A Desolate Hour

by Mae Clair

  Quentin raised a brow. “To do what?”

  “How would you like to visit the home of the Mothman?”

  Chapter 5

  “You understand my concern.”

  They were the first words Caden heard when he stepped into the Mason County Sheriff’s office Tuesday afternoon. His brother, Ryan, had beat him to work and was camped out at his desk across from Caden’s. The observation had been made by Reverend Frederick Clifford of the Good Fellowship Bible Church. Seated in a stiff wooden chair, Clifford was a folksy-looking man in his late sixties who most everyone knew simply as Pastor Fred. This morning, his face was etched with worry around the eyes and mouth.

  “We’ll check it out, Pastor,” Ryan promised, scribbling a note on a piece of paper.

  “It isn’t just Will.” Fred shook his head, his expression a cross of bloodhound-sad and doom-saying grim. “There’s been a lot of tongue-wagging lately. I’m hearing rumors of bad tidings all around.”

  “Morning, Pastor Fred. Ryan.” Caden nodded to each in turn, then tossed his hat onto his desk. Across the room, Wayne Rosling was busy on a phone call. Further back, a closed door indicated Sheriff Pete Weston was sequestered inside and didn’t wish to be disturbed.

  Caden scraped a hand through his hair, taming it in place. “What’s going on?”

  “Pastor Fred’s worried about Will Hanley. Said he’s been trying to raise him on the phone for two days and he hasn’t answered.”

  Fred turned concerned brown eyes on Caden. “He was supposed to set up for a church picnic after services on Sunday, but never showed. I thought maybe he wasn’t feeling well, so I took a drive by his place last night. Even knocked on the front door, but no one answered.”

  It wasn’t like Will to duck a commitment, especially one that involved his church. Last October, the man had dragged himself out of bed with a 101-degree fever to oversee a charity race on the church’s behalf. His wife had been the organist there for decades, right up until she passed away three years ago.

  Caden frowned. “Was Will’s truck there?”

  “In the drive, plain as day.” As he talked, Pastor Fred walked a wooden nickel between the fingers of his right hand. An absent habit, he often did it when delivering a sermon. As a kid listening to him preach, Caden had grown up wondering how many nickels the old man had.

  “I didn’t see Misty,” Pastor Fred continued. “Not even a bark when I knocked, and she’s always been an A1 watchdog.”

  Ryan glanced at Caden. “I said I’d take a drive out.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  Caden offered the reverend a reassuring grin. “It’s probably nothing. Will might have left town unexpectedly and taken Misty with him. He could have gotten a lift from someone to the airport.”

  “I’d sure like to believe that, but I’ve never known him to shirk his church duties.” Slipping the nickel into his pocket, Pastor Fred spoke gravely, “Too many bad things going on right now. Bertha Quiggly lost her best egg-layer to a fox the night before last, and something crept out of the woods near Nana’s old place. Scared the daylights out of Sally Gander.”

  Mild alarm pinged through Caden. “Something?” He’d been waiting for mention of the Mothman ever since the creature had taken off from the woods.

  Pastor Fred chewed the inside of his cheek. “Don’t know exactly what it was. According to Sally, she only saw it from the side. Could have been the Mothman, but it was too dark to tell for certain.”

  “Could have been a person, too,” Ryan commented quietly.

  Pastor Fred continued like he hadn’t heard. “Then there’s poor Billy Sayer.”

  “What happened to Billy?” Caden wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  “Heart attack while he was out mowing the grass. Fifty-one years old and now they’ve got to put a balloon in his chest to open up his arteries. I don’t know.” Pastor Fred shook his head. “I’m not one to hold truck with superstition, but it seems things have been brewing ever since that winged monster swooped out of the woods. I’ve got a bad feeling in my bones.”

  Caden hadn’t heard about Billy. He didn’t know everyone in Point Pleasant, but word had a way of getting around when something happened—just like it would get around that the Mothman was somehow at fault for Billy’s health problems and the ravenous fox that had taken out Bertha Quiggly’s chicken. “We haven’t seen the Mothman in months.”

  “That’s not exactly true.” Ryan looked almost guilty for having to correct him. “We had four reports this morning. Most of them off Windmill Road.”

  “Windmill?” Pastor Fred looked alarmed. “That’s not far from where Will lives.”

  “Mothman sightings are typical around here, Pastor Fred. You know that.” Caden tried to defuse the situation. “On any given day, we can have several.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Seen or unseen, that monster’s a plague on this town.” Pastor Fred put a final epitaph to his opinions and stood. “I’d appreciate it if one of you would let me know about Will after you’ve had a chance to check things out.”

  Ryan stood too. “Will do.” He extended his hand for Pastor Fred to shake.

  Caden did the same.

  “Do you think the Mothman was on the prowl last night?” Ryan asked after the reverend left.

  Caden’s mouth tightened reflexively. His brother knew about his connection to the cryptid. Ryan had seen the thing himself, even had it probe his mind. “I don’t know. But I sure hope Will Hanley dropping off the radar has nothing to do with the ‘bird.’” The local name for the creature rolled off his tongue. Every time Mothman sightings exploded, hysteria followed. Anyone could see that cycle was headed for disaster.

  * * * *

  The Hanley farm was still when Caden and Ryan arrived. No movement of any kind. No cows in the field or sounds of distant machinery. A hush seemed to have settled over the place, the pop and crunch of gravel beneath Caden’s shoes as he walked from the drive overly loud in the stillness. Morning sunlight beat down on the old farmhouse, illuminating the white siding and adding a cheerful touch to the Wedgewood blue shutters. Will’s wife, Grace, might be gone, but her handiwork could still be seen in the colorful beds of phlox and Shasta daisies bordering the porch. A high-backed rocker moved slightly in the breeze and a crow cackled in the distance.

  Ryan knocked on the screen door, waited a few seconds, then pulled it open and pounded on the interior door. Caden cupped his hands against the front window to peer inside, but could spy little other than an umbrella stand and small side table in the entryway.

  Ryan shook his head. “Doesn’t feel right to me.”

  Caden had the same feeling. “Let’s check around back.”

  The rear yard was empty, the barn in the distance sealed tight. A persistent prick of warning alerted Caden something was wrong. For a working farm the place was too still.

  “I’ll check the house.” Ryan sprinted toward the porch.

  Caden nodded and headed for the barn. A ring of paw prints made by a large dog flattened the grass and dirt in front of the entrance. He hadn’t seen Hanley’s collie, Misty, but Pastor Fred said she hadn’t barked when he’d knocked. The queer pattern of the prints formed a continual loop as if he dog had run in a circle, chasing her tail.

  He tugged on the barn door.

  “Caden.” Ryan hailed him suddenly from the back porch. The screen door yawned open behind him.

  “What is it?”

  “You better get up here.” His brother’s face was grim. “Hanley’s dead, and it’s not pretty.”

  * * * *

  Caden watched Milt Redmond, Mason County’s coroner, zip a black body bag on the gurney. A tall, elegant-looking man with silver hair and a quiet manner of speaking, Redmond was a consummate professional. With a nod for the ambulance attendant to wheel the remains from the kitchen, he bowed his head to confer with Sheriff Weston.

  In the background, Roy Baxter dusted for print
s and combed for fibers. The clicking whir of a camera drifted through the back door as the county photographer worked outside, adding to his catalog of shots. He’d already finished with the interior. Lined up on the table, a series of evidence bags had been sorted and tagged, each containing some parcel of material evidence collected from the scene—including a bloodstained piece of paper.

  Ryan had pointed the scrap out to Caden after he’d entered to find Hanley slumped on the floor. Flattened beneath Will’s bloody fingers, the paper contained a single word: Mothman.

  Redmond disappeared outside.

  “I want a tight lid on this.” Weston joined Caden. “No leaks to the press of any kind until we’ve got something concrete.”

  Ryan looked up from the pad he’d been scribbling on. “You mean other than the note from the victim?”

  Caden grimaced. All they needed was for the local paper to proclaim Will had scrawled the name of Point Pleasant’s notorious cryptid before drawing his final breath. “The Mothman didn’t have anything to do with this.” He sent his brother a sharp glance. Pete didn’t know about Caden’s bond to the creature but Ryan did. “If Hanley was attacked by the Mothman that would have happened outside. There’d be a blood trail from the yard.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” Ryan clicked his pen. “What I don’t get is why the note.”

  “We’re not even sure Will wrote it.” The paper seemed more likely a plant in Caden’s opinion. “The killer could have done it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but if Hanley wrote it, where’s the pen he used?” Nothing added up. The crime scene itself was an enigma. Back door open, blood splatter on the wall but no bloody footprints, not even the cusp of a shoe. “It should have been with the note, especially if he was dying when he wrote the thing. I guarantee it was a knife that hacked Will up, not claws.”

  Weston tugged on his chin. “Could be a ritual killing.” A big man with a burly frame, his presence filled the room with no-nonsense authority. “Hanley had money in his wallet, more tucked away in a dresser drawer, but it doesn’t appear anything was taken. Robbery seems an unlikely motive, but the Mothman legend attracts plenty of fanatics and cultists. We can’t dismiss the out-of-state element that comes to the TNT and flies under the radar.”

  “Yeah, but no sign of forced entry.” Ryan slipped his notepad into his shirt pocket. “Will either knew his killer or invited them inside.”

  “Why from the back?” Caden glanced to the tape on the floor, outlining where they’d found Hanley’s body. “The front door was locked, the back open. Pastor Fred said Hanley missed church and wasn’t answering his phone or his front door.”

  Weston grunted acknowledgement. “It’ll be a while until we have time of death. Let the crime scene boys finish and get some luminol in here. I agree the Mothman had nothing to do with Hanley’s death. Otherwise, this place would look like the inside of a slaughterhouse.” Hands on his hips, he swiveled his head, letting his gaze track across the room. “Someone cleaned up after themselves, but the luminol should bring up a footprint or two. Townsfolk are going to go apeshit when they hear about this. Start with the neighbors and see if they noticed anyone strange around the area…unknown vehicles, that sort of thing. And let’s try to get a match on Hanley’s handwriting.”

  Caden nodded. “I’ll chat up a few of Will’s friends, too. See if he was having problems with anyone. Pastor Fred might be able to shine some light on that.”

  “Yeah.” Weston’s expression was sober. “Damn shame, this. Will was a decent man. He didn’t deserve to go this way.”

  “Sheriff! Sheriff Weston!”

  The loud cry, followed by two rapid gunshots had all three men racing for the yard. Caden barreled past the crime scene photographer who was doing his best to squeeze into a corner of the porch. Camera clutched like a shield, he speared a finger in the direction of the barn. His face bore the blanched-white look of terror.

  “There.”

  Caden’s gaze swept past the photographer to Deputy Gardner. The young man was crouched in a firing stance, ten feet off the porch. Face upturned, his gaze was locked on a giant winged creature perched on the roof of the barn. Without pausing to consider his actions, Caden bolted down the steps and knocked Gardner’s arm down as he pulled the trigger.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Hyped on nerves and terror, Gardner gulped audibly when he realized who he as addressing. “Sergeant.” Swallowing again, he rotated his head, seeming to realize as Caden did that the creature was gone. “I could have killed it.”

  “You would have only made it angry. More dangerous.” The residual fear the Mothman hurled at the men in the yard needled like an abrasive edge. Caden had learned early horror was its chosen weapon. He saw the terror reflected in the eyes of the photographer and a crime scene tech who’d been searching for tire tracks. Mostly, he saw it etched in the tight lines of Gardner’s face, the unsteady trembling of his hands.

  “Shit.” Weston appeared at his side. “The last thing I need is that freaking monster on a rampage. We’re going to have to track it down.”

  “I’ll do that. Ryan can handle questioning Will’s neighbors.” Caden cast a glance at his brother, who approached more slowly. “I can call in a couple more patrols if needed to scout the TNT.”

  Weston nodded grimly. “We’re stretched thin. Do what you can.” He looked around the yard at the men who shuffled uncertainly, coming down off a wave of red-veined fear. “Anyone see which direction it went?”

  Some murmuring. Mostly shamed gazes darting the other way. Now that the danger had passed, the men were beginning to realize how timidly they’d behaved. Coming out of his crouch, the photographer tugged gruffly on his shirt and distanced himself from the corner he’d used as shelter. He quickly busied himself with lenses, filters, and settings. The techs went back to their various duties, none wanting to look at the others.

  Gardner holstered his gun. “I’m sorry, Pete.” He approached Weston with a forlorn shake of his head. “I should have had it with the first shot. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

  Caden decided not to mention the man’s terror or that his hands had been shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. “I don’t think a bullet would have killed it anyway.” The Mothman had been shot at before. Rather than hurting the creature, the resulting injury had only served to enrage it. The Bradley brothers could attest to that debacle.

  “Yeah.” Pete offered up a somber nod for the somber setting. “Stay in touch and keep me posted. I’ll make a call to Pastor Fred. Will’s going to need clergy as well as a friend to handle things for him.”

  That was the sad, sick truth of the morning. Will Hanley was dead and a killer was loose in Point Pleasant.

  * * * *

  Quentin picked Sarah up after work. They grabbed a quick sandwich at the River Café then drove roughly six miles out of town to the area the locals dubbed the TNT.

  “Tell me why we’re going to this igloo again.” As Quentin drove down the narrow road, dense thickets of trees sealing him in on either side, it was easy to see why the cryptid called the place home. A living thing could easily disappear in the rugged habitat and never be found. The remote area was the perfect dumping ground for a serial killer—or a creature that shunned human contact. “I get that the bunkers were used to store weapons during World War II, but what does that have to do with the Mothman?”

  Sarah was silent for a moment. Fidgeting, she tucked a coppery curl behind her ear. “I don’t want you to think I’m crazy.”

  The idea was laughable. “After I told you about Madam Olga and why I’m here, I’m hardly one to toss stones.”

  “Okay, but curses aside, this is a stretch.” Craning her neck, she pointed to the right. “There…that opening. Pull in and we can walk the rest of the way.”

  Quentin did as directed, parking his Monte Carlo in a grassy area marked by a rusted swing arm post. Someone had spray-painted Bewar
e the Mothman on the metal barrier in dripping white letters. “Fun sense of humor.”

  Snugged low to the ground, the barricade marked a path that jigsawed between the trees. Twelve feet back, the narrow trail became congested with weeds. He killed the ignition. “Good thing we wore jeans.”

  “It’s not too far.” Sarah opened the door and stepped outside.

  It was a little after six in the evening, but a heavy cloud cover made it appear closer to twilight. A dry wind rocked the trees, twirling fat leaves belly upright. The air smelled of loam and wild honeysuckle.

  Quentin scowled at the sky, catching a faint flicker of lightning in the distance.

  Slipping his keys into his pocket, he rounded the car to join Sarah. “Weird weather since I’ve gotten in town, but I don’t think it’s going to storm.”

  “No.” The quick glance she lobbed skyward was edgy. “I wouldn’t be here if I thought that.” She stepped over the post, then ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch.

  Quentin followed. “I know you said the igloo was one of the places the Mothman was seen in sixty-six, but what does the Mothman have to do with Cornstalk?”

  “Some people think the two are connected.” Sarah waited while he caught up. “But we’re not concerned about the Mothman right now.”

  “We’re not?” That was good to know. There were far too many oddities in Point Pleasant—and apparently his family tree—to keep track. He swatted aside a buzzing insect and kept walking. Sarah seemed to know her way, zigzagging a path that avoided prickly sticker plants and a clump of something that may have been poison. It had been a while since he’d seen either.

  “Something else lives in the igloo. Or at least it did.” Sarah cast a hesitant glance in his direction as if knowing how odd the observation sounded. “People say if you go inside and ask a question, you might get an answer.”

  Quentin asked the obvious. “From what?”