by Mae Clair
Frustrated, Eve set her tea down and rubbed her temples. Her gaze dropped to the folder she’d brought from the hotel and discarded on the coffee table. December 1967. The month and year the world changed.
Apprehensively, she set the folder on her lap and began to sort through the contents. Bits of correspondence, old receipts, supply lists, and ledger pages comprised the bulk of information tucked inside. There was even an employment ad for a hotel maintenance worker clipped from the local newspaper and a brochure advertising printing costs from a company in Gallipolis. Nothing to indicate the world had come to a screeching halt on December 15th.
As she returned the folder to the coffee table, a piece of paper slipped free. A small square torn from a message pad. She was about to place it back inside the folder when her father’s blocky handwriting caught her eye. Dated a week before the bridge fell, the note was addressed to her mother.
Faye,
Hank called spooked about the Mothman again. I’m headed over to his place to try to calm him down. If you see Rosie, tell her Roger Layton called.
I don’t like him.
Ben
Eve blinked, trying to make sense of the strange note.
Who hadn’t her father liked? Roger?
She couldn’t remember him ever saying a bad word about Aunt Rosie’s fiancé, but he certainly couldn’t have been referring to Hank. Hank Jeffries—the only “Hank” she could think of—had been a close friend of her father. His home was one of the few to border the TNT, and once the Mothman was sighted, Hank went a little crazy in his small rancher. He swore up and down he’d seen the creature staring through the windows of his house at least twice. He’d even shot out the bedroom glass in an effort to kill it. Like many people in Point Pleasant, Hank had been terrified of “the bird.”
But Roger Layton?
Setting the note aside, she sipped her tea, trying to remember her aunt’s fiancé. He came from a family of dockworkers, a straightforward man who used to swing her up in his powerful arms whenever he saw her. He always had some pretty stone or water-smoothed piece of glass found in the river to give her. Here, take this and go show your friends.
Roger had laughed a lot and sometimes made crude jokes, but Aunt Rosie had loved him.
Eve returned to the slip of paper and the condemning declaration made by her father: I don’t like him.
She set her tea on the table, then pulled her robe closer, but the chill had little to do with the temperature of the room. Her father hadn’t liked Roger, and her beloved aunt had harbored secrets.
“Aunt Rosie, I wish I understood what was going on. I wish there was some way you could talk to me.”
Silence greeted her, the same entombing silence that had hung in the air when she’d awakened from her dream. If there were answers, she wasn’t going to find them sitting in an empty house wishing for something that could never be. Her aunt was gone. There was no changing that.
Eve carried her teacup back to the kitchen, then headed upstairs to her bedroom. In defiance of her nerves, she shut the lights off as she went, moving with growing familiarity through the dark.
For however long she remained in Point Pleasant, this was her home now, and she wouldn’t be chased away by threatening notes or ominous phone calls. If there really was something Aunt Rosie wanted her to discover, she wouldn’t leave until she got to the bottom of the mystery.
Chapter 5
Caden got started later than he’d planned the next morning. Ryan was on early shift, so the first thing he did was track his brother down at the sheriff’s office intending to tell him about the note Eve found. He caught Ryan as he was headed out the door for his police cruiser.
“Sorry, I can’t talk.” His brother waved a greeting. “I’ve got to take a call.”
“Anything serious?”
“Probably not. Early morning hiker said he saw something in one of the ponds at the TNT. Thought it looked like someone dumped something big there. Sheriff wants me to check it out.”
“Mind if I ride along? I’ve got something I want to talk to you about.”
Ryan grinned. “Hop in. Sheriff Weston would love to have you back in a car full-time.”
Caden frowned at his brother but complied all the same. The nice thing about rural county police departments was a casualness that allowed such familiarity…mostly because he’d worn a uniform for eight years. He slid into the passenger seat, and a second later, Ryan eased the car into traffic, headed for the TNT.
“Is this about Mom?” Ryan shot him a glance as he stopped for a traffic light on Viand.
“No. Why, is there a problem with her?”
“Just the usual.” Ryan shrugged. “She was wound up last night, talking about Maggie. You know how she gets.”
Caden remained silent, preferring not to discuss his little sister. He needed a break from remembering, especially after the flashback he’d had during dinner with Eve. Last night, he’d dreamed of Maggie crying out for his help, but he hadn’t been able to save her. Again.
When the traffic signal turned green, Ryan eased ahead, passing Pioneer Cemetery on Ninth. As if sensing his reluctance to discuss Maggie or their mother, Ryan changed the subject. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”
“Eve Parrish. I’m going to be doing some work for her.”
“Good. I hate to see her sell the place, but I can understand she’s got a life somewhere else.”
“Yeah.” The admission came reluctantly. He’d enjoyed their impromptu dinner last night and wouldn’t mind exploring the attraction he felt further. Too bad he wouldn’t get the chance. “You told her you thought the damage to Rosie’s house was an act of random vandalism. Kids out to have fun.”
“Sure. We’ve seen it before.” Ryan palmed the wheel as he banked the police cruiser through a curve. “I didn’t want her worrying about being alone in the house.”
“Maybe she should worry.” Caden told him about the note Eve found on her windshield, pulling it from his pocket to display as proof.
Ryan turned his gaze from the road briefly, then shook his head. “I hope you didn’t work her up over that. A lot of kids are pranking right now. School’s ending in two days, and they’re soaring on adrenalin after being cooped up all year. Someone even TP’d old man Doyle’s house last night. I’d bet money some kid stuck that note on Eve’s car and didn’t even know who it belonged to.”
“Just like you think the vandalism to Rosie’s house was routine?”
Ryan cast him a sideways glance. “What else do you want me to think? Nothing was taken, and Rosie didn’t have enemies. I’ve lived here all my life, Caden, but I’m not one to dream up conspiracy theories or believe in hogwash like the Mothman.”
Caden looked away, turning his gaze out the window.
As a kid, Ryan had pretended to believe Maggie about seeing the creature, not wanting to upset her. He’d later told Caden he thought the whole thing was make-believe. It was why Caden had never shared what happened the night his car plummeted into the Ohio River. When icy water closed over his head and he’d fought for air, his arm pinned in the wreckage.
A tingle of phantom pain coiled around his wrist. It had been fifteen years, but the bones had never healed properly. The winter chill of the water had been nothing compared to the frigid grasp of the hand that freed him, that left him branded with three distinctive red lines angled over his forearm. Exhaling, he shook the memory away.
“I want you to keep an eye out for her. Don’t be so quick to write it off. That’s all I’m asking.” He kept his gaze trained on the blur of houses, trees and buildings on his right, waiting for his memory of the Mothman to fade. “You live next door. Keep an open mind and check in on her now and then.”
“Sure. Whatever.” Ryan shrugged. “Once I get a break, I want to ask her out for dinner anyway. We need to catch up on old times.”
“A date dinner or a friend dinner?” He regretted the que
stion as soon as he asked it.
“A friend dinner.” Ryan grinned. “I didn’t know it mattered.”
“It doesn’t.” The protest came too quickly to be believable. Grimacing at the slip, Caden again turned his attention out the side window.
Ryan chuckled. “Anything else I should know, brother?”
“Such as?”
“Such as maybe you’re thinking of dusting off your rusty dating skills?”
Caden told him where he could stick the idea, but it only served to make Ryan laugh harder.
Ten minutes later they entered the TNT, passing a graffiti-scrawled sign that proclaimed McClintic Wildlife Management Area. Caden hadn’t been to the remote location in years but could well recall summer nights parked in one of the turn-off areas. If he hadn’t been with a girl, he was with his friends as they guzzled six packs and went through cigarettes like candy. Stupid stuff, a rite of passage for teenage boys. He’d lost his virginity to Bonnie Filmore in one of those pull-offs when he was eighteen, glad she’d been experienced and too drunk to realize he wasn’t.
Further down the road, they passed a groundwater treatment facility, bracketed behind barbed wire. He’d forgotten how oppressive the air was, nothing indicative of welcome. If anything, it screamed “Keep out.” In many ways it was like entering another world, one of dense woodlands and overgrown foliage. There was something almost primeval about the unnatural hush, as if a thousand unseen eyes observed their progress.
Caden had always felt a sense of “something” lingering here. A slow awareness that seeped under the skin. He used to chalk it up to subconscious tension until he came face to face with the Mothman in the fall of ’66. He’d never shared that experience with anyone and probably never would. There were times it still felt fabricated. A bizarre scenario he’d created in his head, but the scarred branding on his forearm told him differently.
“How far?” he asked.
Ryan nodded ahead. “The next pond.”
Thirty-one ponds were scattered through the TNT, all but two open year round for fishing. Electric motors were allowed on the larger ponds, which offered facilities nearby with pit-type toilets. Not that it mattered. Fewer people came these days as rumors of toxic chemical seepage spread.
“A camper on an early morning hike filed the report,” Ryan explained. “Drove into town to grab breakfast and said he saw something in the reeds on the opposite side. Couldn’t tell what it was, but said it looked pretty big. Sheriff Weston asked me to check it out before we get Natural Resources involved. You know how people dump garbage up here all the time and don’t think twice. Remember all the whackos that overran the place in ’66?
“You were a kid then,” Caden countered.
“Yeah, but I remember Mom and Dad talking about it. They used to freak because you’d come up here with your friends.”
It had been crazy then. Mothman fever had gripped Point Pleasant, and he’d been a part of it along with his friends Glen Moore and Wyatt Fisher. Sometimes they’d dragged their girlfriends along, each daring the others to venture into the abandoned igloos in the dark.
“My car stalled once,” Caden commented. “No reason, everything just went dead.”
Ryan pulled the police cruiser off the road at the entrance to a large pond and killed the ignition. “Did you see lights in the sky? Little green men come to steal you away?”
Caden gave a good-natured cuff to his head.
“Hey! That’s assaulting an officer of the law.”
“Older brother privilege. “ He popped the door and stepped outside. The musk of leaves and soil hung heavily in the air. It was a feral odor, whispering of something ancient. The unnatural hush he’d sensed earlier surrounded them like a shroud, its touch all but tangible. Together they walked back an overgrown trail cut between the trees. Weeds and ferns bent easily beneath their shoes, springing upright after they passed. Eventually, they reached the pond and Ryan took the lead, edging around the bank.
Caden followed, the ground soft and squishy beneath his heavy work boots. “I don’t see anything.”
“There.” Ryan pointed across the bank where a dark lump was huddled against the edge.
Caden narrowed his eyes, picking out something that might have been someone’s cast-off garbage or something far more unpleasant. An ugly premonition crawled through his gut. “I’ve got a shitty feeling about this.”
Ryan was already working his way around the edge, a long branch clutched in his hand. Extending it, he poked the thing in the water, using the tip for leverage. With effort, he was able to ease it from a tangle of rushes where it had become ensnared.
It rolled over like a fish bobbing belly upright. A bloated white face popped to the surface, the mouth slack, eyes unblinking and staring heavenward as if beseeching help.
“Oh, hell,” Ryan said. “That’s Amos Carter.”
Caden swore. “It looks like somebody beat the shit out of him. You’ve got a murder on your hands, brother.”
* * * *
Eve called James Dixon, Caden’s real estate friend, and made an appointment to meet with him later that afternoon. Because she didn’t want to be in the way when Caden began work at the house, she headed to the hotel still wrestling with the decision to sell. Surely, her aunt would understand she had no knowledge of how a hotel should be operated, nor did she want to relocate to Point Pleasant. Perhaps it would be possible to keep the hotel and have someone run it for her.
Katie Lynch certainly seemed capable. From all appearances, Aunt Rosie had been grooming her to handle operations when she wasn’t available. Maybe that was the way to go—at least temporarily until she had time to give the matter adequate thought.
As she walked through the front door into the lobby, she found Katie engaged in conversation with a blond-haired woman at the check-in counter. Although her back was turned, there was something vaguely familiar about her. An unabashed sassiness in the way she stood, the flare of her hip jutted at an angle, her hand lodged in the crook of her waist.
“It’s not like him,” the woman complained to Katie. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue and sniffled loudly. “I’m telling you, something’s not right. Even if he went on one of his binges, he’d be home by now.”
“Is something wrong?” Eve asked, fearing an issue with a lodger.
Catching sight of her, Katie flushed. “No, um…”
The woman turned and eyed her up and down. “I’m Doreen Sue Lynch, Katie’s mother.”
“Oh.” That explained the familiarity. She’d only seen Mrs. Lynch a few times as a child, usually when her mom took her to Doreen Sue’s hair salon for a trim. More often than not, it was one of the other stylists who clipped her bangs and got rid of her split ends, Doreen Sue busy mixing color or doing a perm.
Not much had changed about Katie’s mom in the intervening fifteen years. She still had the same bleached blond hair and favored the same tight, revealing clothes she had when Eve was a child. Today, it was white leggings with stiletto heels and a snug leopard-print top. A white-spotted purse hung from her shoulder, forming a baggy leather sack.
“Mom, this is Eve Parrish,” Katie introduced her. “Rosie’s niece.”
“I remember you.” The hint of a smile touched Doreen Sue’s lips. Like her fingernails, they were glossy and red. “Your mama used to bring you into my salon to get your hair trimmed.”
Eve nodded. “You always had a bowl of hard cinnamon candy at the door, and I’d grab one on the way out.”
“Gee, that was a long time ago.” The faraway look of whimsy in Doreen Sue’s eyes didn’t last long. Almost immediately her attention returned to Katie, and she dabbed her eyes again. “I think I should go look for him, don’t you?”
“Is there a problem?” Eve asked.
“It’s Amos,” Doreen Sue replied.
Eve glanced at Katie for understanding. Surprisingly, her employee looked low on patience. Despite her mother’s snif
fling and tears, there was little sympathy in her eyes. “Mom’s boyfriend,” she explained.
“He’s gone missing,” Doreen Sue interjected. “He didn’t come home last night, and I’m worried.”
Out of her realm, Eve hedged. “Did you check with the police?”
Doreen Sue pshawed the idea with a wave of her hand. “Sheriff Weston and those deputies of his? They won’t do anything. They’ll tell me Amos is sleeping off a binge somewhere.”
“He probably is, Mom.” Frowning, Katie continued checking off items in a ledger book open on the counter. Seemingly uninterested in her mother’s problem, she moved a pencil down each line, comparing entries against a typed list. “You know how he gets when he’s had too much to drink.”
“He promised me he wouldn’t do that anymore. He said he was gonna change. What if he fell and hit his head or something?”
Katie sighed. “Mom, he’ll be home when he’s ready. For all you know, he might have found—” She bit her lip, stopping the thought before it could be uttered.
“What?” Doreen Sue pounced on the unfinished notion. “You were gonna say he might of found someone else to shack up with, weren’t you? I know you don’t like the man.”
“No, I don’t like him.” Katie slammed the book shut. “He drinks too much, cheats on you, and treats you like dirt. Just like every other guy who came down the pike before him. Why do you think I don’t like Sam visiting with you?”
Doreen Sue’s face drained of color. “So now I’m an unfit grandmamma?”
Katie flushed and hugged the ledger to her chest. “I don’t have time for this, Mom. The lobby of the Parrish Hotel isn’t the place to air dirty family laundry.” She gave a quick nod to Eve. “Excuse me.”
Before Eve could manage a syllable, Katie disappeared into the office behind the counter, closing the door with a firm click. Eve wasn’t sure if she was more mortified for herself, Katie, or Doreen Sue. Awkwardly, she looked at Mrs. Lynch, uncertain if she should say something to pacify the situation. “I’m sorry.”