Night Chill

by Jeff Gunhus

  “You were scared, Daddy?” Becky said.

  “Sure. Getting in a car accident is scary. And there was all that thunder and stuff.”

  “And that man,” Becky joined in. “He was really scary.”

  Jack noticed Lauren rub her hands together. He knew how she felt. It physically hurt to hear about his little girl being scared by someone. “Yeah, I guess that man was kind of scary,” Jack said.

  “Why did he do that stuff? Was he mad at us?” Becky said.

  “No, honey, he wasn’t mad at you. It had nothing to do with you or with me or with your sister. He was just confused and angry for no good reason. But he can’t hurt you anymore.”

  “Why not?” Sarah said, speaking for the first time.

  “He was injured in the accident and he’s in the hospital. You’ll never have to see him again,” Jack said.

  Sarah eyed him suspiciously, not sure if she believed him. “And what about the girl?”

  Lauren cleared her throat in reflex to the question. “What girl, Sarah? You mean the girl in the hospital I told you about? The one that Mommy’s trying to help?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Not that one. The other girl.”

  Jack spoke carefully. “Becky, do you know what she’s talking about?”

  Becky shook her head, a little wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. “Nuh uh.”

  “Sarah, honey. Did you see a girl last night?” Jack asked.

  She shook her head no.

  “Then what girl are you talking about?”

  Sarah looked at each one in them in turn, as if they were playing some joke on her. Tears welled up in her eyes from being put on the spot. When she finally answered, the words caught in her throat. “The bad man told me I had to get in the trunk of his car. He said he had another girl in there. But I told him no. I didn’t want to go with him.” Tears ran down her cheeks.

  Lauren tried to get up out of her chair but Jack held her back. “Did he say anything else?” Jack asked. He wanted to see if she would remember asking him about Melissa.

  Sarah nodded as she wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve. “H-he said if I didn’t open the door and get in the car, t-th—that he was gonna kill you and Becky and the girl in his car.” Her words came out in a blubbering stream of tears and snot. “H-h-he said it’d be my fault. When I wouldn’t open the door he started yelling bad words at me, and told me I couldn’t hide from him. Not ever. Is he gonna come here, Daddy? Is he gonna kill us?”

  Lauren couldn’t take any more. She pushed her chair back and ran over to Sarah. Sarah clung to her and cried into her shoulder. Lauren patted her back and rocked her, whispering in her ear, telling her it was all just a bad dream. It wasn’t real. Not any of it.

  Jack stared at his youngest daughter. He remembered her in the back seat of the Jeep, just before he made the dash for the keys. He had asked who she was talking to. I was talking to the bad man, she had said. But it was impossible. The windows were shut, the doors locked. Becky would have heard anything Huckley said when he stood at the open door when Jack first saw him. But somehow, Sarah knew about the girl in the trunk. And, unless he had imagined it, she knew about Melissa too. His head spun and his chest tightened. Nothing was making any sense.

  “Daddy.” Becky whispered, breaking the silence. “I’m scared.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Sheriff Janney pulled into the gravel parking lot next to Piper’s. Even at two in the afternoon the lot was full, mostly with cars he recognized. The day had been frustrating and he was glad Piper’s was his last stop of the day. No harm in throwing back a few drinks before returning to the office.

  The weather was unusually clear and bright for this time of year. He’d left his favorite pair of aviator sunglasses at the station and had been squinting all day long. The result was a headache that started behind each eye and radiated through his skull and came to rest in a knot of muscles at the base of his neck.

  He thought about heading up the road to Midland. He’d heard from one of the police guys up there that there was a motel by the truck stop on Interstate 70 that housed some pretty good massage services. Supposedly there was even a special law enforcement discount. But the thought of driving up there made the tension in his neck even worse. No, he needed to ask Jim Butcher a few questions about two different Jacks. Jack Tremont, whom he didn’t care for, and Jack Daniels, a man he liked just fine.

  The sheriff walked into Piper’s, drawing in the smell of the place. Stale beer, sawdust, grease from the kitchen. His eyes adjusted slowly from the bright day outside to the cave inside. A little moan of satisfaction escaped his lips. This was exactly what he needed. If it wasn’t for the owner, this would have been Janney’s version of paradise.

  He picked out Jim Butcher through the smoky room, standing at his usual station at the end of the bar where the wood curved ninety degrees, forming a small side bar perpendicular to the main stretch. Jim Butcher’s prodigious stomach fit almost perfectly into the curve. So perfectly in fact that the phenomenon had become a topic of debate over the years. There were three theories. One camp thought the shape was just a fortunate coincidence. The second was that Jim had the bar custom built that way so he’d be comfortable. The third and most popular theory was that he had stood in the same spot for so many years that he had simply worn away the curve until it fit his bulging gut. Given his poor disposition and huge size, no one had ever asked him his opinion on the subject.

  “What d’ya want, Jannee? Nothin’ goin’ on ‘round here,” Butcher snapped, making a circular motion with the stump of his left arm.

  The sheriff frowned. The man’s backwoods accent grated on Janney’s ears. He knew Jim Butcher didn’t like him. That was fine in his book since the feeling was mutual. But it drove him crazy that the man felt no need to keep up appearances. He was so damn disrespectful. “Good to see you too, Jim. Always a pleasure.”

  Butcher turned to the side, rotating his gut in the curve of the bar until he had a straight line of fire down to the floor behind the bar. A gob of spit ejected from his mouth and hit the floor with a splat. The bar owner swiveled back around to face Janney, a thin line of spittle hanging from his chin. Janney’s lips lifted up into an involuntary sneer. Jim Butcher had gotten worse with time. Still the same backwoods hick, he’d added a cocky arrogance to what had already been a distasteful personality. Janney glanced down the bar at the man sitting on the stool down the way. He turned back to Butcher and said “Look here, I’ve got to talk to you about Jack Tremont.”

  “Whut ’bout ’im?”

  “He was here two nights ago.”

  “Lemme think.”

  Janney had meant it as a statement not a question. Butcher obviously wasn’t going to make things easy. Janney licked his lips and looked down the bar again. “I know he was here, Jim. I know you remember. I just need you to remember how much he drank, if you get my meaning.”

  Butcher shrugged his shoulders.

  A muscle twitched on the side of Janney’s mouth. He lowered his voice. “C’mon Jim.”

  Butcher smirked and said nothing. He looked over Janney’s shoulder and focused on the T.V. playing on the far side of the room.

  Janney stretched across the bar, the veins in his neck sticking out like braided rope, his lips curled back over his teeth. His words came out harsh and slow, just loud enough for Butcher to hear. “You better help out with this, Butcher. If you know what’s good for you.”

  Butcher didn’t move. Not so much as a muscle twitched on his face. Janney didn’t back down either. His body was taut, stretched across the bar. The two men stared down each other.

  Finally, Butcher’s lips moved, “Next time yah go threatenin’ me, someone’s bound t’get hurt.”

  Janney winced from a sharp pain in his abdomen. He didn’t look down. He didn’t need to. Carefully, he slid back and stood upright at the bar. As he moved, he saw a flash of motion as Butcher returned the hunting knife under the counter. Janney reached do
wn and felt where the pain had been. The skin itched. He reached in between the buttons of his uniform shirt and scratched it. When he removed his fingers he held them up to the light and rubbed them together. Blood.

  He slammed his fist on the bar. Aware that the man down from him was now craning his neck to listen, Janney whispered, “You idiot. You only had to do one thing. There’s a lot at stake here.”

  Butcher ejected another gob of spit on the floor and turned back to the T.V.

  Janney clenched his jaw hard. God, he wanted to pull out his gun and teach Butcher a lesson. It would feel so good squeezing the trigger, burying five or six slugs into the man’s gut. That would show the smug bastard once and for all where he stood in the hierarchy of things. But he knew he couldn’t. Self control won the battle and he reined himself in. He reminded himself that lack of self control had created the current situation to begin with.

  Deciding against the drink he craved minutes before, Janney marched across the bar and exited without a look back. He climbed into the squad car and flipped on the two way. “Sorenson, are you there?”

  The response came back with a little static, “Yeah, right here.”

  Janney tapped the mouthpiece on the dash. Thinking. Thinking.

  “Sheriff?” Deputy Sorenson asked.

  Janney pressed the button to speak. “Forget it. I changed my mind.”

  “All right. I’m out here watching the Tremont house. Nothing going on.”

  “Roger that. I’m out for the night. Call me if something happens, right?”

  “Roger. Over and out.”

  Janney hung the mouthpiece back on its handle and started up the car. He rolled out of the parking lot without knowing exactly where he was going, just a vague notion that he ought to do something.

  He still didn’t know where the girl’s body was. He had no leads. Nothing. Without the body, the situation was still dangerous for them.

  Janney looked down at the cell phone in the seat next to him. He knew sooner or later it would ring and he would have no choice but to answer and give the caller the bad news. Janney shuddered at the thought of having to deliver the message.

  The Boss wasn’t going to like it.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The alarm went off for the fourth time. Cathy Moran stretched out an unsteady hand and slapped at the blaring black box until she hit the snooze button. Burying her face back into her warm pillows she laid there waiting for sleep to take hold of her again.

  She didn’t care if she was late for school. First period was Mr. Detrich for chemistry and she could flirt her way out of anything with him. Just arch her back and show a little cleavage and he forgave all her trespasses. How could she think about chemistry this early in the morning anyway? Then again, Bobby Mazingo was in that class and he sat next to her last week during an experiment. Maybe she should…

  “Hey! Time to get up. Let’s go.”

  She groaned at the voice; she forgot her dad was home today. Worse than any alarm clock. He banged on the door but it sounded more like he was kicking her in the head. “I’m up! I’m up!” she cried.

  She rolled over and swung her legs off the side of the bed and yawned. Gathering enough will power she pushed off the bed and dragged herself to the bathroom. At least her new so-called brothers were with their other parents for the week. A bathroom she didn’t have to share was one of the few benefits of divorce, and there weren’t many. Her dad’s new Barbie-doll wife was nice enough even though she was half her mom’s age. Or at least half the age her mom would have been if she was still alive.

  The shower usually woke her up. She cranked up the heat until it stung the skin on her back. Then she shampooed twice just like she’d learned by reading Young Ms. magazine. The magazine was the discovery of the year. Everything from healthy roots to getting rid of pimples to being sexy enough to get any man she wanted. She felt a little weird reading some of the more graphic articles. Of course, those were the ones she read twice. The writers at Young Ms. knew their stuff.

  Even though she was already running late, she stayed in the shower longer than normal. She couldn’t shake how tired she felt over the last couple of weeks. Sleep wasn’t the problem. She was actually getting more sleep than normal, napping throughout the day and crashing early at night. Still, her body ached for more.

  She hoped she wasn’t coming down with something. The weekend was coming up and her friend Gertie’s parents were out of town, the perfect opportunity to invite some boys over. Maybe even Bobby Mazingo. The thought put a smile on her face and was enough motivation to get her going. She turned off the water and toweled dry before climbing out of the shower.

  Steam covered the bathroom mirror. When she wiped away the condensation she gasped at the image of herself. There was something strange on her chest and shoulders. The image disappeared in an instant as the steamy room fogged up the mirror again. She reached out and wiped it away with her towel.

  Faint purple botches covered her skin. They were around her breasts, up to her chest and throat and down her shoulders. It looked like someone had beaten the hell out of her the night before.

  She turned to run out of the bathroom and to go show her dad. This was exactly the kind of thing he’d told her to look out for since the therapy started. But she stopped herself. He’d overreact like always and they’d be off to the hospital for more tests. She had better things to do. Cathy stepped closer to the mirror to examine the spots. The blotches looked like bruises but when she pressed on them they weren’t sore at all. She inspected the rest of her body put found no other sign of the marks anywhere else. That made her feel better. The blotches were probably just a reaction to something she wore.

  Still, it was weird. And being so tired all the time made it worse. She worried that maybe the medicine wasn’t working and the sickness was back. She didn’t have a check up until next week but her last visit hadn’t shown anything. Her dad told her the therapy was a sure thing, that she was lucky to get it because not many people did. That was why she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about it. Her dad said if she told anyone then the medicine would be taken away. And people died from what she had.

  Now, looking in the mirror at the purple splotches, she couldn’t decide what to do. It was times like this when she missed her mom the most. She was past feeling angry that she was gone and just felt miserable and lonely instead. But Cathy couldn’t ask her mom, the cancer had taken care of that, so she decided to keep it to herself. There was no way she’d ever ask her dad’s new wife. Barbie was the last person Cathy would trust with a secret.

  She pushed the whole thing out of her mind. If she wore a high collar, no one would know. She’d just take it easy for the next couple of days and the marks would go away. She cursed under her breath when she remembered it was Wednesday. She had to work after school. Working had been a battle with her dad and she knew he was waiting for her to give up on it just to say he told her so. She could call in sick but if word got back to her dad that she hadn’t shown up for work then the party at Gertie’s this weekend would be off for sure. She couldn’t let that happen.

  Cathy Moran threw on her clothes, double checked the mirror to make sure none of the purple blotches showed, grabbed her book bag, and headed downstairs. She had a long day ahead of her and all she could think about as she walked down the stairs was how soon she could get back to sleep.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Max Dahl brought a six pack of Heineken with him. He and Jack sat out on the back porch enjoying the rare warm afternoon. Usually this time of year the temperature was down in the forties during the day, so sixty degrees in the early evening was something to celebrate.

  Jack knew why Max was there. Prescott City was a small town and he was sure rumors were flying. At least Max was up front about it. “Man, you screwed up big time,” was his greeting when he first pulled in the driveway. Now that Jack had given him the whole story, Max leaned back in the teak patio chair and shook his head.

  �
��Jack,” he finally said, reaching for another beer, “that is one hell of a story.” He popped the top and drained half the bottle. “You are either into some strange stuff or…”

  “Or what?”

  “Or you are completely full of shit.”

  “C’mon! I can understand that pompous ass Janney giving me grief, but you?”

  “Hey, I didn’t say I don’t believe you. It’s just that it’s, I don’t know, so weird.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “Oh, much better. Jesus, why would I make something like this up?”

  “See, that’s the thing. I don’t think you would. I know you weren’t drunk since I was with you. I figure you have insurance. Even if you didn’t, you have more money than God, so you wouldn’t fake it to get out of paying the guy’s medical bill.”

  “O.K., so what’s left?”

  “I’m your friend so I can tell you this.” Max leaned over and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Know what I think? Under this good guy exterior lurks a psychopath hell bent on ridding the world of cheap domestic cars.”

  Jack stood up. “Come on, this is serious.”

  The glass slider opened and Sarah walked out carrying construction paper and a box of crayons. She walked over to her dad and tugged on the bottom of his sweater. “Will you color with me?”

  Jack reached down and rubbed the top of her head. “In a little bit, Bud. Why don’t you sit at the table and start?” he said, nodding toward the patio table. Sarah stuck out her bottom lip and stared up at him. Jack laughed, “Go on, I’ll be over in a little bit. We’ll work on your numbers.”

  Sarah smiled. She looked over at Max and piped, “Hi Uncle Max,” and then headed off to the patio table.

  “Smart like her mom, huh?” Max said. “Jesse’s the same age as Sarah and we’re nowhere close to worrying about numbers yet.”

  “Don’t let her enthusiasm fool you. You’d be hard pressed to understand anything she writes down. A bunch of well meaning squiggly lines. She’ll get it eventually though. She just needs time.” No sooner were the words out then he regretted them. Max winced, but didn’t say anything. A black shadow drifted over the two men even though the sun still shone in the cloudless sky.