked passed Roy Crampton’s house.
Unlike Terry, they didn’t stop and stare. Instead, the couple began walking so swiftly that the little boy immediately fell behind. They didn’t look back or even seem to notice that he was no longer with them. It was almost as if they wanted to leave him behind.
The canal was about six-feet deep and three times as wide, with huge, jagged rocks forming steep embankments on both sides. On a particularly sweltering day when Rachel had climbed down and dipped her foot into the water, she had been shocked not just by the ice-bucket coldness, but by how strong and fast the currents were moving. The canal looked much more placid from her upstairs window.
Which is why she’d been so alarmed when the little boy had begun climbing onto one of the rocks.
Rachel jumped out of her chair and stood frozen at the window. She couldn’t get downstairs in time, and now the little boy had lost one of his shoes, it had gotten caught on the rocks and was tumbling down into the swirling waters and he was going to be next unless she could call out loud enough—
But then the couple cleared Roy Crampton’s property. They both turned around at the same instant and the woman let out a shriek. They went rushing toward the boy, snatching him off the rocks and hurrying away just like Terry had done.
Rachel began watching the canal every day. Most people didn’t pay any attention to Roy Crampton’s property, but every so often someone would stop right where they stood and stare uneasily across the canal at the flat gray house. Others picked up their pace and kept their heads down until they passed by, as if avoiding a foul odor. Some would get near the property and then suddenly turn around and walk the other way. Rachel began to think some people just sensed something off about the place—something not quite right. And sometimes the not-quite-rightness reached right across the canal and took hold of them, too.
There’s something inherently evil about that place, Rachel often thought, even though she didn’t believe in things like inherent evil. And we unleashed it. We broke the spell. We let it loose.
Then she would go downstairs to make lunch in her bright, sunny kitchen and laugh at herself for being so foolish. After lunch she and Cal would take Jackson for a walk, right behind the Crampus’s place like always. No inherent evil, no fiery flames of hell.
Just the same, Rachel was one of those people who picked up her pace and kept her head down until she’d cleared Roy Crampton’s property.
The drone of the chainsaw engine stopped. Apart from Mary and Mabel, Rachel hadn’t seen anyone else on the canal pathway all day. The summer season was winding down, and soon the rains would begin. When Cal and Rachel had made the decision to move to Oregon, all they heard about was the rain. But so far, apart from the nights that would come on cool and fast as soon as the sun dipped in the sky, the weather was as hot and dry as Southern California.
“Sometimes it only rains once or twice all summer,” Mary told her on one of their visits to the farm. “Sometimes not at all. Rain doesn’t come back again until late September, even early October in dry years, but don’t you worry—once it comes, it comes to stay. Don’t you worry—you’ll have more rain than you know what to do with before too long!”
It was almost dark outside, and Rachel figured she should get something started for dinner. She was about to go downstairs when she saw Mary and Mabel coming back down the canal path. She sat there a while longer and watched the two sisters, Mary with her long, strong sides and the shorter, plumper Mabel scurrying along beside her. Mary was making severe, dramatic gestures with her hands, talking all the while as Mabel kept slowly shaking her head back and forth. The two sisters were at it again, probably arguing about the lavender farm.
They crossed the covered bridge and started back along the pathway behind the houses.
Like Rachel, the sisters always hurried passed Roy Crampton’s place, but today for some reason they stopped right behind it. Rachel could just hear Mary’s raised voice even though she couldn’t make out what she was saying.
It was even darker now, almost too dark to see. Rachel stood up and was about to go downstairs when she caught something out of the corner of her eye—a quick blur, an unexpected burst of movement as something—someone?—moved toward the canal in one quick flash. And was it her imagination, or had she heard the heavy splash of something (one) going into the water?
Rachel went to the window and strained to see through the now ink-blackness of a moonless night. The sisters were hurrying down the pathway now back toward the farm—but that wasn’t quite right. Only one sister was hurrying down the pathway. The huddled figure—it was too dark for Rachel to figure out which sister it was—scurried beneath Rachel’s window and disappeared out of sight.
Racing downstairs and grabbing a flashlight from the kitchen cupboard, Rachel ran outside and down the pathway until she reached the spot where Mary and Mabel had been arguing. The Crampus would go wild if he saw her snooping around behind his house this late at night, but she didn’t care. She stood there aiming the flashlight beam up and down the canal, but all she saw was the black, swirling water.
Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her. Both sisters must have come back down the pathway. She must have only seen one because of the darkness.
I’ve got to stop spending so much time up in that damn chair, Rachel told herself, starting back home. Don’t want to end up going crazy like old Crampus—
The beam of her flashlight caught something caught on the rocks at the edge of the canal. Rachel bent down to pick it up, but she knew what it was before she even reached it—a bright pink gardening clog with yellow butterflies all over it.
4
The apartment buildings and store fronts first gave way to modest one-story homes with vinyl siding and pick-up trucks in the driveways. A few miles more and the homes lost ground to increasingly long stretches of farm land and open fields, which then gave way to the mountains. The Goodmans’ house was at the last scattered edge of civilization before the pine trees took over entirely, a fact not lost on homicide detectives Monte Martinez and Cassie Shirdon.
“Is this even in our jurisdiction?” Shirdon asked, rechecking the address.
“Still part of the city out here, hard as that is to believe,” Martinez said. “That’s one of the things I love so much about this place—less than thirty miles out of town and you’re in the boondocks. I could live way out like this, Cass, I really could.”
Shirdon smiled and turned the air-conditioner up. “‘It is my belief, Watson, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.’”
Martinez gave his partner a sideways glance. “What?”
“It’s from a Sherlock Holmes story. See, Holmes believed that being surrounded by other people is what helps keep most people in line—the pressure of public opinion. But in the country, with no one around to even know what you do let alone criticize or condemn it, all bets are off.”
“Well, maybe that was true in Sherlock’s time, but the only public opinion that matters these days is whether or not you can get a tweet to go viral. Sorry, Holmes, but this Watson will put his bets on the countryside any day.”
Shirdon didn’t doubt her partner’s sudden interest in rural living, but she suspected it had more to do with what had happened to his wife recently than to the actual realities of living wi
th chickens and septic systems.
Three months ago, not long after they’d come off a particular nasty case that had ended with four dead young people and a media frenzy to go along with them, Martinez had gotten a call at the station one afternoon. Shirdon hadn’t paid too much attention until she heard Martinez ask, “Is she all right? Just tell me she’s all right, dammit!”
She looked up and saw that her partner’s face had turned an alarming shade of gray. He had a death-grip on his phone, and Shirdon began to prepare for the possibility that he might faint. With a six-inch, fifty-pound size difference between Shirdon and her partner, catching him would be no easy feat.
But Martinez was out of his chair before he’d even finished his phone call. “I’ve got to go. Jen’s been—” He stopped, as if unable to bring himself to even say the words let alone believe them. “Jen’s been attacked. She’s not hurt too badly. More shook up than anything. Still, I’ve got to go. She’s at the hospital, and I’ve got to pick her up. I’ve got to help her go over her police statement. I’ve got to make sure she gave as accurate a description as possible and then run it against—”
“Monte, one thing at a time.”
“Right. Got it—the hospital.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, no, I’ve got it.”
“Okay, I’ll stop by later to check on things—”
But Martinez was already out the door.
Later that night, Shirdon found him sitting in the dark in his living room with nothing but a half-empty bottle of whiskey for company.
“Right in front of our house, Cass,” he said before she could even turn on the lights and pour herself a glass. “Right in front of our goddamn house. She was coming in with a bag of groceries and some goddamn scumbag attacked her right in front of our own goddamn house! Tried to grab her purse and then threw her to the ground when she wouldn’t let go. What if one of the kids had been with her? Or what if it had been one of the kids by themselves—Hannah, a fifteen-year-old girl! What if the goddamn mailperson hadn’t come up the drive when she did and scare the son-of-a-bitch off before—”