"He's a rival, of course you want him gone."
She looked away. John had seen through her, of course he had. He was good at that. "He'll turn us into..."
"Oh, I know. But if you make any move against him, he'll pull the 'she feels threatened' card."
"And the 'weak female' card." Had he killed Stephanie because she threatened his beliefs? Or had he had nothing to do with the murder?
-#-
They didn't bury the dead any more. Silents had a bad habit of digging up recently interred corpses. Stephanie lay silent on a pyre. Helen wished she did not even have to look at her, wished she could just think about who she was.
John would say the words over the girl's body before they consigned her to the flames. Helen had to let him do that. Had to stand there, respectful, at least pretending to grieve. No, not pretending. The grief was there. She could not escape it, could not tell herself any more that Stephanie was just a resource. There was a murderer here, somewhere. No Silent had killed Stephanie. A Silent would have...well...taken chunks out of her, and would have probably been caught this close to the village. No, this had been done by a perfectly sane, perfectly evil human. Unless...
No, Stephanie wasn't the type to get into a fight. They'd had a couple of people killed in fights. It happened. One had been over a woman, even. Some men could not control themselves. Sometimes they even seemed to be in the majority.
She chased her thoughts into silence, standing there as John began the service for Stephanie. He invoked a kind of generic god, a creator spirit. She wondered if the old divisions of god would survive. If mother worship and earth worship would come back into ascendancy. If new pantheons would be created.
If God would survive... Well, He had thus far. Maybe humanity needed Him. Some people thought the apocalypse had happened to remind us of Him.
The pyre was lit. It took a little while to take; it's not that easy to burn a body without gasoline. That was the kind of irrelevant thought Helen had sometimes. She shook it away. It felt out of place. Disrespectful.
She had no power to restore civilization; all she could do was preserve little bits here and there. It was a battle to maintain the tiniest pieces of civilization.
Was she doing the right thing? She had to be, when the alternative was not just the loss of the remaining technology, but the complete loss of anything resembling freedom.
Stephanie had deserved better. Stephanie should have been in high school, worrying about her grades and her boyfriend. Not a fighter and a tracker, and then a victim of a murder... Not that there hadn't been plenty of murders before, but it still felt like something that shouldn't have happened.
John was right. Humans did not change.
-#-
"I didn't kill her, you know," Tom Milkins said quietly.
"Right now everybody and no one is a suspect. We don't know enough to start narrowing it down." She was sure Tom would have an alibi. "Beyond the people we absolutely know were in Sandy's when she was killed."
"So, basically, anyone who didn't feel like a glass of bad cider last night."
She wrinkled her nose. The current batch was awful, but she felt a sudden need to defend it, a need she restrained. The last thing she wanted was to be led into blindly disagreeing with everything he said. That would not help her professionalism. "Pretty much."
"Maybe her boyfriend did it."
Helen shook her head. "I doubt it. She was dating one of those nice guys. She liked nice guys. She liked guys who would let her be in charge."
"Sometimes they flip out. Sometimes the nicest guys can turn into monsters."
"Sometimes they do." Which didn't make anyone's life easier. And then when they did find the murderer? Some people were saying exile was not enough. Some people wanted to build a gallows.
She had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, it would make everyone feel better. On the other, did they want to perpetuate that piece of barbarism? Helen had always been vaguely opposed to the death penalty on the grounds of imperfect justice.
She wondered if she could even stop the community from hanging the murder.
"I can tell you I didn't do it, neither did Max or Clay."
"Because they were with you?"
"Right. We are each other's alibis."
Unless they were all in on it. She used to be proud of her ability to tell when somebody was lying. Now she suspected it was not really possible to tell. But, if she started seeing a conspiracy than she really would be losing it. "Got it. Somebody will check with them.”
Milkins had come to her himself, eager to clear his name. She could not blame him, but also could not help but wonder if he protested too much. Or would that...no, she was thinking in circles again. He was still a suspect, just much further down the list.
"Besides," she added, "why would you have killed her?" He had no real motive except for misogyny.
He shrugged. "Max didn't like her. He thought she was too independent, too wild. You have to admit... I mean, surely you were worried she'd never settle down and have children."
Helen slowly breathed in, and then out. "A little, but that wouldn't be a reason to kill her." Unless someone wanted to make an example of her for the other women, to make it plain that it was not acceptable for females to be competent fighters.
"Unless you were nuts. And frankly, to kill a pretty girl like that? Nuts or jealous."
Could it have been a woman? Helen wasn't sure. Once, she would have doubted most females had the strength. All of the women here, though, worked as hard as any man. They had the upper body development to show for it. She did herself. With some kind of hammer or club, it would have been possible for anyone save a child. So, a motive based on jealousy was a possibility. "Or wanting her and frustrated."
"Still a form of nuts or jealous."
"Unless she saw something she wasn't meant to see."
"Maybe in pre-Plague New York," Milkins responded, shrugging. "I got work to do."
"We'll be in touch." She wasn't going to let him off the hook, not yet. Nobody was off the hook until they found the killer.
Of course, she was no detective herself, but she'd worked with enough of them to know the basics. She watched him go and figured that he'd given her nothing one way or the other. Max and Clay were cronies who hung on his every word. They were no kind of a solid alibi, but who else would alibi Milkins but his lieutenants. Besides, he had half a dozen guys who would do whatever he wanted, none of whom had been in the tavern that night.
He would no more have killed Stephanie himself than she would. She walked back towards the town hall, wondering if she should watch her own back. Maybe she should get a nice strong man to escort her, not because she couldn't look after herself, but because such a presence would deter the average attacker.
Then she realized that was buying into their philosophy. She lifted her head and walked into the hall.
It was empty and quiet. None of her council were there. Of course, she was the only one who did administration full time. That was all they could afford right now. They were out in the fields, most likely. Or forming a posse to go after the Silents. Helen would not go with them. She was a halfway decent shot but a crappy rider. She knew she would only slow them down.
They needed more ammunition. They definitely needed to find some way to make it. Maybe they needed to go back to muskets and black powder. Or maybe bows and arrows were the right way after all. You could always make arrows.
That felt like a surrender. A letting go of what they had had. She glanced up at the lights, not on right now. One day, unless they could get solid hydro-electric from the mill, they would go out. Not for good, but for generations. That would be a loss. She was fighting a retreat. Maybe those who had simply embraced things as they were were better off. The resources of the world as it had been would fade away.
She was sure that rebuilding would happen regardless, but the more they remembered the better off their children's children would be. How did one
make black powder?
Perhaps that was the worst part, she thought as she stood in the empty hall. They had advanced too far, forgotten the easy things that might be preserved. There was nobody in Bruton — gah, she was doing it herself — who had been into reenactments or similar. Nobody who knew how to make bows, or anything like that. They had been lucky to find a farrier.
She realized they had not been lucky enough.
Chapter Four
"We want answers."
The person asking that question of her was Stephanie's mother. Given a week had passed without so much as a whisper or rumor as to the identity of the killer, Helen could hardly be angry with her. "So do I, Sarah."
Stephanie had not even been an orphan, which might have made things less painful. There were a lot of orphans. Many of them ended up with the wildlings, but many of them had been wildlings and returned to civilization. That tough existence was not for every kid.
Some could not handle an existence as tough as they had here in Bruceton Mills. Most of those, though, had been lost in those early days, either to the Silents, medical problems, or suicide. Some argued that those that survived were better off because of those deaths. The weak ones had been weeded out. Helen thought the price too high.
"I know you're trying, but...who the heck would kill somebody like her?"
"We don't know. Our best theory is it was guy trouble of some kind." Not that Helen really thought that. Stephanie's regular boyfriend? Incapable. Not the type. Somebody who wanted her and could not have her, though...
"Chuck didn't do it."
"He's pretty much off the list. She was pretty enough that somebody could have gotten jealous, though."
"Any..."
"The only other theory is that she saw something somebody didn't want known. A guy with somebody else's woman, that kind of thing. We're working on it. I promise."
"We need a full time sheriff," said Sarah.
"I don't exactly disagree." A pause, and Helen came up with an idea. "Why don't you take some names, get some nominations, then we can elect somebody?"
"You just want to keep me busy."
Helen wasn't about to deny it. "Come on. You'll at least feel you're doing something."
Sarah paused, then, "Okay." She stretched a little. "I'm sorry. I..."
"If I was you, I'd be tearing the place apart."
"I already did that. I can't find anything either, but I'm hardly a detective."
It would be the answer to all of their prayers if some ex-cop showed up, but prayers like that didn't get answered. That was not the way it worked. Life served you what it served you. "Neither am I. John's trying, but..."
"He's not really one either. Good guy, and...I'd vote for him as mayor if..."
Unspoken. Helen simply nodded, both to what was said and what was not. "I'm in no hurry to step down." If John wanted the job, he could have it. Truthfully, he didn't want it. He was happy where he was.
"Oh, come on, nobody wants the job, including you. Somebody has to do it, and..." Sarah sighed. "They're talking about a gallows again."
"I would have thought you'd be all for that."
"Only if it's for sure the guy." With that, Sarah turned and walked away.
Helen rubbed her temples. She was so tired right now, so frustrated and fed up. She wanted to step down. Failing that, she wanted to sleep for about a week.
She did not feel like the great leader right now. One of her people had been killed and she could sense underlying tension. It was like the calm before the storm. Had Stephanie been killed just to stir things up? Milkins' face floated in front of her eyes.
It took her a moment to realize he was really present, if not quite as close as in her vision. She regarded him for a moment, then walked away, head held high. Whatever he wanted, it could wait. He was not high on her suspect list at the moment. That was probably unfair and maybe even stupid, but she needed a break.
She needed a drink. Heck, she hadn't smoked in years and she needed a cigarette. There was no tobacco here though. Further south, no doubt, you could still get smokes. Not here.
She regarded Sandy's, then shook her head. Don't drink when stressed, tired, or depressed. Don't do it. It's the slippery slope to developing a problem. She heard that in the voice of her long dead mother.
Not that anyone in the family had ever had a problem. Her mother's fears seemed thin and frail to her now, passed across the intervening years and the changes. Words spoken to a child and recalled by the woman.
Still, she did not go into Sandy's. Maybe what she needed was some exercise, a quick run. Something. She was not about to leave main street alone, though. If she started pacing it, that would show an obvious sign of stress. Of weakness.
Finally, she made her decision. Still quite pointedly ignoring Milkins, she walked across the street to where most of the horses were tethered. She might be a poor rider, but there was still something relaxing about horses.
Maybe it was simply that they were so straightforward. Their problems were simple: a thrown shoe, a mane in need of combing. She stood there, watching them for a moment. They had been lucky there were so many horses left; people had gone out of their way to ensure the continued presence of a species man could not live without. Cars might be easier to operate, but horses survived, had flourished even. They had had eight healthy foals born that year. The foals had not quite outnumbered the human children.
Her reverie was broken by a shout. "Silents!"
This far in? She reached for her sidearm — she never went unarmed—and moved out of the way.
-#-
There were six naked human figures; it was clear from their faces that they were not sane. The Silents developed a certain look, not exactly blank but something else. There was animal cunning in those eyes.
Helen did not get a chance to do much. She fired but could never be sure whether her bullets hit in the general melee. The Silents were dead in moments.
"Somebody was asleep at the switch."
She raised her voice. "And exactly who was on perimeter watch?"
"We had to put Roy Mole in."
"All of fourteen." She frowned. "In Stephanie's slot?"
"Yes."
"Whoever killed her should face two charges, then." She had little doubt that Roy was dead. The others who had been searching came galloping up.
There was no sign of Roy or (almost as bad) his horse. They couldn't afford to lose either of them, but they had.
She felt her heart rate slowly return to normal. Her entire body, though, was used to such alertness. Some of the men went over to remove the bodies. They were perfectly safe. Either you had caught it by now or were immune. There was no way to be sure with the children born since the plague. The oldest here were about eighteen months and seemed to be making normal baby noises.
She shuddered and told herself to stop borrowing trouble. The idea of having to cull infected children had come up before, but she did not want to think about it now. Not with Roy Mole gone and Silent bodies being burned. No sense leaving them around to attract more of their own kind.
The Silents received no funeral; after all they had been dead for up to two years. Milkins walked up to her. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"Not like I've never dealt with it before," she couldn't help but snap. She wanted nothing from him, least of all his sympathy. That was too much him treating her like a weak female. She was not weak.
"Point." Helen could read nothing in his eyes. He was being polite, and they both knew it.
"I do sometimes wonder if they're breeding."
"What scares me is the idea that the virus might mutate any day and nail the rest of us."
She shrugged. "That's borrowing trouble." She worried about the kids and what she might have to do. About the virus rearing its head again and finishing the job? She could not prevent that.
The virus was perfect. It didn't kill its host, and that was good evolution in a virus. A biologist had once told her that
the most successful virus on the planet was the common cold.
The biologist had been trying to distract her from the rotten cold she had had at the time, but oddly the memory came to mind now. "If it mutates, it mutates...maybe the raccoons will take over."
He laughed, sharp and ugly. "Further south, they pretty much already have. Of course, they're good eating. You should get some rest, Mayor. You look awful." He almost reached his hand out towards her, then seemed to think better of it.
She studied the lines of his face. "And you don't?" He looked tired too, and for a moment, she forgot she didn't like him.
"We'll talk later. You're right. I feel...oh, about how you look."
It was weird to part on such civil terms. She wondered if he would buck for sheriff.
She wondered if that might not be a good idea.
Chapter Five
That thought followed her through the next day. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It might even things out to give Milkins some measure of power.
Or he could have committed a murder just to get that power, although that struck her as too complex for the man. Yet, she had no true reason to suspect him other than...well...a general mistrust of the man. That might be enough to send him down the road, but it was not enough to hang him, and it was clear that people would settle for no lesser fate for Stephanie's murderer. They were already building a gallows in the square.
She knew she could not stop them and felt her power was slipping away from her. It was like the reins on a strong horse, pulled through her hands by the force of its desire to run.
Maybe she should step down. Maybe she should go to the gallows right now and order them to stop. Part of what held her back was that she was not sure they should not be building them. Perhaps they were not out of control either, but rather taking her silence for assent. It came very close to being exactly that.
Assent. She would...not interfere with the elections for sheriff. Let the people decide.
In the mean time, she could hope somebody knew who had killed Stephanie and had not yet come forward. If they did, they were an accessory to the murder, she thought grimly. They would be protecting the real killer. Or terrified of him.
The Silent Years [The Complete Collection] Page 11