Niceville

by Carsten Stroud

  “He would have had plenty of reason. His brother’s dead and Clara’s back at the farm going quietly insane and there’s Abel Teague, walking around the town with a smile on his face.”

  “So somebody—probably Abel himself—brought in a ringer to finish it. This Colin Haggard guy.”

  “Ethan should have declined the fight. No one would have thought any the less of him.”

  “Except for him,” said Nick.

  Kate looked at the jubilee card, all those faces, all those lives. She dropped it back into the box, flipping the lid shut, leaned back into the couch.

  “Did you get an mpeg made from whatever you saw in Delia’s basement?”

  “Yes. Beau gave me a flash drive.”

  “Do you have it here?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I look at it?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m your wife.”

  “And you’re … what? Curious?”

  “Just show it to me. Please.”

  Nick hesitated, reached into his pocket, drew it out, a small Sony USB drive.

  Kate took it and plugged it into her laptop. The machine worked on it for a while, and then the media player popped up and the clip began to run, grainy, stuttering, but clear enough.

  Nick saw himself standing in front of a long stone wall, lit up by the reflected glow of what was flickering on the wall of Delia Cotton’s basement, a shimmering field of green, a brown bar, a blue glow along the bottom. The image jumped and righted itself. Beau had found a way to turn the image right side up when he copied the tape.

  Now the image showed a broad line of pines and oaks, a thick forest line hemming in a tilled field, people working in the field, spades chopping into the earth, something long and dark being lifted up. A sled pulled by a tractor.

  “Can you stop it there, Kate?”

  She froze the video.

  “Can you zoom in?”

  Kate hit a button and the image jumped closer. Nick leaned in and focused on the sled, on the pile of white stones. Kate was leaning in close, so close he could smell her scent and feel the heat of her body. He felt her stiffen, and she drew back.

  “Nick. Are those skulls?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s what I thought. Let it run some. A thing happens, about now. I want to see if I was right.”

  Kate hit PLAY and the video jerked into life again. Nick was still in the picture. On the sound track they could hear Beau’s voice.

  “Nick, honest, don’t touch it.”

  “I’m just going to—”

  And then a hissing sound, deep and resonant, loud enough to fill the room.

  Nick leaned into the screen, intent.

  A moment of time, and then the image of the farm flickered and disappeared, changing all at once into a section of rolling green lawn, a black iron fence, a red and white security van at the curb, a young black man in a uniform.

  “What was that?” Kate asked. “What happened? What was that hissing noise?”

  “Delia’s cat. She was under a furnace pipe. What happened was the picture changed. It was a field with people digging in it, a tree line—”

  “A sled piled with skulls—”

  “Yes. And then it changed into the street scene outside Delia’s house.”

  A silence.

  “What does it mean, Nick?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “It was a real place, wasn’t it?”

  “Looked real enough. Maybe a burial ground? The South is full of them.”

  “We could search the photo archives, see if we can find a match. The pines, the countryside, it looks like someplace in the Belfair Range.”

  “The Ruelles had a place south of Sallytown. Your dad mentioned it. That would put it right in the middle of the Belfair Range. That’s where you’d see a stand of old pines like that. Can you save this video?”

  “Yes,” she said, hitting SAVE AS.

  The video shut down.

  There was a flicker outside, and the streetlights blinked off.

  “Oh, great,” said Kate. “I guess we’re next.”

  “Kate. A power failure, okay?”

  “Go do something manly about it, then.”

  Nick got up, went to the living room window. Not a glimmer from outside, but the house lights were still on. Nick could see lights through the trees, which meant the power was still on in the other homes along the street. Kate was sitting on the floor, staring up at him, her face white.

  “Like I said. A rolling blackout.”

  “Then why are the house lights still on?”

  “The streetlights are on a different cable.”

  Nick picked up the phone, listened to the steady dial tone, dialed the number for Sylvia’s house, listened to it ring and ring. He set it down, looked back out at the street.

  All he could see was his own reflection in the window, a figure in the light, Kate on the floor beside him, staring out.

  “I’ll go check the breaker panel.”

  “In the horror movies, the first guy who gets killed is the guy who goes to the basement to check the breaker panel.”

  “This is not a horror movie.”

  “Then maybe it’s a ghost story.”

  “I think you need a drink.”

  “Yes. I do. So do you.”

  Nick went down the narrow hall to the kitchen, glancing at the conservatory at the back of the house. It was lit with a warm yellow glow, and their yard lights were still on, a soft warm pool on the back lawn, lighting up the linden trees at the bottom of the slope.

  He was pouring two glasses of Louis Jadot Beaujolais when he heard the front doorbell ring, turned around, started back up the hall. A figure was standing there. A woman in a black burka.

  He heard Kate walking into the front hall.

  “Don’t answer that,” Nick called out.

  The black figure hovered in the hallway, shifting, indistinct, but full of menace.

  Kate was at the door now. Through the tall stained-glass sidelights she saw, bathed in the amber glow of the porch light, a familiar figure in a trench coat and a scarf, rumpled, fatigue in every line. A familiar voice.

  “Kate. Honey, it’s Dad. You home?”

  Her heart stopped.

  “Nick, it’s Dad.”

  “Kate,” said Nick, “that’s not your dad.”

  Kate found herself moving towards the door, her hand reaching out for the brass knob as if it were detached from her body.

  Nick forced himself to move, ran straight at the black figure in the hall—passed right through it—a fleeting sensation of intense heat—like being too close to an IED exploding—a rush of white-hot rage, and the feeling of something hungry tearing at his skin—he fought free, ran down the hall. The front door was wide open.

  Something black and formless seemed to flow into the hallway, filling it up, billowing out towards Kate. Nick pulled Kate back and away. The shape paused, reformed, gathered, shuddered, and then seemed to explode out at them. A voice spoke from behind them, a woman’s voice.

  “Clara. Stop.”

  They turned and saw a woman in the middle of the living room, a tall weather-worn woman with a strong, handsome face, deep-set green eyes, a shapely body, long black hair in a shining fall. She was barefoot, wearing a white summer dress.

  She was directly in front of the gilt mirror with her signature on the back. The mirror’s glass was a blaze of pale green light, shining on the figure, placing her inside an aura of shimmering light strong enough to show her naked body through the thin fabric of her summer dress.

  “Clara. Stop. Come home.”

  Nick and Kate turned to face the black shape again, but it was gone. A young woman in a green summer dress was hesitating in the hall, a pretty young woman with soft brown eyes and rich auburn-colored hair. Clara Mercer.

  Clara shook her head, took a step backwards, moving into the downlight from the lamp over the porch. Her shape grew less clear. The other wo
man—Glynis Ruelle—spoke again, with more force, an edge of impatience, pleading with her.

  “Clara. Abel is dead. I have him now. He’s for the harvest. It’s over. Come home.”

  The tension between the two women became an audible humming vibration. The vibration increased, grew louder, rose in frequency, reaching a single piercing painful note at the farthest pitch of hearing. The room was filled with the vivid green light pouring out of Glynis Ruelle’s mirror.

  Clara spoke.

  “Abel is dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he face your man?”

  “Yes. And we have been given satisfaction.”

  Clara hesitated, seemed to flicker into and out of focus—the black cloud came back and then vanished into the darkness beyond the door.

  Clara stepped forward, passed directly through Nick and Kate’s bodies as they stood there in the hall—both Nick and Kate felt her passing—sadness, grief, loss, rage. Clara moved into the green aura and stood in front of Glynis.

  The light from the mirror grew, flickered, and was suddenly gone, and they were alone in the front hall, by the open door, the glow from the porch light pooling on the stone floor of the hallway.

  After a while, inside the hush that had fallen, Kate pushed the door closed, turned the dead bolt with a shaking hand, crossed the floor to the mirror, which was leaning against a chair, reached out to touch it—it was as warm as blood—brought it forward and laid it on the carpet, facedown.

  Sunday Morning

  Byron Deitz Finally Gets It

  Deitz and Phil Holliman were sitting on a pair of lawn chairs set out by the pool. The awning was flapping in a hot wind and the sun was blazing down on them, setting the air on fire, even at this early hour.

  Holliman looked cool and calm in a seersucker suit and a white shirt, bare feet in thin Italian slippers, but Deitz looked hot, his face flushed and damp. He poured some more gin into his glass, dropped some cubes into it with a tinkly plonk, and swilled it all down, his thick throat working.

  “Jeez,” said Holliman, “you don’t look good.”

  Deitz put the glass down hard, glared at Holliman, his bug-eye iridescent sunglasses reflecting a distorted image of Holliman back at him. He made a back-there gesture, indicating a white panel van with NICEVILLE UTILITY COMMISSION printed on the side.

  “AC ditched it last night, middle of the fucking night. Whole system crashed—fucking computerized shit—guy’s in there now, trying to fix it.”

  “Where’s Beth and the kids?”

  “She’s not here right now.”

  Holliman didn’t ask why.

  He had a pretty good idea.

  “Where is she? Her sister’s?”

  “Nah. She’s gone to a hotel. Took the kids. Heat sorta got to us both last night, she had a hissy fit, on account of her fucking old man’s gone AWOL up in fucking VMI and I wasn’t—” he made ironic quote marks with his hooked fingers—“sympathetic, the fucking bitch. I guess I smacked her one. I know, I know, but it’s been a bad week. So, ba-bing, she takes the Cayenne and the kids, blew the doors off going down the drive.”

  Holliman saw something in Deitz’s face.

  “She marked up?”

  “Nothing a pair of sunglasses won’t cover. Thing is, Kate’s married to Nick, and Nick’s already called.

  Says we gotta meet.”

  “Sounds like a duel.”

  Deitz looked down at the pool.

  “Yeah, well, I put him off until tomorrow, on account of business, but when we do meet, I’m going to haveta straighten the guy out. I mean, I can’t let some fucking brother-in-law, I don’t care if he is a fucking war hero, get in between me and my family. If I gotta, I’ll punch his fucking lights out, and, you know, Phil, I’m about ready to do that, because I’m fucking tired of taking shit from people, and I’m really okay if it starts with him. You follow?”

  Holliman, a diplomat, had some of his G and T, because if Deitz and Nick Kavanaugh were going to go at it, he’d have to think long and hard about where he’d put his money.

  “Okay, I follow, and let me know when it happens, so I can come watch. Now back to business, boss. I called the Chinks, you know, to arrange picking up the … thing. I get their voice mail.”

  “Okay,” said Deitz. “No problem. Early yet. Gone down for breakfast.”

  “Okay. Breakfast. Alla them at the same time. I can see that. Chinks move in packs, right?”

  “Yeah. Well, I see your point. Stay on it. I got something else I want you to look at. See what you think.”

  He reached out, gathered up a section of the Niceville Register, laid it out in front of Holliman, pressed it flat with a sweaty palm.

  Phil leaned over and read the news item.

  BODY FOUND IN FOREST

  State police officers doing a search of the woods in the vicinity of last Friday’s fire at the historic Belfair Saddlery discovered the partially decomposed body of a man about a half mile from the site of the fire. The man, described as a white male in his mid-forties, was found lying against a tree. His body showed signs of being partially eaten by coyotes and other scavengers. Initial estimates place the time of death at between four and six o’clock on Friday afternoon. Cause of death was initially thought to be exposure but a preliminary examination at the scene revealed a gunshot wound to the lower back, which nicked an artery, another wound which severed the left ear, and a third wound in the middle of the throat, which caused severe brain damage and a fatal loss of blood. Fingerprint Recognition at the FBI identified the deceased as Merle Louis Zane, an ex-convict who had served time for attempted manslaughter at the Louisiana State Prison in Angola. Police Captain Martin Coors states that investigators are now looking to see if there is a connection between the dead man and the armed robbery carried out a few hours earlier at the First Third Bank in Gracie, where four police officers were gunned down during a pursuit.

  The investigation continues.

  “The third man,” said Phil. “Gotta be the third guy. Looks like they had a disagreement, after the fucking robbery.”

  “Pukes always do,” said Deitz. “But who’d he disagree with, that’s the question. Now look at this,” he said, turning over the fold, flattening out a large full-color spread above the fold.

  “That’s a picture of the hostage thing, down there at Saint Innocent Orthodox.”

  Holliman studied the picture, a tangle of cop cars, two cops sticking a green-shirted guy into the back of a cruiser, some cops and civilians standing around talking, big grins all over.

  “Yeah, I saw this. Silver-haired guy in the gray suit, that’s Coker, he’s the sniper. Dozer dyke is Mavis Crossfire. And the guy watching, looks like Wyatt Earp, that’s Charlie Danziger. Bunch of other guys, cops. Jimmy Candles.”

  “Look at Charlie Danziger. Anything stand out?”

  Holliman leaned over, lifted his sunglasses to see the shot more clearly.

  “Yeah. He’s got gay cowboy boots on.”

  “Gay? Why gay?”

  “They’re fucking blue, Byron. Who the fuck wears blue cowboy boots? Richard Simmons?”

  “Nothing ringing your bell here?”

  Holliman sat back, taking the paper with him, holding it out into the sunlight.

  “Oh fuck.”

  “Yeah. Oh fuck.”

  “The guy with the blue boots? At the bank?”

  “Danziger. And that fucking Coker.”

  “No way.”

  “Think about it. Danziger knows the payroll is coming in. He finds a wheelman, Merle Zane, some pro he knows from his days with State. Coker is the shooter, waiting for those poor schmucks down on Route 311. He’s using a Barrett out of Stores, cleans it and puts it back before anybody is the wiser.”

  “Coker’s a cop. Danziger was a cop. No way they’d pop four of their buddies like that.”

  “For two and a quarter mil I’d pop your mother. I’d pop my mother. And that Coker’s a chilly motherfucker, and Cha
rlie Danziger’s got a beef with State, goes way back.”

  Holliman stared at the picture, taking it in.

  “That means they’re also the guys who—”

  “Ran my ass off yesterday afternoon, making me buy back that Raytheon thing. I mean, who the fuck else would have the balls? It’s them, Phil, take it to the bank. It’s them.”

  Holliman looked at Deitz.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah. My sentiments exactly.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I’m going to go out to Charlie Danziger’s place and I’m going to start blowing holes in him until he tells me where my fucking money is, and then I’m going to kill him.”

  “Deitz, you can’t do that. I mean, we got a business going here, we’re making good money for easy work, why blow it all?”

  “Yeah? What would you suggest, Phil?”

  “I’d call Boonie Hackendorff and Marty Coors and tell them what you think, that’s what. Shit, if Thad told you about the blue boots, he sure as shit told the FBI. Maybe they’re already onto him.”

  “That’s the problem, Phil. If the Feds get to Danziger before we do, then sooner or later he’s going to tell them about the Raytheon thing, just to buy himself a deal.”

  “There’s no deal for being accessory to killing four cops. It’s the needle for sure, him and Coker. The Raytheon thing wouldn’t buy him a donut.”

  “You want to take that chance, Phil?”

  “You go out there and beat the shit out of Charlie Danziger if you want, Byron, if you can, but I’m not going out there with you.”

  “I don’t want you with me. You gotta go get that thing back from the Chinks. That’s gotta be back in the tray at Slipstream by the end of the day tomorrow—”

  “Excuse me—Mr. Deitz?”

  Both men looked up at a young guy in black wearing an NUC smock, waiting by the open patio doors, holding a big black metal toolbox. Black hair, pale white skin, bug-eye sunglasses just like Deitz’s.

  “Yeah … Bock, yeah. Hey, Bock, how’s it going?”

  Bock gave him sort of a half salute, a big toothy grin—maybe some wiseass in it, Holliman was thinking, watching the guy.