The Dead Past

by Piccirilli, Tom

  “No, I've had enough of your game.”

  “Read the goddamn thing. Don't skim this time." His face hardened and flushed. Strong as he was, he'd never make it on the NYPD. There was a line of probity he wouldn't cross, and on occasion that held him back from getting to the bottom of things. "Look at the style. The tilt of the handwriting."

  Lowell finally read it through carefully, taking his time. He folded his arms. "Yeah.”

  “A man wrote this. It's not to Broghin from his wife.”

  “You're right," he admitted. "So did he write it?”

  “No, not his script." Roy walked in and Lowell shot him a look and Roy turned around and left. "I don't know if you're crazy or if this means something. If it doesn't I'm going to hand you your head. But I'm willing to talk to him."

  Lowell snatched the phone and called the sheriff at home. He spoke politely, without intimation of what we'd been discussing. At one point, he rolled his eyes. He hung up and said, "I should've known. Your grandmother's over there. You shoot high and she shoots low. You two are like tag team mud wrestlers."

  We sat staring into space for fifteen minutes, the heat of the office making it hard to breathe even with the windows open, and then Broghin walked in. He saw the letter on the desk and his eyes clouded. He looked far off at a point somewhere between Lowell and me and whispered, "Who the hell do you think you are?" He was already covered in sweat, droplets plinking off the end of his nose. "You went into my desk, through my stuff, as if… as if. ..." He couldn't come up with any-thing more than that, but maybe he wanted to say as if you had the right. I felt angry and apologetic, and I still didn't know if the love letter meant anything.

  I said, "The note was left on Richie's body." He was silent, staring. "You took it off him. Why?"

  "Get out of here," he said.

  "Who wrote it?"

  "I said—"

  "Why was it left behind?"

  He jabbed his meaty fingers into my chest and pain erupted. "I'm sheriff of Felicity Grove. I am the law. You don't order me around, boy." He shoved me back-ward and poked harder in the same spot and blue stars flared at the edges of my vision. "You don't steal from me." I held up my hands and he swatted them away and kept jabbing. The room got smaller and the heat was like the pressure of an ocean on top of us. "You don't ride me." Jab. We both looked at the desk chair at the same time. "You don't even think about getting in my face, boy, 'cause I'll bury you under the jailhouse." He shoved me again and pressed me back to the wall, and then came at me once more. I blocked him and turned and he swung on me, his stomach bouncing as if he'd eaten three belly dancers. I ducked and punched him in the stomach—there was really no place else you could hit him—and then we were into it. His meaty right fist caught me on the jaw and I hit him in the nose, and he drew his gun. He pointed it at my face and Lowell got in front of me the same way he had protected Aaron Bubrick.

  Roy ran in and said, "Jesus Christ, Sheriff, Lowell." He didn't know what to do and fumbled at his gun belt. "Jesus Christ."

  Broghin bled from where he'd bitten into his lip. Flowing pink swirled along the sweat trails down his chin. "You'll get more than three months this time," he said. The gun was still pointed at Lowell's heart.

  Time is relative, so perhaps we all didn't remain like that for the hour it felt like. Broghin's shirt was drenched, his face swimming. Roy's head bobbed back and forth between me and the sheriff as if he was watching tennis. Only Lowell remained calm. Another deputy ran in, and my hopes of making a timely escape continued to dwindle. He wet his lips, eyes on the gun, and quietly said, "It's your wife, Sheriff, she says somebody's trying to break into the house.”

  “My Christ," Broghin groaned. He scowled at Lowell and holstered the gun, backing out of the room. "Get everybody over there now." Lowell was on the move after him down the hall. I sprinted with them and said, "I'm coming.”

  “No," Lowell told me. He grabbed me by the collar and stopped me solid. "Meg's gone home." Roy and the other deputy were already out the front door. The phone receiver was lying up on Meg's desk. "You stay on the line with them.”

  “But ...”

  “Do as you're told, damn it." In one fluid motion he grabbed a rifle from the rack and ran out.

  I picked up the phone.

  THIRTEEN

  "Mrs. Broghin?"

  "Who is this?" she breathed. Her voice was strained and hushed. "Lowell?"

  "Jonathan Kendrick."

  She let out a brief moan, clipped and quiet. "Johnny, where is my husband?"

  "He's on his way." I sounded as ineffectual as I felt. My heart hammered, sand and salt formed at the edges of my eyes, and the windows were steamed over.

  "Thank God," she said.

  "Are you all right? Is my grandmother okay?”

  “Yes, yes, we're fine." The wheelchair squeaked loudly behind her whispers.

  Clarice wasn't listening. I heard the phone crackle against her blouse as she clutched it to her and turned, distracted, and I could imagine her looking out the windows at the foliage out front, the partition of maples, and the dark road beyond. A century ago the Broghin house had been a farm with several hundred acres, but each succeeding generation had sold off more of the land until it was now surrounded by less than three or four square acres. It was laid back at the rim of western dale, not fifteen minutes from the station, but secluded from neighbors nonetheless.

  "Is there a gun in the house?" I asked.

  Her murmuring proved awful to hear, fright cutting her voice into a staccato of gasps. "Frank's got a dozen of them, but they're all locked up in his cabinet and I have no idea where the keys are."

  "Look for them. Put Anna on."

  "The lights are dead." There was a disturbing sound in the background I couldn't make out. "Why is it saying that?"

  "What?" This was the worst, I thought, unable to help or move or do anything but listen.

  "There's somebody out there," she whimpered.

  "Put Anna on."

  "No!" she cried. "Don't you understand? I've never held anything so tightly before as this phone. Don't leave us."

  "The police are on their way. They'll be there in a couple of minutes. You'll be all right. Let me speak with my grandmother."

  The noise grew louder and Anna was talking, tone smooth and endearing as if she were speaking to a child. Clarice said, "Why does it keep saying that?" She began crying, husky, desperate weeping that consumed her, to the point where I thought she'd hyperventilate. There was another rustling of the receiver pressed against her, distant rumblings of a crude ethereal voice, and complaints and sobs as Anna struggled to take the phone and comfort her.

  "Hello, Jonathan," Anna said. "Excuse my presumptions, but I somehow expected you to lead the cavalry."

  "I'm supposed to be keeping you rational. What the hell is happening there?"

  "It is lovely to hear your voice," she said, "and I'm glad I have the chance to speak with you. We were talking when the lights went out. Strange that the phone is still working, since they had taken the time to tamper with the power lines."

  Sweat poured down my neck, landing with patters, and my mouth went dry. She acted as if we were telephoning to exchange household hints on the best ways to remove lipstick stains; I think I'm the only one in the world who could hear the diffidence beneath her controlled exterior. "Who is it? What are they saying?"

  As always, she focused on the situation at hand. "I cannot be certain if it is a man or a woman. I believe it is a modified tape recording. Weird intonations keep repeating, 'You deserve your death, you've earned it.' The wind has risen and makes it even more difficult to distinguish." She held the phone out so I could listen, but the sounds were too indistinct. "There is more, but the voice is garbled, keening, almost subhuman. Doubtlessly, it was intended to have just the effect it's had on Clarice." She paused and said something reassuring to Broghin's wife, and I could hear Clarice speaking. Anna relayed it to me. "Over the past several nights they hav
e been vexed with other forms of harassment as well."

  "Since Richie's death."

  "Yes, and we were correct in our assumption that obscenities were painted on the house. It read Love Kills. Rather trite, I'd say. There were also distressing phone calls that Franklin insisted Clarice not mention to anyone."

  "More of his secrets."

  "Foolish man." The keening faded as she spoke. "Wait. The voice has stopped." I could hear the phone cord snapping and untangling as she wheeled herself along. "Although the outside lights are out, too, the moon on the snow provides adequate lighting. I don't see anyone. An engine is turning over in the distance, at the bottom of the drive, I think. They're leaving. We're fine, Jonathan, don't worry."

  She was doing a better job of reassuring herself than I was. "I should be there."

  She said, "You are here."

  Clarice gargled out nervous laughter.

  Anna laughed, too, quite solemnly and briefly. "The sirens are nearby." Another two minutes or so passed. "Yes, here are the police cruisers pulling up now." The play-by-play further ostracized me from the moment, alone and safe in the police station while my grandmother was being hounded and threatened by a killer I was still no closer to catching. Failure upon failure, piled one on the other to attest to my lack of insight. "Now Franklin, Deputy Tully, and several other deputies are outside, poised and ready. The direct approach. I do hope they don't start firing at shadows." She tsked them. She tsked them, but not me.

  Broghin's voice was high and scared as he came through the front door. Clarice's cries of relief and slurpy kisses for her husband filled the line.

  "Quite an exuberant reunion," Anna said. She lowered her voice. "Such a silly woman, really, one would think a sheriff's wife would have a bit more self-control. Hmmm, how odd. It appears that willow swatches have been left lying against the door. What a strange perpetrator."

  Then Broghin, Lowell, and Anna were talking, and Clarice kept laughing and weeping. Roy said, "All clear around back," and somebody hung up the phone.

  ~ * ~

  I ran a light and lost control on a slick patch, jumped the curb and took out a mailbox on Wisteria Way. The Jeep's bumper hooked a fire hydrant and broke off without argument, left skittering down the road. I nearly overturned before I got to the cemetery.

  Winds blew the new snowfall in intricate layers strung across the tombstones. Moonlight reflected off the entire yard. Ice and stone sculptures rose against the backdrop of reaching trees, standing out in the night's brightness, blue-black and silver. Felicity Grave had taken on an almost pagan atmosphere, as if praying madonnas and reverent angels now worshipped Diana, goddess of the moon. Low-hanging branches scooped channels in the snow, and wood clacked solidly against wood. Crummler's shack was dark and lifeless. I banged on the door. There was no movement inside. I banged again.

  From directly behind the doorknob, near the floor as if he had dropped to his knees, Crummler said, "Leave me alone!"

  "It's Jonathan Kendrick."

  "Oh."

  Zebediah Crummler opened the door an inch and peered out; his eyes were as wild as ever, but the happy, manic energy had vanished. He clutched a tattered Bible to his chest, rocking it the way a child hugs a doll. His beard was threaded with barbs and splashes of sap. When he saw me he smiled and dropped the Bible, began snapping his fingers, shivering, fidgeting. "I am here, Jon!"

  "I need to talk to you."

  "My shoes have some mud on them now, but not too much." He ducked back inside, turned on a light, and brought me his shoes. "Do you see?"

  "That's good," I said.

  "Yes, I don't want you to get mad."

  "I wouldn't be mad," I said. The wind blew hard against my back where my sweaty shirt was now freezing. I stepped around him and he shut the door and picked up the worn Bible. "I understand how hard it is to keep them clean when you work so hard to keep this place nice."

  He shuddered, gyrated his hips, tapped his foot rapidly. "I like doing it."

  "Did I scare you?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said, grinning.

  "I need you to take me to Potter's Field."

  The smile stayed nailed to his face but his eyes dimmed. "I don't like it there."

  "I know you don't," I said, "but I need your help.”

  “You need Crummler's help?" he asked.

  "To fight the forces of darkness," I said.

  "From a interdimensional cosmos where the wraiths of gigantic demons seek possession of our very astral plane?"

  "Yes."

  "I will help you!"

  "Tell me about the ghost," I said.

  He wrapped his arms more tightly around his shoes and the Bible. "I don't want to."

  Terror and ignorance walked hand-in-hand around this town unchecked, taking turns frightening elderly ladies and haunting the dim-witted innocent. Crew cut and his partner were playing games: teasing, heckling, badgering. I grabbed Crummler's shoulders and gaped at him in awe. "You?" I said. "Frightened? But you are Crummler! Hero of the unfortunate, saver of worlds. There is no one else I can turn to at this desperate time." It perked him up, and he started jitterbugging. "You have returned from battles with the dark corridors of far-off dimensions."

  "Yes, yes," he said. "A war that has raged for eons in each of the infinite macrocosms; the deaths of fragile stars shine down on us. The forces of evil are forever being marshaled, chaos seeks to firmly establish a toe-hold on the Earth, but I will not fail in my efforts for I am Crummler!"

  "Tell me about the ghost," I said, "who chases you with the willow swatches."

  "My foe." He edged sideways to a wooden chair and sat heavily. "It was here tonight. I thought you were it, coming to chase and hit and yell bad things at me. It bangs on the windows sometimes."

  "What does it look like?" I asked.

  "It comes when it is cold."

  "But what does it look like?"

  "When it is cold, its face is covered. Bundled. Black and red. Scarves."

  "You've got to be kidding me."

  "I kid you not, Jon."

  "A man or a woman?"

  "A demon."

  Crap: I'd pressed him too far into his own mythos. He happily stared at me, put his hands up to his face and waved. You have to take everything in order, deal with exactly what you have at the moment. Somehow, you must control your impatience and take each separate event and coax them until they fit.

  "Okay," I said. "Take me to the Field."

  "It's too dark."

  "The moon on the snow makes it bright outside."

  "All right, Jon." He placed the Bible on his chair and put on his shoes. They were still laced, and he had to shove and grind and coerce his feet into them. He whirled his dirty coat around himself like a cloak, and we walked south to Potter's Field.

  Crummler had done the work of an entire Boy Scout troop in the two days since I'd last been here. No wonder he looked such a mess; the amount of effort it took was amazing. The underbrush had been cut down and smoothed back. Grappling, diseased trees had been pruned. He'd hacked away at the confines of the landscape, clearing the grade, digging up ancient stumps from the frozen earth. Fallen headstones had been righted, and he'd carefully piled the broken bits of those that had crumbled into gravel. Meticulously, Crummler had even cleaned out the worn, carved numbers of identification.

  And he had taken pains to arrange the willow swatches in a decorous fashion on that particular marker.

  "I keep the Field clean now," he said. "That is why there is some mud on my shoes. But not too much."

  I bent and examined the area. "Who's buried here?"

  "The ghost of a ghost." Crummler liked that and smiled pleasantly. "The chance of a ghost. The father of ghosts." He stooped and carefully realigned the swatches I had knocked out of position. "Nobody. Only had a pauper's funeral."

  "You sound as if you know who he was. Do you know his name?"

  "No, they have no names," he said. "It's better to let them stay buri
ed."

  "Yes, you've told me."

  He pointed at nearby graves. "Here is Louise May Murphy's abortion. Twelve years ago, no name. And there's the hitchhiker who died outside town, hit and run. No name. And over there is…"

  "And here?" I asked.

  "The man the sheriff shot."

  "Broghin killed this man?"

  Nodding, he swooped closer. "Know you not, Jon?" He was surprised it had taken me this long to only get it to half-speed. "A long time ago, it was. Maybe twenty-five or thirty years ago, but I remember. He wasn't sheriff then, and did not have a big fat belly. The mayor made a speech and gave him a medal. Then the sheriff who wasn't the sheriff yet made a speech and there was a parade and the people bought lemonade on the corner. I only listened for a while and then I had to go to the hospital and then come here to rake."

  "Why did Broghin kill the man?" I asked.

  "He was a bad man."

  "But what did he do?"

  Crummler mimed handing me gifts. "He came from the blackness and left things for the women. Nice things, I think, sweet things, things I wish someone had brought me back in the hospital. Three of them. Three women, three presents. It went on for a long time, they said. Candy and letters. That was not the bad part. I heard people laughing about it. It was a lot of fun, they said." A single large shudder passed through him from head to toe as if somebody had wrung him out like a wet towel. "Then they found two of the ladies dead. The last was saved by the sheriff who was not the sheriff yet, who killed the villian." He turned and the moon caught the energy in his eyes. "The flower lady," he said.

  Margaret Gallagher had been stalked twenty-five years ago.

  "And now the ghost comes here at night," he sighed. "To yell at me for not taking good care of the Field. And sometimes it brings the baby."

  "The baby."

  Crew cut's face flashed the same way as his knife, and other faces came into focus too; the scrawled script of a letter written in a dangerously romantic tone, pieces pulling together like film of a mirror breaking, running backwards, reforming.

  And those words: How could it mean anything?

  ~ * ~

  The unplowed back trails made driving difficult, but I kept to the twin grooves cut in the deep snow by other trucks before me. The tires of the Jeep threatened to get stuck twice, but I kept the speed at a constant forty and managed to buck free both times.