Cold Dead Past

by John Curtis

  Abe took him by the arm and led him back the way they’d come.

  "Come on with me and we’ll have a talk in my back room. I should have some stuff more along the lines of what you’re looking for."

  Abe noticed the clerk still standing next to Jay and shook his head impatiently.

  "Don’t you know who this is?"

  "Ummmm…no?"

  Jay was startled as Abe made a sound like the buzzer on a game show.

  "Wrong answer. Whose book is it we have featured in the window. Whose book are you reading?"

  He pulled the copy of "Raven’s End" out of the boy’s hand, flipped it around, and held it so that the jacket photo was about an inch away from his nose. The clerk's head jerked back so he could get a good focus on it. His gaze shifted back and forth between the jacket photo and Jay.

  "Oh, man. You’re the guy."

  He took his book back from Abe and then grabbed a ballpoint pen from his back pocket. When he held them out to Jay, all the author-cum-pack mule could do was nod at the stack of books in his arms and shrug.

  "I’d be glad to sign it for you. I’m just a tad busy."

  "Oh, yeah. Sorry."

  Abe turned to Jay and said, "You see what I have to put up with." And then to the clerk, "Go and find another poor customer to mislead. Or mayhaps we have another best-selling author roaming around lost!"

  The boy scanned the shop. "Where?"

  Abe sighed, exasperated.

  "Well, dust or something. I don’t just pay you to sit on your ass and read all day."

  The boy’s face turned red. Jay could hear him mutter something under his breath. "When you remember to pay me at all."

  The clerk wandered in the general direction of the counter as Abe pulled back the curtain and waved Jay on.

  Once through the curtain and in the back room, he turned to Jay and said, "He’s not so bad, really. He’s just a little too much into the merchandise."

  Jay nodded to the heavy load in his arms. "Could you?"

  "Oh. Sorry." Abe rubbed the base of his spine. "Bad back, you know, otherwise I would have helped you with that. Why don’t you set them on the table?"

  Jay grunted and walked over to a large, heavy oak table in the center of the room, where he unceremoniously dropped the books. While he rubbed his arms trying to get some circulation flowing again, Abe headed over to a metal cabinet set against one of the walls and unlocked the doors. Inside it were more books which looked much older than the ones from the front of the shop.

  The room's layout didn’t look anything like he would have expected. It was almost a quarter of the size of the sales floor and much more spacious. Well-lit by a large crystal chandelier that hung over the table in the center of the room, with a corner delimited as a separate space by a large oriental rug. An overstuffed leather sofa sat at an angle there in front of a television.

  Against the back wall, next to the alley door, was a large kneehole desk upon which sat what looked like a brand new computer monitor and keyboard. Along the wall opposite the gray metal cabinet was a long, low counter covered in cardboard boxes and packing materials with more locked cabinets underneath.

  Abe selected a book about the size of one of those big, fat family Bibles everyone seemed to get conned into buying. He slung it under his arm as he reached down and pulled a cardboard box out of a bottom cabinet.

  He gripped the book tightly with both hands and shoved the box ahead of him with his feet as he made his way back to the table. With every kick, Jay could hear the clink of glass against glass. Abe slammed the book down on the table and took a deep breath as he sat in a chair opposite him. Jay could see that it had a thick leather cover with some symbols deeply embossed on it in red and gold. A large metal clasp held it tightly shut.

  Abe motioned with his hand as he said, "Please, please. Have a seat."

  Jay slipped into the other chair and pulled himself up close to the table, expectant. Abe searched his face for a moment and then bent down and reached into the cardboard box next to his feet. There was more clinking and rattling. The way he fished around in it reminded Jay of one of those claw machines at the carnival; the ones where a person put in a quarter and tried to pick up a "valuable" prize like a sheet metal harmonica or souvenir ashtray.

  When his hand reappeared, it was holding two of those small liquor bottles they give to passengers on airline flights.

  "You know, you look like you could use a drink."

  He held out his hand, dangling the bottles between his fingers.

  "Rum or tequila?"

  "Isn’t it a bit early for a drink?"

  "Never too early when it’s for medicinal purposes and believe me when I say it looks like you could use a little medicine."

  "Rum, then."

  Abe tossed the rum bottle to Jay and proceed to unscrew the cap on the tequila. He drank it down in one quick gulp. Then he took the empty bottle and gave it an overhand toss, hitting the wastepaper basket next to his desk with the finesse and skill of a professional basketball player. He reached back into the box and fished out another bottle as Jay took a swallow from his.

  "I got these from a guy who thought that his mother-in-law had put a curse on him. A payment for services rendered."

  "Was he cursed?"

  "Nahhhhh. But he did end up dying six months later- bad liver."

  Jay took another look around the room.

  "I never would have expected to find a place like this around here. It looks…"

  "I know. Out of place, anachronistic. That stuff on the shelves out front is more for show, really. I do most of my business over the internet and that’s mostly high-end collectibles." He pats the book on the table in front of him. "Like this."

  "I moved up here from New York a couple of years ago, kind of semi-retired. When I bought the building, it was more for a place to store my goods. The town council said I had to actually open a shop, though. I have the really tasty stuff in these locked cabinets and in my place upstairs."

  He downed the rest of his bottle, repeated the shot into the wastepaper basket, and asked, "Now what’s your problem?"

  Jay had begun to feel warm from the liquor and took one more drink to finish his own bottle.

  "For a while now, I’ve been having the same dream. Every night. It’s about something that happened when I was twelve. A friend was killed in an accident. I thought it might mean something. Something more than just a regular dream."

  "Well, that kind of dream can be pretty common, especially if you are feeling any kind of guilt. Or should be feeling some."

  "That’s what I would have thought, but it’s not just that. There is something else."

  Abe pulled an ungainly, large set of keys from his pocket and began fingering one made of brass that was particularly old and worn.

  "Is that the reason you’re back in town?"

  "No," replied jay. "I’m here for a funeral."

  "Well, then, again, what’s the problem?"

  "The dreams I was having, they changed."

  "Changed how?"

  Jay shifted uneasily in his seat. Abe pulled another bottle from his box and slid it across the table. He clenched it in his fist and absently rubbed the cap with his thumb as he continued.

  "When I got into town- you’ll think I’m nuts- but the first night, it was the night that man was killed in the alley. I saw it happen."

  "You were there?"

  "No. And I know how this sounds, but I dreamed about it."

  Abe nodded his head and said, "Son, if I didn’t believe that the insane were possible, I wouldn’t be here to listen to you today. You’re in my bailiwick now."

  "And it wasn’t like any other dream I’d ever had. It was as if I were seeing things through someone else’s eyes. Like I was being carried along as a passenger. As if I were in someone else’s head. Seeing what they’re seeing, feeling what they’re feeling."

  Abe leaned back in his chair and scratched at the nest of hairs pouring from t
he unbuttoned neck of his shirt.

  "Well- and don’t take this the wrong way, but I have experience with this kind of thing- you could have just heard about this thing and incorporated that into your dreaming. It happens."

  "No. It happened before I saw it on the news."

  Abe pulled another bottle from the box, downed it in one go, and said, "Tell me more."

  Jay unscrewed the cap from his bottle and drank it down as he recounted his memories of the murder in the alley, his conversation with Gary about Jack’s death, and his own trip out to investigate the scene.

  "Well, now," said Abe, after he’d finished. "That’s more like it. This sounds like something I can sink my teeth into."

  "So you think that there might be something in these books that could help me?"

  Abe laughed. "In these? No."

  Jay gave him a questioning look.

  "These, I just needed someone to carry for me. I told you I have a bad back. Seriously, though, where are you staying?"

  "The Inn," he answered as he checked his watch. "I have to be somewhere."

  Abe walked him to the front door and as Jay opened it to leave, he gripped his hand firmly.

  "Why don’t you try to get some sleep tonight. I’ll work on this over the weekend and give you a call on Monday. Maybe I’ll be able to dig something up on all this by then."

  "Okay. Thanks."

  A frown came across Abe’s face as he fell into deep thought mode.

  "And let me know if you have any more of those dreams. It’s very important, I think."

  Abe stood at the door and watched until Jay had walked out of sight. He picked up a dust rag lying on the floor and flung it at the boy behind the counter.

  "Get to work!"

  CHAPTER 15

  Jay sat quietly as Meg drove him back to the Inn after dinner that night. He’d sprung for the works up at the ski lodge. When they pulled into the parking lot, it was obvious that it would be expensive. It was filled with Benzes, BMWs, and all manner of expensive motorized status symbols. The worst part of it was that he hadn’t been able to enjoy the meal. He had sat, mostly silent, working his way on autopilot through each course.

  Now, it had begun to snow again and the only sound in the car was the whir of the defroster and the brush of the windshield wipers.

  "Okay, I can’t stand it anymore," said Meg. "What’s the matter?"

  Jay turned to face her.

  "What? Oh, nothing."

  "Don’t give me that. You hardly said a word during dinner and you just picked at the food."

  "It’s nothing. Really. Just that I have a lot on my mind."

  "Is it about me? Did I do something?"

  "No. No. I’ve just had some stuff happening in my life that I have to get worked out."

  Jay turned away and stared out the passenger side window. "Well, I’m glad that’s all it was and not the bill for that meal. I was just joking last night when I said you owed me a meal at the best place in town."

  When her comment was met with silence, she reached out and let her hand rest on his knee.

  "Seriously, though. You can tell me. Maybe you would even feel better talking about whatever it is."

  As they pulled up in front of the hotel, he took her hand in his and looked into her eyes.

  "Listen. It’s something that I don’t feel comfortable talking about right now, and anyway, I’m afraid that you might think that I’m crazy."

  "It’s happening again, isn’t it?"

  Jay leaned over and gave her a kiss as his free hand unlatched the car door.

  "I’ve come a long way. Really, it’ll be fine Meg."

  He gave her another kiss before stepping out onto the curb and stood watching as she drove off into the snowy night. He wasn’t ready to share with her yet. He had just found her again. He didn’t want to take a chance on losing her the same way he had the first time.

  CHAPTER 16

  The next morning, Gary was busy at the other end of the valley. Someone driving back to their cabin had heard a car horn blaring from down in a gully next to the road.

  One of the other deputies had been the first one on the scene and right away he had called Gary. When he worked his way down the steep, slippery incline, he discovered why. The deputy had found a girl, around nineteen, covered in blood. He thought that she’d just been seriously injured in the crash, but when he pulled her back from where she lay up against the steering wheel, what he saw sent him to his knees, vomiting.

  Gary thought that it might have made him queasy, too, if he hadn’t seen this before. He told the ambulance crew not to worry about hurrying to the scene and put in a call to the coroner and his boss.

  Franklin was sitting half in the car, checking out the corpse, and a deputy was busy taking flash photos of the scene when Sheriff Neame finally arrived more than an hour later. He sent another deputy sliding on his ass down the side of the gully to inform them of his presence. Gary patted the doctor on his back to get his attention.

  "Doc, the boss is here."

  Franklin nodded and went back to work as Gary headed back up to the road. "Typical," he thought. The lazyass bastard couldn’t be bothered to actually come down himself.

  Gary was out of breath by the time he reached the sheriff’s side. Neame was a squat little man with beady eyes and a bulbous nose covered in gin blossoms.

  Gary liked to joke that the only reason he’d gotten the promotion to chief deputy was because he was the only person who could stand Neame's breath, which smelled of beer, salami, and some other nasty stink that reminded everyone of a garbage dump in high summer.

  There were rumors that even his dentist had finally given up and now Neame contented himself with chewing Altoids all day. The peculiarly strong mints had met their match.

  "So what’s the story?" asked Neame.

  Gary lit up a smoke and replied, "We’ve got another situation, boss."

  The sheriff gave out a low whistle and stood thinking for a moment. Gary had seen that look before. Neame was more a politician than a cop. One could almost see the gears turning in his head, working the numbers. He’d been sheriff for more than twenty years. He not only knew where all the bodies were buried, he’d probably planted a few of them himself. Why else would the mayor and town council have put up with him all this time?

  "Did you call Gene? I don’t want this here any longer than it has to be."

  Ahhh, thought Gary. That’s what that thinking was all about. He doesn’t want any of those richies up on the mountain to find out this wasn’t Happy Valley.

  "You know how he is," he said. "It’s a county job. He’s not going to hurry over here on a Sunday morning. Especially with this weather."

  The snow had picked up and was blowing across the road like a desert sandstorm.

  "Well," said Neame, "I don’t think she’s gonna care none. Just get this cleaned up before anyone can see it, ya hear?"

  "Yeah, boss."

  "What time did it start icing up?"

  "About two. Her parents assumed she was out with Jerry Harkness all night. They didn’t miss her until around six this morning."

  The sheriff took a look around at the icy, snow-covered pavement.

  "Shit. Well, it looks like she was in a hurry to get somewhere. Not much more to it than that, savvy? Let me know what the doc says and I’ll take care of notifying her parents."

  Neame didn’t bother to wait for an answer. Gary knew what he meant, but what the sheriff didn’t yet realize was that this couldn’t be handled. It was too big for that. As Neame headed off up the road toward town, he passed Gene arriving with his tow truck. Gene pulled up next to Gary at the side of the road and rolled down his window.

  "Sorry it took me so long. Where’s the car?"

  Gary pointed to the gully and said, "Down there. And can you lower your line down to the EMTs? They need some help getting the body back up here."

  He could see Gene’s jaw set tight. It was something he always did when h
e was pissed off. He whipped the truck around so that the back end was about six feet short of the edge of the road. He jumped down out of the cab and headed around the back to begin feeding out line.

  When Gene reached the edge, he yelled down to the EMTs.

  "Are you guys ready down there?"

  One of the men standing over the body, which had been bagged up and placed on their stretcher, waved back.

  "Now make sure you get it nice and snug on that thing. I wouldn’t want to spill any guts all over the place or nothin’."

  He chuckled as he played the line down the slope. When it reached the bottom, Franklin and the deputy who’d been taking pictures used it to brace their climb back up to the road. The deputy stayed with Gene while the doctor headed over to talk to Gary. He’d gotten mud all over his hands and his pants and coat were soiled and wet. Under the half-buttoned coat, he was still wearing a pajama top.

  "Jesus. I didn’t volunteer to do this kind of shit. If I wanted to dig around in the dirt, I would have joined the Peace Corps."

  Gary grinned.

  "You want some coffee?"

  Franklin met his grin with a grim face and a curt nod.

  They headed over to Gary’s cruiser and he leaned in and pulled out a thermos and travel mug. He filled the cup from the top of the thermos, handed it to the doctor, and then filled up the mug for himself. Franklin took a sip and looked off toward where Gene and the deputy stood, working the body up the embankment.

  "I never thought that I’d see anything like this. Just like Charlie. Course, I’ll need to get her in for a look."

  He took another drink of coffee and turned back to Gary.

  "Oh, you’re gonna love this," said Gary. "He thinks that we can keep this quiet. Any chance of giving him what he wants?"

  The doctor rolled his eyes and looked heavenward.

  "You tell him to kiss my ass. You can quote me on that. This isn’t some kid getting liquored up and bumping into a pedestrian with his daddy’s Cadillac."

  Gary laughed.

  "I thought you’d react that way. I’ll make sure he hears it just the way you said it."

  "Listen, Gary. Really. There’s got to be something here to tell us who did it. You and the boys had better start keeping a sharp lookout for anything unusual. And I know it’s a real stretch, but push Neame to get people to lock their doors and stay in late at night."