by Catie Rhodes
The door opened and a short wiry guy stepped out. His mostly gray, longish hair blew in the wind, and he swiped a hand across his sun-freckled forehead. He stared Griff down and said, “You outta luck, Mister. They done come and repossessed the truck. If my ex wants more money, she’s gonna have to get her a job.”
“This isn’t about any of that, Mr. Bickley.” Griff handed Ollie a business card. “Among other things, I investigate missing persons. Margaret Franklin hired my associates and me to investigate the disappearance of Susie Franklin.”
Whatever bravado Ollie had drained out of him, rounding his shoulders and shortening him by a good two inches. He stole a sidelong glance at Mysti and me and asked, “What y’all want with me?”
Griff glanced at me and inclined his chin so slightly I might have missed it had I not been staring right at him. I walked over to stand beside him.
“We want to ask you a few questions about Camden DeVoss.” I said it in the same tone of voice I used at my part-time bartending job. The one I used to get men to tip me. “I spoke with Donny Wayne McClure earlier today, and he told me you and Camden were tight in high school.”
“Not tight,” Ollie mumbled. “I had one of them Ouija boards and Camden wanted to use it.”
Bingo.
“Mind if we come inside and talk to you about it?” Mysti sidled up to our little group and treated Ollie to a big smile. “I see you have one of those old Coke machines. It work? I’d love to get a Coke.”
Without giving us a real yes or no, Ollie stepped aside and held open the door. I followed Griff inside.
The smell of sour sweat joined the odor of grease and old upholstery. I stiffened my face to keep the distaste off it. If I messed up this interview because I couldn’t stand a little B.O., Griff would have my ass. For some reason, his reamings bothered me more than any from other bosses I’d had. Mysti went straight to the Coke machine, fed it quarters, and got a Coke in a bottle. Very retro. Ollie gestured at some plastic chairs and pulled himself up on a heavy wooden desk that might have been new around the same time John F. Kennedy was in office. Mysti, Griff, and I sat.
“Why did Cameron DeVoss want to use your Ouija board?” Griff put his arm over the back of Mysti’s chair.
“You done found out about me. I have a hard time believing you don’t know why.” Ollie lit a generic brand cigarette and blew out a jet of smoke. “Let’s cut the shit and get down to business, all right? Ain’t got no home to go to no more, but I want to be done with this.”
“All right,” Griff said. “I want to know anything you can tell me about Camden DeVoss’s interest in the occult, especially dealing with the snow globe collection he inherited from his mother.”
“I always knew this would come back up.” Ollie shook his head. “Wish so many times I’d have never met the little bastard.” He went to the Coke machine and got himself a Dr Pepper and popped the top before he spoke again. “First thing to understand is Camden come by his interest in the occult, as you call it, honest. His momma was a backwoods witch. She did a big business in fertility potions, was my understanding.”
Griff, Mysti, and I exchanged glances. I couldn’t believe nobody in town told us. Or maybe I could. Small towns could close ranks to outsiders, and if Camden’s mother died in the early ‘70s, there might not be many folks around who remembered her well.
“Camden claimed his momma used the snow globes sort of like the way you hear about people using crystal balls.” Ollie rubbed one corner of his mouth, leaving a smear of grease. “Mind you, I never seen ‘em do any such thing. Camden was trying to make ‘em do what he wanted.”
“Donny Wayne McClure told me Camden believed he could bring his mother back from the dead.” I spoke without thinking, forgetting Griff was the boss. I glanced at him, and he gave me a nod.
“Naw, he didn’t believe that.” Ollie curled his lip and wrinkled his nose. “He wanted to contact the old lady’s spirit, get her to transfer her power to him. Thought he should have come by it, inherited it, when she died.”
Oh, big distinction there.
“I had my Ouija board and an interest in darker stuff,” Ollie said. “Natural kid’s curiosity is all it was, really, but Camden was more into it. He picked up a book on summoning demons somewhere and wanted to enlist the help of a demon in inheriting his mother’s powers.”
“What, exactly, could Camden’s mother do?” I asked. “I’m sure he wasn’t interested in dispensing fertility treatments to childless women.”
“I like you.” Ollie pointed one dirty finger at me and winked. “According to Camden, she could control prosperity and health as well. She was the reason Camden’s daddy earned so much money doing what many others fail at.”
“So Camden DeVoss wanted to get rich and live forever?” Mysti cocked her head at Ollie, frowning. “I ask because I have the same sort of business as Camden’s mother. I can tell you it’s not as easy as having a little magical umph.”
Ollie started to speak, then put his knuckles to his lips. “What is it you people think Camden had to do with Susie Franklin’s disappearance?”
Griff, Mysti, and I had a conference of gazes. We couldn’t weigh the pros and cons with Ollie sitting right there in front of us. Mysti nodded first. I followed. Griff sat back in his chair and crossed an ankle over his knee.
“Peri Jean Mace here is a psychic medium.” He gestured at me. “She had a vision of sorts in which she saw Camden carry Susie Franklin’s body into the rest area outside town.”
Ollie’s mouth dropped open. He started to speak but choked. He coughed so hard spittle flew from his mouth. Griff leaped out of his chair and hurried to him. He grabbed Ollie’s Dr Pepper off the desk and handed it to him. Ollie took a sip, sputtered, and took another sip. He seemed to catch his breath.
“I’m sorry. Just caught me off guard.” He took a deep breath and belched. “Camden had a dark side. Started letting it come out once we got to know each other. He used to catch little defenseless animals on his father’s place and kill ‘em. Slow. He used to joke he wanted to kill a person. He’d laugh, only his eyes didn’t laugh. Never.” Ollie shivered.
“Did he ever act on his fantasies?” Griff leaned forward, his gaze fixed on Ollie.
“Not on people, least not in front of me. Camden and I quit being friends over his odd tastes, though.” Ollie glanced at me, then at Mysti. “Hate to tell this in front of ladies.”
“Please tell us,” Mysti said. “The information might help.”
“Camden had his book on summoning demons, and he thought all he needed to do was sacrifice an animal. He chose this stray cat that hung around the school. The teachers fed it, considered it sort of a pet.” Ollie swallowed hard. When he spoke again, his voice was barely more than a whisper. “He cut the poor thing’s eyes out while it was still alive, and then gutted it. It was a relief when it died. I never felt so ugly in all my life. I told Cameron not to come around me no more.”
“What did he do?” I asked, disgust and grief for a poor animal I never laid eyes on rolling through me.
“Laughed. Said I was about useless, and he was done anyway.” Ollie stared at the concrete floor, his face long, lips turned down. He folded his hands in his lap and closed his eyes.
“He left you alone, then?” Griff lit one of his cigarillos, spurring both Ollie and me to light up.
“Pretty much.” Ollie nodded, his gaze still downcast.
“Then why did you help him move out of his dorm room at college in New Mexico?” Griff took a pull on his cigarillo and let the smoke drift out of his nostrils.
For the second time that evening, Ollie deflated. “I think I’ve said enough.”
Griff closed his eyes and shook his head. “Mr. Bickley, you don’t want to fuck me around. Understand?”
“I can’t tell you no more.” Bickley stood up and wiped his hands on his pants.
“What are you doing to keep this place open?” Griff stood. “Your divorce pretty much cleane
d you out. You’re living in this place. Everybody in town thinks you’ll close any day.” Griff shoved his hands in his pants pockets and let his words sink in. “What are you moving through this place? My guess would be guns or drugs. Seeing as you’ve got a felony conviction for manufacturing—”
“All right, all right. I didn’t tell you everything about the night with the cat.” Ollie’s eyes were shiny with tears.
“What else happened?” I asked.
Ollie dropped his head.
Griff pulled out his wallet. Ollie’s eyes widened. Griff tugged out a hundred-dollar bill and waved it at Ollie. He said, “Trade you.”
Ollie hesitated just long enough to make me wonder and then snatched the money like a frog going for a bug. “Need this. Ex-wife is bleeding me dry.”
“So what happened after Camden butchered the cat?” I eyed Ollie in a none too friendly way. If he thought he could cheat us, he was wrong.
“He done it in the woods behind the school. A little boy caught us. And when I say little, I mean he was a baby almost. So little he started crying.” Ollie let out another breath and got even smaller. “Camden chased after him. Kid fell down. Camden fell on him. Grabbed him by the hair and bashed his head into a tree several times.” Ollie paused. “Never told anybody that. Kept it inside all these years.”
“Did Camden kill the little boy?” Mysti’s voice sounded like it had no air in it.
“I didn’t stay to watch.” Ollie took in the expressions on our faces and held out his hands in surrender. “Now, that’s the truth. I ran like my life depended on it.”
From what Ollie’d said so far about Camden DeVoss, it well could have. My skin crawled, and I felt dirty—the kind of dirty you can’t clean off—after listening to Ollie’s story.
“I ran until I got home to my mama and daddy’s. Next few weeks, people looked for that little kid. Todd something-or-other. Never found him. No body, no nothing.” Ollie’s chest rose and fell too fast. “I never spoke another word to Camden DeVoss until he called me up wanting help moving. And even the way he caught up with me was some weird shit. I was living in this,” he shook his head, “commune, I guess you’d call it, in Dallas. Payphone in the hall rang one day, and it was Camden.” Ollie stopped talking, thought something over, and started again. “You got to understand something. Nobody knew how to get in touch with me there. I’d fell out with my folks and didn’t have no friends. Was on drugs pretty bad.” He said it in the tone of voice of a man making a shocking confession. “After Camden and I quit being friends, I started having these dreams, awful dreams, and Camden was always in them. He’d do awful things to me. Only way I could get them quiet was to be stoned, so stayed that way for several years.”
“So you helped Camden move.” Griff picked up the story again. “Anything unusual happen?”
“Camden got into it with this Mr. All-American type. The guy wrestled Camden to the ground, kidney punched him a few times.” Ollie’s gaze tracked back and forth as though he was watching the events unfold. “Camden got up, dusted himself off, and we left. He told me in the car that guy would pay.”
I remembered what Mysti and Griff told me in the diner happened to the guy Camden had a college feud with. My half-digested food rolled again. I put my hand across my belly.
“Where did Camden move to?” I asked.
“Up in the mountains with some hippie. Got the feeling he was into occult stuff as much as Camden. Next thing I heard, Lewis DeVoss was telling everybody Camden was missing.”
“Lewis DeVoss told us Camden died in a car wreck in New Mexico,” Griff said.
“Never heard about it.” Ollie shook his head.
“Do you think there’s a possibility he’s still alive? Maybe living somewhere close?” I lit the last cigarette I had.
“Naw. I think he’s dead,” Ollie said.
“What brought you to that conclusion?” Griff asked.
“I stopped about a year ago at the old rest stop. You know how sometimes you need to go pee-pee, and you can’t wait another second?” Ollie’s gaze tracked around the room, stopping on each of us to make sure we understood that kind of urge to relieve ourselves. “That’s how I was that day. Couldn’t wait. Not even the ten minutes it woulda took to get home.”
The hair on my head prickled as though it was trying to stand up. I thought I knew the compulsion Ollie experienced.
“So I pulled off on the side of the road and hiked back there for a little privacy.” Ollie used his arms to mime driving, going as far as to make a desperate face to match his story. “I did what I needed to do, and when I was leaving it was like something pulled my glance to the restrooms. It was like a magnet drawing me.” He shivered and gooseflesh pimpled his arms. “Anyway, I looked over there, and Camden DeVoss was standing there in the doorway to the men’s room, motioning me over.” Ollie stopped his recitation.
“Did you walk over there?” I wanted him to say he didn’t because I didn’t want to hear what happened if he did.
“Hell no, ma’am. I knowed I was looking at the devil hisself.” Ollie rubbed at the chill bumps on his arms. “Y’see, Camden DeVoss hadn’t aged a day since I dropped him off to live in the New Mexico mountains with that hippie thirty years ago. It had to be his ghost.”
Cold fingers walked up my spine, and I began to tremble.
7
Our footsteps crunched on the loose asphalt in the service station’s parking lot. None of us spoke. I still had the shakes over Ollie’s last revelation. I kept picturing the scene in my head. Ollie there at the rest stop staring at someone he hadn’t seen for a lifetime and realizing that someone hadn’t aged.
Griff pushed the button on his key fob. The alarm beeped off, but the locks didn’t disengage. Griff, frowning, grabbed his door handle and pulled. He gave us a sheepish grin.
“Must have left it unlocked. Got too excited, I guess.”
We all got into the vehicle and buckled up. “I’ll drive a few blocks and park. He doesn’t need to see us sitting in the parking lot discussing him.” Griff started the engine. He pulled into the parking lot of Nazareth Memorial Park, dark and deserted for the night. Griff rolled down his window and lit one of his cigarillos.
“Those still stink even with the windows down,” Mysti said.
“You know you love it.” Griff patted her thigh, and she swatted at his hand. “Who thinks Camden DeVoss is dead?” Griff raised his own hand. Mysti and I raised ours, too. “What do we think about what we learned from Ollie? Peri Jean?”
“I think Ollie’s lucky he had sense enough not to go in that restroom. He’d be on the missing list if he had.” I jerked with aftershocks of my shivers but thought I was getting over it. Oh, hell. No point in lying to myself. I couldn’t sit still, and the only reason I didn’t light a cigarette was I had none left.
“Agreed,” Griff said. “But, for the life of me, I can’t figure out the logistics on this thing.”
“I’ve got a theory, not necessarily on logistics,” Mysti said. “I think all the people who’ve disappeared over the years made that rest area their last stop.”
“I’ll play the non-believer,” Griff said. “Why would someone stop there? It’s obviously closed.”
“People might not see a closed rest stop. It might look brand new and open.” I pulled out my empty cigarette pack and gazed at it, imagining the cool rush of nicotine hitting me. I could ask for one of Griff’s cigarillos, but then they’d know how much Ollie shook me up. My oversized pride would allow no such thing. “I wish the two of you could have seen what I saw in the restroom. It was completely different than what we saw at first.”
“I am thrilled we didn’t see what you saw.” Mysti offered me a little smile.
“I am, too. You might not have been there to get me out.” With those words, the last of the shakes left me. Maybe I didn’t need cigarettes after all. I should try quitting again. Who the hell am I kidding? I nudged Griff and pointed at his pack of cigarillos. He handed
it to me, and I lit one up. It tasted as awful as I figured.
“I’ll buy your theory, except for one thing,” Griff said. “We agree he uses the snow globes as some sort of portal, right?”
Mysti and I nodded.
“How did he introduce it into the belongings of each and every person who disappeared over the years?” Griff glanced between us. “I mean, we’re talking quite a few people.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Mysti shrugged and shook her head.
“And not to beat a dead horse, but are we saying a ghost committed these murders?” Griff tossed his cigarillo into the parking lot and shook his head.
“I’ve had ghosts do some pretty mean things to me, but I always figured it happened because of what I am,” I said. “I think a ghost maybe could kill me. But someone who isn’t a medium?”
“One doesn’t have to be as powerful of a medium as you to see ghosts or feel the phenomena they can cause,” Griff said. “I don’t have even a glimmer of what you and Mysti have, and I’ve seen a few. Some pretty mean.”
Exactly what kind of investigations did Griff specialize in?
“Could the ghosts have hurt you, though?” I posed the thought as a question, but I had my own theory. I wanted to see what Griff said first.
“Maybe. Depending on the circumstances.” He turned to glance at me and bit his lip. “I’m guessing we both have war stories, right? You tell yours.”
“When I was married to my first husband, we lived in a huge, old house. Over the years, it had housed several businesses. One of them was a mortuary. That place was so very haunted.” I closed myself to the memories of my marriage and focused on what mattered. “Me being there made it worse, like it gave the spirits an outlet or something.”
“There’s one problem with this theory,” Mysti said. “Camden would need someone on the living plane to help him manifest in the way he finds most satisfying.”
“The most obvious choices for Camden’s henchmen would be Lewis and Ollie.” I went over what I’d seen around both men. Ollie had an Ouija board as a teenager. He might have the same sort of power I did. Something hit me. “Here’s my question. Why would Ollie help Camden? He was afraid of him. You don’t fake that kind of fear.”