Cold Dead Past

by John Curtis

  The twins weren’t exactly Jack-Be-Nimble and Jack-Be-Quick. Even Gene couldn’t miss their clumsy attempts to spy on his activities in the kitchen. Roy had bumped the side of the house right beneath the kitchen window. When Troy had called him a "dumbass", the sound had carried through the single-pane glass. Gene had spied them as they scooted out of the range of the glare from the single bulb he kept burning over the kitchen table. That's what had sent him running to the front hallway.

  The fact that he had switched on the lights as Gary had rung the front door bell just added to the confusion that ensued. When he walked up to the window and looked out, he saw Gary and the sheriff approaching, Gary with his gun drawn and a determined look on his face, the sheriff with his bigass shotgun gripped tightly in his hammy fists as he stumbled up onto the porch close behind.

  All he could say was, "What the fuck?" The reaction to reach for the old pushbutton light switch on the wall next to the door was instinctual. Now they knew he was aware of their presence. Improvisation was never one of his strong points.

  Once he’d lost the advantage of surprise, the fight or flight response took over. Gene, when faced with a weapon of any kind, traditionally chose flight. His head filled with the buzzing of a million angry bees as he turned and ran back toward the kitchen. Loose edges of stained and faded wallpaper flapped in his wake as he set a sweaty record for the longest time for distance.

  Fortunately for Gene, Gary was blinded for a moment by the lights. The startled sheriff had jumped back about three feet from where he had been standing. His shotgun fell to his side and the barrel dragged along the rotted wooden flooring of the porch, where it settled, jammed into a hole.

  He was still blinking his eyes and trying to wrestle his weapon loose when Gary hollered, "Shit! He’s running!" Gary kicked in the door. There was a loud crash as it hit an old oak hall tree and shattered its beveled mirror into a hundred kaleidoscopic knives of light.

  Gary ground the pieces of mirror beneath his feet as he entered the house. With his adrenaline pumping, the smells of the house hit him in a rush. Motor oil and sweat. Fried food. Mildew, dust and… and something foul. Something he was unable to describe in words.

  A slam and crash came from deeper into the house. Neame came trundling through the door and gave Gary a little swat on the rump with the butt of his gun. "Wake up," he grunted. "Which way did he go?"

  Gary forgot the odors and lasered back in on his purpose. There were more sounds of objects hitting the floor as he answered, tersely, "Out the back."

  On his run through the house, Gene had smashed his way through piles of old magazines and newspapers and upended chairs in an effort to slow down his pursuers. The slam and crash Gary had heard was the seven-foot-tall grandfather clock that had sat, undisturbed and uncleaned, in the dining room next to the kitchen door for the past thirty-five years.

  The obstructions gave Gene time to escape out the kitchen door, where the Dexters had taken up their favorite position, ambush. They were set up behind a shed that gave them a clear field of vision to the back of the house across the old weed bed that passed for a back yard.

  When Gene flew through the door and down the steps, they rushed him, crouched low as if they were still in the line on the playing field. Troy reached him first, slugging him in the ribs with the butt of his shotgun. Gene spun around and grimaced in pain. Roy followed up by punching him in the kidneys, forcing him to all fours in the deep snow.

  Together, they gave him the coup de grace with a couple of kicks to his groin and head, cutting open a nasty gash on his forehead. Gene rolled into a fetal position and reached for his testicles. When Gary and the sheriff came on the scene, Gene was on his back and the Dexters were about to go to work on him with their batons.

  Gary firmly ordered, "Stop right there! Now!"

  The Dexters backed off. Sweat ran down their cheeks and they both had the same grin on their faces. It was the one they had after sending an opposing quarterback to the hospital. Gene groaned once more and curled up into a ball on the ground.

  "What’d I do? What’d I do?"

  The sheriff raised the butt of his gun as if to get a blow in himself and retorted, "You know what you did you son of a bitch. You’re gonna get the drip. The final solution."

  "You’re under arrest for murder," said Gary, matter-of-factly.

  As Gary tried to roll Gene over, his arms began squirming and writhing like a high-tension line that had fallen across a wet road. His heart was beating like he was a hamster in the hand of God.

  "I ain’t done nothin’! You must be crazy!"

  Gary ratcheted the cuffs into place on his wrists and gave a nod to the Dexters, who pulled Gene to his feet. Blood flowed from a cut on his lip, tasting like metallic acid. He spit a gob of it out onto the snow.

  "This is false arrest! This is po-leece brutality! This is nuts! I’m gonna sue all your asses! I’m gonna own you!"

  He shook loose from the Dexters and the sheriff slugged him in the gut. He doubled over and fell back onto his knees.

  "We can do this the hard way, if you want," said Neame. "Don’t think anyone’s gonna give you any sympathy after what you’ve done." He turned to Gary and said, "I’m going on into town in the car with him."

  "Okay." Gary nodded toward Troy. "I’ll keep him here with me. We’ll see if we can find anything on a preliminary search of the house."

  The sheriff shoved Gene forward with the butt of his gun and walked him to the waiting cruiser, Roy in tow. Gary turned to Troy and said, "Let’s do it."

  A few hours later, Neame returned to the house to find Gary sitting on the front stoop alone, smoking a cigarette.

  "I thought you gave those things up?"

  "I did. Just every once in a while. When I feel the need."

  "So what did you dig up?"

  Gary blew out a long puff. The smoke mixed with the condensed vapor in the chill air and seemed to hang like an ash-colored halo round his ears. "Not a goddamned thing."

  CHAPTER 22

  The ride back to the station in Neame’s car was a long one. Several times he made like he was about to say something, only to screw his lips up in a sort of a pout. Gary had seen it before when his boss was trying to think out a problem that was just a little bit beyond his grasp.

  Finally, Neame said, "And you didn’t find anything in the son of a bitch’s house?"

  Gary replied, "We looked everywhere. If he’s hiding something, he’s found a damn good spot."

  "Well, we’re going to need more than just that patch from a pair of coveralls. We’re going to need those bite marks."

  Gary ground the palms of his hands into his eyes and yawned. As much as he hated to admit it, the boss was right. Any half-way decent lawyer, even one from the public defender’s office, could make a good case that the coveralls had been stolen or even donated to the Salvation Army. That made it plausible that someone else had committed the crimes.

  People on a jury in this town would much prefer to believe something like that than that one of their own, who had lived in the community his entire life, would be capable of the types of things that would come out once all the evidence was presented in a public courtroom. On top of that, anyone who knew Gene would automatically discount the idea that he was even smart enough to pull something like this off. They would have to find other evidence linking him to the scenes.

  "What’s he say about the patch?" asked Gary.

  Neame braked the cruiser as they came to a crest in the road.

  "Nothing. He just yammers about his rights and how we can’t arrest him ‘cause he didn’t do anything. I’m gonna grill him myself in the morning. You sure that you don’t wanna get some sleep?"

  "Later. A couple of the crime lab boys from the state police were supposed to go over the girl’s car today. I want to be there when they get finished."

  "I think I should tell you," said Neame, nervously, "there’s been more press show up in town."

  When the cr
uiser pulled up in front of the station, Gary could see that Neame was a master of understatement. What was once an infestation of news agencies was now a plague of what, in Haddonfield, amounted to biblical proportions.

  No longer was it just a few local stations from Albany and some reporters from regional newspaper and radio. There were also vans with call letters from as far away as New York and Buffalo with their satellite uplinks primed and raring to go. A small group of reporters was scuttling along, pacing the sidewalk, hands-free sets dangling from their lapels like some sort of trailing antennae.

  If the local reporters were like cockroaches Neame could stamp out with his size 12EEE’s, then the ones from New York and the networks were like mantises, ready to bite his head off.

  He wasn’t anywhere near equipped to deal with them. He showed it in the quaver in his voice as he asked, "Listen, I was thinkin’… You’ve been handling this case, mostly. You think you can ride herd on the media situation?"

  The old bastard wanted to put Gary on the hotseat. If he worked it right, he could take the credit when Gene was convicted. If the case blew up in their faces, then Gary would take the blame and the sheriff wouldn’t suffer too much political damage. Slick. Clean.

  Gary saw Troy Dexter talking to a reporter from a television station in front of the shop next door.

  "Someone’s got a big mouth. I’m going to fix that right away."

  They cruised on down the block, slowly, and pulled around to the lot at the back of the building.

  As Neame shut off the ignition, he turned to Gary, the pale yellow whites of his eyes moist and gooey. "You know I’ll take care of you, right? Haven’t I always?"

  "Sure, boss. But I’m gonna want a lot more than a plaque to put on my wall this time. I want some of those changes we talked about six months ago. You know, the ones you said were a good idea but never seemed to make it past the council?"

  Neame’s mouth screwed up into an angry, fuzzy pucker and his eyes closed to slits, crinkly at the corners. "Sure, boy, anything you say. But you’re gonna have to learn what it takes to get what you want. You think I’m some dumb shit hack who doesn’t deserve to be the sheriff. Well, you’re gonna find out what it takes and you’re gonna see it all in a different light, my son."

  As Gary opened the door and stepped out of the car, a wide grin came to his face. Years of making himself indispensible were about to pay off. The first thing Gary did in his new position as press liaison was head to the front of the station and key in the mike on the communications console.

  Outside, Troy and Roy were still standing out on the sidewalk in front of the station, hoping more reporters wanted their expert opinions on the case. Gary’s voice came over their radios.

  "Units R-5 and R-6, 10-22 inside the station. Immediately!"

  It took them a minute to work through the ten codes in their head before they reached the one in question. It all sounded so official, but all 10-22 was telling them, basically, was to get their asses inside in a hurry. As soon as they were in the door, Gary nodded to the sheriff, whose face flushed a deep crimson.

  "Okay, you stupid shit sticks! Who told you to talk to any reporters?"

  Their mouths moved, but no sounds came out.

  "You know, you wanna be deputies so bad. I think you should really be working your way up. Learnin’ the operation from the bottom. Mebbe this case is a bit too much for you and you need a little more basic police experience."

  He pointed toward the cellblock at the rear of the station. "I want you boys to police the prisoner holding area. There’s a cabinet back there. I want you to get into it. You’re gonna find yourself some toothbrushes. Now down in the bottom, you’re gonna find some Lysol. Now I want you to take that stuff. I want you to get down on your hands and knees. I want you to put a little Lysol on your brushes and I want you to scrub the insides of those sinks and toilets. And I want them spotless. Savvy?"

  The Dexters visibly slumped. It was as if someone had taken a fork to a balloon at a picnic. As they shuffled off, Neame turned to Gary. "Okay. You’re on, son."

  Neame hiked up his gunbelt to just under his gut and braced himself for a confrontation with the media. Gary just pursed his lips and let the sheriff waddle out the door onto the front steps ahead of him.

  The reporters noticed them almost immediately. They were bathed in the unnatural burn of a dozen television lights. One of the television reporters shoved her way to the front and waved her microphone as if it were an oversized, threatening phallus.

  "Sheriff Neame," she yelled, "Is there any truth to the reports that you have captured a suspect?"

  Almost as soon as she could blurt out her question, she was shoved aside by a burly man with a hand-held tape recorder. His stained parka bore a crinkled press pass that looked like it had been run through the wash. It identified him as a reporter for the local paper.

  "Sheriff! Parker with the Sentinel. Is it true that there is some sort of cult of cannibals loose in town?"

  Neame was taken aback by this question and Gary knew what his response would be almost before he did.

  "What kinda bullshit question is that?"

  Gary’s hand whipped out and pulled Neame back by his belt. He whispered in a commanding voice, "Shut the fuck up!"

  The sheriff’s jaws clamped tight as Gary stepped in-between him and the reporters. Gary's answer was directed at the newspaper reporter. "Now, any speculation like that is just irresponsible and could only serve to frighten people. If none of you have any questions that are more intelligent than that, this news conference is over."

  He pushed Neame ahead of him through the door and once they were safely inside, he turned to him and said, "You can’t talk to them like that. Just let me handle it from now on and keep your big mouth shut."

  Neame wasn’t used to being ordered around and snarled, "Well, what the fuck kinda question was that?"

  "Listen, why don’t you head on home? I’ll catch a quick nap in the conference room."

  "Let me know as soon as the state boys have their report ready. I want something to use when I interrogate that bastard."

  Gary knew he wouldn’t have to worry about any trouble from Neame. Not as long as the sheriff’s mind was working on ways to take out the near-disaster he’d just had on Gene.

  "Sure thing, boss," he said with a smile.

  CHAPTER 23

  Jay's sleep wasn’t peaceful. It was filled with nightmares that alternated between dark, surrealistic images of that day on the ice when Frank had drowned and bloody dioramas of platoons of the marching dead, their chests bloody and raw, their hands reaching out for him as if they were claws. They were accusing him, their faces were like the points of color in an impressionist painting; distinct up close, but if he stood back for just a moment they all blended together into just one face, Frank's.

  Jay welcomed it when, at 6 a.m., he was awakened by an urgent call from Abe. He was still groggy and covered in a cold sweat, so for a moment, he couldn't make out what the old man was saying. Abe's words poured out over him in a torrential spray.

  Jay ran his fingers through his hair and pulled the comforter around him. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute," he interrupted, holding the handset of the phone away from his ear. Abe's voice, loud and at an excited high pitch compared to his earlier low, soothing tones ran right over him. After another minute of this he yelled, "Stop! Alright? Slow down. I just woke up, dammit!"

  There wasn't an immediate silence, as Abe's voice wound down like a train coming into a station. Then, once Jay was sure he had stopped for more than to just take a quick breath, he put the handset back to his ear and said, in a measured tone, "Okay. Slowly. What the hell are you talking about?"

  Abe began speaking, calmer now. He had worked late into the night and on into the morning. He had been listening to the morning news when the announcement came on about Gene having been arrested.

  "So you see," he said, breathlessly. "We may not have to go on that hunt we were worr
ied about. If the cops have gone over the house, they may have the thing we're looking for."

  "And this helps us how? They aren't just going to let us walk in there and borrow it."

  "All that matters is that we get our hands on it for long enough to get an idea of what it's about. I need to see something that will at least let me get a handle on its origins." He paused and took a deep breath. "I've been sitting here going through everything I have in the shop and there's nothing exactly like what we have here. There's all sorts of ghoulish behavior and sacrifice, but this Frank, it seems as if he's some sort of conglomeration."

  "So what is it exactly that you want to do? Walk right into the station and ask to see what they found in Gene's place?"

  "Yes. Well, you would, you see?"

  Jay shook his head in disbelief. Abe was either disingenuous or had balls the size of avocados. Then Abe continued, "And you see some sort of problem with that?"

  Before Jay could answer his question, Abe steamrollered him.

  "Anyway, be ready. I've called Meg and she's graciously consented to give us a ride. Be out front waiting for us."

  Abe hung up before there was a chance to protest. Jay thought to himself that it probably wouldn't have mattered if he had argued against the expedition, anyway.

  An hour later, Jay stood waiting under the Inn’s porte cochere. The light from the rising sun was just a pink and white strip bouncing off the underside of the clouds in the distance. The bitter cold caused his lungs to ache if he breathed too deeply and vapor hung round his head like a big cotton pad.

  He had forgotten that this far north, it was practically a requirement that you have a woolen scarf and ear muffs. His ear lobes were numb and burned when he rubbed them between his thumb and forefinger.

  The new shoes were now a definite liability. His feet felt chill and damp in them. The slush from the streets, mixed with road salt, had resulted in a jagged white line that ran along the sides of them like the high water mark from a flood. So much for Prada. After about five minutes outside, with the thin socks he was wearing, Jay found himself pacing back and forth, stamping his feet to keep his circulation going.