A Desolate Hour

by Mae Clair

  Shawn shot him an annoyed glance. “Look, it’s just some kind of family thing.” He plunked the coffee mug on Caden’s desk with enough force to splatter liquid over the edge. “I got you the knife like you asked. I gave you my report like a concerned citizen. It’s up to you and Pete Weston to get that damn bird before it kills somebody. I’m freaking starving and want to get lunch. And you can bet I’m gonna make sure everyone in town knows what happened today.”

  “Yeah.” Caden was tempted to hold him for attitude, but knew it would never fly. He shoved a written report under Shawn’s nose. “Sign this and get the hell out of here.”

  Shawn scribbled his signature, then stood and grabbed his knife. He was halfway to the door when Caden’s words stopped him.

  “Be careful about how much trouble you stir up, Shawn. It could come back and bite you in the ass.”

  The door slammed for the second time when Preech left. Swearing softly, Caden gathered his paperwork and stood. At the back of the room, Mitch and Painter were still engrossed with Ryan. He noted Quentin waiting nearby and approached.

  “Marsh. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

  “Same here.”

  “Huh?” The revelation caught Caden off guard.

  “Lach Evening suggested it.” Quentin waited a second for the name to register. “You do know him, right?”

  “Yeah.” Interesting how Lach managed to pull strings. “Actually, he shared some information recently I think you and Sarah would find interesting. That’s probably what he was referring to.”

  Quentin didn’t question why Lach didn’t tell him directly, or why Sarah was involved. Maybe he already had an inkling the man in black stingily doled out information the way a mystery writer meted out clues.

  “Sarah and Eve are good friends,” Caden said. “Why don’t you and Sarah drop by for dinner tomorrow night? How’s six-thirty? Sarah knows where we live.”

  Quentin hedged.

  “It will be easier to talk,” Caden said. “What I have to share can’t be said in ten minutes.”

  “Okay. I’ll get in touch with Sarah.” Quentin was about to turn away when Caden stopped him.

  “One more thing…you said you recognized the spider symbol on Shawn’s knife.”

  “Yeah.” Quentin’s mouth tightened. “Sarah and I found it in a book about witchcraft. It means treachery and death.”

  * * * *

  Fifteen minutes later the office was nearly empty. A single clerk worked in the background, pattering away on an IBM Selectric. Ryan had finished with Painter and Mitch, then headed out to grab lunch. Rosling ended his shift for the day, hinting he was going to drive by the TNT on the way home. Caden took a moment to phone Eve and share the impromptu dinner invitation he’d extended to Marsh. She was surprised, but looked forward to seeing Sarah. Adding Quentin as a quasi-date for her friend only made her more intrigued.

  Reviewing the Mothman report he’d taken, Caden replayed his conversation with Shawn. There was something off about the dirt track racer, a jitteriness that grew more pronounced each time Caden saw him. Shawn’s dad had been an avid hunter, but that interest had never found a foothold in his son. So why had Shawn taken to skulking around the TNT, hunting the worst possible creature he could encounter? Even if he’d suddenly developed a taste for the sport, why arm himself with an antique knife? Caden doubted Shawn’s father had ever used the blade for gutting deer, so why lie?

  Caden leaned back in his chair, mulling over the thoughts.

  A typical buck knife fit the bill for the weapon used in Will Hanley’s murder, but most weren’t owned by a man who’d suddenly taken to fidgety actions. Whose bloodshot eyes and hollowed-out appearance hinted of drug use. With a divorce hanging over his head, Shawn might have decided booze wasn’t enough to get through the day. A man under the influence of narcotics could easily crack, driven to committing a violent crime without even realizing what he did. Hanley had known his killer, and Hanley knew Shawn.

  Caden’s gaze shifted to the coffee cup on the corner of his desk, a gift much too convenient to overlook. The mug had Shawn’s fingerprints all over it. He’d never have a better opportunity to dig deeper where Shawn was concerned. Retrieving the cup by the rim, Caden dropped it in an evidence bag. Shawn had drained the thing dry.

  He carried it down the hall to the crime lab where he found Roy Baxter shuffling through several weeks of paperwork.

  “Hey, Roy.”

  The shorter man stopped mid-shuffle to peer at Caden over a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. He heaved a harried sigh. “If Pete sent you for an update, I’m on it, but it’s going to take time. Do you know how many case samples we have on that damn bird?”

  Word of the latest Mothman scare had obviously spread through channels. Since the first sighting in sixty-six, Roy had cataloged every minor scrap of evidence related to the cryptid. Foliage, broken twigs, bits of trash—anything found at the sighting locations had been collected, cataloged, and analyzed for residue. Given Shawn and the others were sure to broadcast their encounter, Pete was taking the latest uproar seriously.

  “Sorry you got the paper trail.” Caden leaned against the counter. “I need something run through the lab.” He set the cup in front of the other man. “You’ll find my fingerprints on the rim, Shawn Preech’s on the handle and body.”

  Only half listening, Roy continued to flip through papers. “So, what do you need me for?”

  “Shawn works on the docks. They fingerprint a lot of those guys for security. I want you to check to see if the two sets match.”

  “That’s it?” Roy looked up sharply, a scowl digging at the corners of his mouth. “Pete’s preparing for Mothman Armageddon and you want me to match prints on a dock worker who moonlights racing cars?”

  “That’s not all I want you to do.” Caden waited until he was certain he had Roy’s undivided attention. “When you’re through, I want you to match Shawn’s fingerprints against the latents from the Hanley murder.”

  * * * *

  Sarah was on a phone call when Quentin appeared in the records division. She signaled she’d be with him in a moment, then finished with the caller.

  “Hi.” The smile came of its own accord as she stepped to the counter. They’d spent so much time together lately—research, dinner, lunches, even his unexpected visit last night—that she would miss him when he finally left town. “I didn’t expect to see you today.”

  “I hope you didn’t mind that I dropped by last night.”

  “Not at all.” She hadn’t minded the kiss either. It had been on her mind most of the day. “Did you walk from the hotel?”

  “The sheriff’s office.”

  Somewhere in the background a phone rang but she left it for her coworkers to snag. “What were you doing there?”

  “Filing a report.” He told her about his early morning experience in the TNT. “I’ll tell you about what happened in the igloo later,” he said when he was through. “The important thing is that I saw the Mothman again.”

  Sarah shot a glance over her shoulder. No one seemed to be paying them any attention. Patty had retrieved the phone call, and Carol was pounding out a form on her typewriter. Leaning closer, Sarah lowered her voice. “Did you tell Caden everything that happened?”

  Quentin shook his head. “I didn’t tell him I saw the creature. I didn’t want to back up Preech’s claim.” He shrugged as if unable to explain his actions. “I said I heard yelling and came on the scene after the fact. Caden wants us to have dinner with him and Eve tomorrow night. I think he knows more than he’s letting on.”

  Of course, he did. Somehow, some way, Caden was connected to the Mothman. She’d held suspicions about Eve’s husband for a long time, but Eve had always been quick to turn her curiosity aside. “I can do that. But I’m worried about what happened. Did the Mothman go after you again?”

  “Not even close. It was focused on Preech.” Pausing, Quentin scrubbed h
is hand over his face. The scars across the back of his fingers stood out like angry welts. “Here’s the thing, Sarah—Preech had an old knife. The thing looked ancient. I saw it when he showed it to Caden.”

  Shawn Preech with a knife. A lot of guys carried them when hunting or hiking in the TNT, but after what Shawn had done to Suzanne, she didn’t like the thought of him with a weapon. Quentin didn’t know about her friend or where she was hiding, so she focused on the knife instead.

  “A lot of guys carry them in the TNT.”

  “Yeah.” His voice was flat. “That might be, but this one was different. It had a spider carved on the handle.”

  * * * **

  When Sarah’s workday ended, she stopped by the hotel, knowing Katie would be working that evening. Her friend had been instrumental in helping Suzanne out of her bind, even if Suzanne and Katie didn’t have good history between them.

  It was hard for Sarah to focus on the whirlwind of thoughts battering her mind. She’d never been so grateful for the workday to end. Word had already spread through town about the latest Mothman sighting—people were referring to it as an attack. The thought of Shawn with a knife embellished with a spider made her sick to her stomach. On top of that, the wind had kicked up again, the sky alternating between cloudy and storm-black. The paltry smidgen of sunlight they’d enjoyed was quickly devoured, the last hour bringing nothing but thunder and lightning mixed with a few drops of rain. The constant threat of a storm had her on edge.

  “Hi.” Stepping into the lobby, Sarah was glad to find it empty of guests. Behind the registration counter, Katie worked at adding tags to several skeleton-style keys strewn over the counter. The antique hardware was yet another whimsical element of the lodging’s old-fashioned charm. “How is everything?”

  Katie glanced up from deftly coding a tag. “If you’re referring to the hotel, it’s quiet, but I don’t think it’s going to stay that way.”

  “Oh?” Concern drew Sarah’s brows into a frown. She approached the counter and set her purse on top, careful not to make a shambles of Katie’s work. “What’s wrong?”

  “Shawn Preech showed up at the café about an hour ago.”

  Alarm kicked in, matched by a prickly swell of anger. “He doesn’t know about Suzanne, does he?”

  Katie shook her head. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, a casual style that made her seem younger than her twenty-eight years. The girlish youthfulness vanished when her mouth tightened in a hard line. “Any man who hits a woman isn’t going to get so much as an acknowledgement from me, let alone information about his ex.” Although Katie spoke quietly, her words carried a harsh edge. The hostility probably came from watching her mother suffer at the hands of more than one abusive ex-boyfriend.

  She pushed a handful of keys aside, the metal scraping across the smooth wood of the check-in counter. “I know Suzanne and I weren’t friendly in the past—if anything she was cruel to me—but I do think she’s trying to change. Any buried resentment I might have had I’m happy to direct at Shawn. What a bastard.”

  “I know.” Sarah leaned against the counter. She’d been hesitant to check in with Suzanne today, but knew Katie would have gotten an update from Jerome.

  Jerome Kelly was as backward and awkward as Suzanne was gorgeous. Point Pleasant’s local conspiracy theorist, he held a radical fascination with UFOs and the Mothman. Most people tended to overlook him. Few took him seriously. Katie had befriended him over the fall, and he’d quickly glommed onto her. Since then, she and Ryan had been doing their best to include him in their circle of friends in an attempt to make him less of an outcast. In the process, Jerome had developed a puppy-dog crush on Katie. There was little he wouldn’t do for her, exactly why Sarah had asked her to intercede with him on Suzanne’s behalf.

  Jerome’s house was tucked in a remote location on the outskirts of the TNT. The last place Shawn Preech would ever think to look for his estranged wife was with a loser—in Shawn’s mind anyway—like Jerome.

  “Did Jerome say how Suzanne settled in?” Sarah had a hard time picturing the two in Jerome’s small rancher but at least the setup was only temporary. In a few days, Suzanne would come to her senses and file charges against Shawn for assault. Or at least, that was the outcome Sarah envisioned.

  Katie picked up several loose key tags and deposited them in a metal storage box. “If I know Jerome, he’s tripping over himself, treating Suzanne like a queen. I hope she appreciates what he’s doing. Jerome might not be the most popular person on the planet, but he’s loyal to a fault. He won’t say anything about her situation to anyone.”

  “I know.” Thanks to Jerome’s graciousness in providing Suzanne a place to stay, Sarah could dispense with worry over Shawn’s whereabouts. Part of her wanted to march into the café and give the jerk a piece of her mind, but she’d promised Suzanne to keep her mouth shut.

  “How are things going with Quentin?” Katie abruptly changed the subject, her smile flavored with a hint of teasing.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.” Sarah didn’t plan on being baited into the Oujia board prediction. “He’s a nice guy and I’m helping him with some genealogy research.” There had been that kiss in her kitchen, an interlude she wouldn’t mind experiencing again, but sharing the thoughts would only bring greater prodding. In some ways, she deserved it. She’d done the same to Katie when her friend had been coy about her relationship with Ryan. “Quentin and I are supposed to be having dinner with Eve and Caden on Saturday night.”

  Katie raised a brow. “That sounds interesting.”

  “It’ll be nice to see Eve.” She tried not to make more out of it than it was. “Caden told Quentin he has some information to share. I think it has to do with Quentin’s interest in his family tree.”

  “Still no luck there?’

  “It’s slow going.”

  The sound of footsteps drew her attention to the hallway. A couple she didn’t recognize walked from the direction of the café, the woman clutching the man’s arm, her face crinkled in worry.

  “But what if it’s true? What if we can’t leave town tomorrow?” The woman’s voice carried to the front desk as they drew closer. “Cora is expecting us no later than ten.”

  “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Nettles.” Katie smiled at the couple who looked to be somewhere in their late forties. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Oh.” Mrs. Nettles paused, her hand fluttering to her throat. Her expression shifted between relief and concern. “I hope so. Have you heard about it, too?”

  Katie exchanged a glance with Sarah before looking back to the couple. “About what?”

  “The Mothman. That horrible creature…it attacked people this afternoon. The man in the café said it tried to kill them.”

  No doubt Shawn Preech was the man in the café.

  “We get a lot of those rumors around here.” Katie’s casual reply indicated she hoped to defuse the situation. The Mothman was good for bringing tourists to the hotel, but for those passing through the legend could backfire. “I wouldn’t put too much stock in it.”

  “But that man was empathic about what happened.” Mrs. Nettles wasn’t ready to dismiss her fear. “He said the sheriff’s office would be setting up roadblocks around the TNT area, and we’re planning on leaving that way. Our niece is getting married tomorrow and my sister is expecting us early.”

  Katie’s mouth tightened as if she fought a slow burn of anger that Shawn would pretend to be an authority on the workings of the sheriff’s department. “If that man in the café was named Shawn, he’s blowing hot air. My fiancé is a sergeant with the Mason County Sheriff’s Department and I haven’t heard anything about roadblocks.”

  “Oh, could you check with him, please?” An expression of eager hope crossed Mrs. Nettles’ face. Stepping away from her husband, she latched onto the registration counter. “It would mean a lot to know we won’t have a problem. Otherwise, I think we should leave ton
ight.”

  “Clara, leave the lady alone.” Mr. Nettles spoke for the first time. “If she said we won’t have a problem, we won’t have a problem. We’ll leave in the morning as planned. I’m not fighting Friday night traffic based on a rumor. Besides, it looks like it’s going to storm any minute.”

  “It’s looked that way since we got here.” Mrs. Nettles bit her lip.

  Sarah felt sorry for the woman, who appeared on the verge of tears. Shawn must have put on quite a performance.

  “It’s all right.” Katie reached for the phone. “If it will help, I’ll make a quick call.”

  “Katie, I’m going to step into the café. I’ll talk to you later.” Sarah waved to her friend. She hadn’t seen Quentin since he showed up at the courthouse and hoped to catch him in the café. Factor in morbid curiosity that made her want to hear Shawn’s account of his Mothman encounter firsthand, and she hurried down the hallway. Too bad the creature hadn’t done a real number on him. After what the creep had done to Suzanne he deserved to suffer pain and fear firsthand. She was going to have a hard time keeping her mouth shut when she saw him.

  Slipping inside the café, Sarah found Shawn holding center court at the bar. A crowd had gathered around him, several people nursing beers as they swapped tales about the TNT and Mothman sightings. Even those seated at nearby tables appeared to be listening, unconcerned that Shawn’s voice carried over their dinner conversations.

  “If Pete Weston knows what’s good, he’ll have his entire force scouring the TNT. I’m telling you that thing’s got to be flushed out.” Shawn took a swig of beer, then set his glass on the bar. With his back pressed to the counter, he shoved a handful of fries in his mouth. “From now on, I’m not going anywhere without a rifle.”

  A chorus of agreement rose around him. Two men seated close to the doorway debated the best weapon for protecting their families. “Pistol won’t do no good,” the first man was saying. “You need a long gun for distance. Shoot the thing before it gets close enough to use its claws. I heard some teens saw it over near Gallipolis the other day, and…”