In a Dark Season

by Vicki Lane

  The cars rolled on with their hypnotic clickety-clack, picking up speed till the graffiti became a dizzying blur of shape and color. Abandoning her attempt at reading the tags, Elizabeth turned her attention to the railroad itself—the road of rail. According to Nola’s manuscript, the tracks were laid right on top of what used to be the Drovers’ Road.

  Her gaze followed the path of the train as it disappeared around a bend, heading for Ransom and, beyond that, Asheville. The history of this old road, as related by Nola’s manuscript, was fresh in her memory, and where the present train chugged and hooted, she imagined a broad path, churned to mire by the passage of hundreds of hogs kept in check by drovers whose long, red flannel-tipped whips cracked, urging the weary animals toward the next stand.

  And before it was the Drovers’ Road, it was the Catawba Trail, running all the way from Georgia to Tennessee, so Nola’s notes said. The Indians used it for hunting and trading. The vision of the muddy road and the drive of pigs faded, replaced by copper-skinned, buckskin-clad hunters, creeping single file along a narrow but well-trodden path. In her mind she saw the man in the lead raise his hand to signal a halt as a giant buck crashed out of the undergrowth ahead.

  And before there were people, Elizabeth mused, deep in the romance of the past, it was probably an animal trail—maybe a migration route. There were buffalo around here a long time ago, weren’t there?

  The train had slowed to a crawl now. Nola said that this part of the Drovers’ Road was called the Buncombe Turnpike and it ran from Greeneville, South Carolina, to Greeneville, Tennessee. Who was Greene, anyway? Popular fella. A general or something, the manuscript said. And then the railroad came and the Dixie Highway followed along part of the same route, going through North Carolina from Michigan to Florida.

  One of her neighbors was it Odus? had described the Appalachian exodus to Detroit, where there was work in the car plants. “Law, Miss Elizabeth, come time school let out for the summer, they’d be a big old Greyhound bus, just a-waitin’ at the schoolhouse door to carry them young uns straight to Dee-troit. Hit was a sight on earth, some of them young uns they’d come out that door with their graduatin’ paper in one hand and a grip in t’ other, climb aboard that ol’ bus and never look back.”

  Yes, it was Odus who’d told her that story. He himself had gone to the big city, lured from the farm by the accounts of high wages. “Didn’t stay but a day. I flat couldn’t stomach the water they had there—tasted just like that ol’ Clorox. Now that stuff’s fine to put in the wash and hit’ll flat cure foot rot in a cow but, aye god, I don’t want to drink hit, do you?”

  So Odus had boarded the bus again for the long ride back to the mountains, where days were long, work was hard, and cash was scarce, but pure water bubbled endlessly from a mountainside spring above his house. Many others, not so fastidious where their water was concerned, had stayed, sometimes marrying Michigan-born spouses, but always determined to “come home” on retiring. In early June, when families and churches celebrated Decoration Day by cleaning graveyards and renewing the wreaths and floral displays on the graves, these transplanted natives would return in their big Detroit-made vehicles with Michigan plates, eager to reestablish old ties.

  Back when I was growing up in Florida we saw lots of Michigan plates there too. Yankees escaping the cold winters to walk on the beaches with their chalk-white legs and black shoes and socks. And then in summer lots of Florida folks headed for the North Carolina mountains to escape the heat. And now they’re coming to get away from the hurricanes—building their second or third homes in these preposterous communities. A kind of folk-wandering that—

  A horn’s indignant blast roused Elizabeth from her reverie. The train’s caboose vanished around a curve and the barrier gates stood upright. As she pulled forward across the tracks, she was surprised to see a crew of surveyors at work below the old stand under the observation of the grizzled old man her daughters had always called the Troll.

  On the night before, when talk at the table had turned to the bones in the silo and Rosemary had excused herself, Elizabeth had followed her to the porch, concerned that the subject under discussion would inevitably awaken memories of the unhappy events they had endured together the previous year. But Rosemary had reassured her. “Really, Mum, I’m fine. I just wanted to see the night sky—it’s so gorgeous here.” Then, with a wry twist of her mouth, she’d added, “And sometimes family can be a little overwhelming when I’m out of practice.”

  They had returned eventually to the dining room to hear Laurel, passionate as always, admonishing Phillip in ringing tones. “Talk to the Troll! He’s bound to have seen something—no, bad idea, not you. He’s pretty shy of new people and particularly men. But he’s really nice—I was painting down at the bridge a few years ago and he eventually got curious—ambled over to see what I was doing and actually turned out to be pretty chatty. He even invited me into that neat old building where he lives and gave me a glass of iced tea. Did you know that place was a general store years ago? There’s this big door on the side that used to open right to the railroad tracks for trains to offload supplies. He had a bunch of antiques in there—a fair amount of junk too, but some neat stuff.”

  “Well, maybe it’d be a good idea—” Phillip had begun, but Laurel’s enthusiastic spiel had run on, stream-of-conscious fashion.

  “—I could go talk to him myself but I’m heading back to Asheville early in the morning and I’ll be busy with a class for the next three days, then we have an open house at the studio. Maybe Mum could talk to him. She always waves at him when she goes by, so at least he’d recognize her. I bet Mum could find out if the Troll knows anything about the bones in the silo.”

  And now, here was the so-called Troll, leaning against one of the junk cars that had found a final resting place in front of the derelict building. As she passed by him, Elizabeth slowed, lifting a finger from the steering wheel and nodding in the traditional local mode for greeting someone you recognized but didn’t actually know. Lifting his chin in acknowledgment, the Troll continued his rapt study of the surveyors.

  The car behind her honked impatiently, and before she knew quite why she was doing it, Elizabeth pulled onto the shoulder and motioned the fuming vehicle around her. The monster SUV roared past, its driver glaring down at her in righteous indignation.

  “Florida people!” Elizabeth muttered at the sight of the license plate.

  Pulling her jeep farther off the road, she considered what to do. In the rearview mirror, she could see the Troll watching her. At his side sat one of the many cats that were always in evidence around the old brick building.

  What now, Sherlock? You told Phillip you’d see if this guy knows anything about the silo. Elizabeth looked over to the parking lot and the field beyond, where the old silo stood. No one was there but the structure was encircled with yellow crime scene tape. Fresh tire tracks crisscrossing the parking lot hinted at recent activity, unusual for this bleak season. Along the riverbank, leafless trees inked mysterious hieroglyphics on the lead-colored sky. What now, indeed?

  The rap of a knuckle against her window made her gasp: she turned to see the Troll’s black-framed glasses trained on her. His lips were moving and she punched the button to lower her window.

  “…in need of assistance?”

  Elizabeth blinked. “Excuse me?”

  Resisting the impulse to punch the window button again as a faint odor compounded of alcohol and unwashed clothes crept over her, she listened in bewilderment as the question was repeated.

  “I asked if you were in need of assistance, Mrs. Goodweather. Allow me to introduce myself.” The Troll tugged the greasy leather bomber cap from his head and sketched a courtly bow. “Thomas Walter Blake the Fifth, at your service.”

  Behind the thick lenses, bloodshot gray eyes twinkled in private amusement as Elizabeth, her mouth open but wordless, continued to stare, bewildered. Then, abruptly recollecting her mission, she cut the car’s engine off,
the better to hear and be heard.

  “No thanks, I’m fine. I was just…well, I was wondering about those surveyors up there. But how do you know my name? You called me—”

  “I called you Mrs. Goodweather. That’s correct, is it not?”

  “Yes, but—” Who is this guy? Not what I expected, that’s for sure. Sounds educated and, now that I see him up close, he’s not as old as I thought. And I’d better stop thinking of him as the Troll. His name is—oh, hell, why don’t I ever pay attention to names? He said it was Thomas something something the Fifth. I think.

  “I met your daughter Laurel a few years ago. Quite a talented artist. Her work at that time put me in mind of Gauguin. A charming young woman—we had quite a discussion, if I recall correctly, about the early Impressionists and the Fauves. Of course, I’d seen her coming and going with you and your other daughter for years. But I hadn’t known your names.”

  A little smile lifted the corners of the man’s mouth. “Goodweather—a propitious cognomen indeed. Do you know, Mrs. Goodweather, I’ve taken quite an interest in your Laurel.”

  “Phillip, I swear, when he said that, it sent a chill over me. I just stammered out something about being late for an appointment and got out of there. Laurel said he was a nice harmless old guy, but you know how utterly naïve she is. There’s something weird about him—he looks like a bum and smells like a drunk but he talks like a…like a bloody college professor.”

  She had driven, far too fast, up the winding road to Dewell Hill, pulled over into the parking lot of the old church, and called Phillip on her cell phone.

  “So I got no information but now I’m wondering if this Troll guy has ever been under suspicion.”

  “Because he said he’s taken an interest in Laurel?” Phillip’s voice sounded amused and this annoyed her.

  “Not just that, because he’s always there—near the silo where the remains were found, near the house where Nola jumped…”

  “And near the old bus, where the rape was supposed to have taken place. Okay, sweetheart, let me talk to Mackenzie. He probably knows all there is to know about this guy—count on it. I’ll get back to you tonight.”

  On her return trip, several hours later, Elizabeth slowed her grocery-laden car as she neared the bridge. The surveyors were still at work around the old stand, but the Troll was nowhere to be seen. Elizabeth studied the dilapidated brick building that was presumably his home. Or his lair. Once a prosperous mercantile concern, the business had closed long before she and her family had moved to the county. Birdie said she used to shop there in the forties but it closed when the passenger trains quit running. And that old guy has been hanging out there—I guess living there—as long as I can remember.

  She cast a dubious eye at the rusting cars and trucks resting on blocks in front of the old building. The sight of an enormous tabby cat perched on the hood of a battered old pickup should have been reassuring but instead seemed somehow ominous. As if it’s lying in wait for someone.

  The building’s ground-floor windows were covered with plywood, but a curl of smoke from a stovepipe protruding from the flat roof hinted at warmth within. At one of the upper windows, a movement caught her eye, a figure moving past the glass.

  He’s completely harmless, Mum. Just an old guy who’s kind of sad and lonely. Isn’t that what Laurel had said? Still…

  The phone in the house was ringing as Elizabeth climbed the steps, lugging four overflowing canvas grocery bags. Hurrying for the door, she grimaced to hear the ring stop abruptly. But then the door opened and Rosemary, phone in hand, said, “It’s for you, Mum—Sallie Kate.”

  “Merry Christmas and fa, la, la, la, la, Elizabeth honey! Have y’ all got that big old tree up yet? I was at the fillin’ station when Ben and that pretty lady of his pulled in with it in the back of the pickup. Lordy, it looked as big as the trees they use at the White House! Good thing you have a cathedral ceiling.

  “Listen, honey, Harley and I have to go out of town—Harley’s mama’s taken the notion that this is her last Christmas and she’s fussed and carried on till the whole family has to be there. Of course, she did the same thing two years ago. Then she got to feelin’ some better and by the time Christmas rolled around last year, she felt so much better that she went with a pack of her widow friends on a tour bus to Vegas for the holidays. But now she’s back in her ‘O Lord, take me now’ mode, rollin’ her eyes and clutchin’ at her heart every whipstitch. She can’t fool me, though. Harley’s sister told me the old bat’s signed up for a cruise to Cancun in February.”

  “Merry Christmas, Sallie Kate.” Elizabeth hurled herself into the tiny breach afforded by her friend’s pausing for breath. “Is there anything you need me to see about for you while you’re gone?”

  “Well, honey, I’m kinda worried about Nola. I went by the nursin’ home today and they’ve put her on oxygen. I visited with her a while but, except for that she was havin’ trouble gettin’ her breath, she was about the same—still not making much sense. She was sayin’ something about fog and little cat feet but I couldn’t make anything out of it. Anyway, I asked this girl at the nursin’ station and she said Nola’d had a real bad episode of chokin’, but that she was stable now, long as they kept her on the oxygen. So then I wanted to know had they gotten in touch with Nola’s niece about her breathin’ problems and Miss Nurse turned all snippy on me, said that the Layton Facility always observed proper procedure and she really couldn’t discuss her patient with a nonfamily member. Honey, Nola looks real bad.

  “And on top of everything, those RPI people (you know, Ransom Properties and Investments—the big developers) have done a kind of end run around all the rest of us real estate people. They’ve about got the county commissioners convinced to condemn the property there at the old stand ‘for the good of the County’ so RPI can get their fancy development underway. Those no-good county commissioners are just rarin’ to pull that eminent domain thing. Honey, they’re talkin’ about a takin’!”

  Chapter 17

  The Dying of the Light

  Tuesday, December 19

  Why the hell are you still living in Weaverville, Hawk? I thought that you and your lady were—”

  “Thanks for coming by, Mac. I figured you still weren’t sure how private your phone was, so…” Pointedly leaving the sheriff’s question unanswered, Phillip stood back to let Sheriff Blaine into his house. “I wanted to run something by you before I left for class.”

  Mac held up a white paper bag from which emanated a promising aroma of sage and pork grease. “I brought the sausage biscuits from Sadie’s Place. Do you have the coffee ready?”

  In the kitchen, Blaine glanced around. “I don’t know how you can stand all this pink, Hawk. Of course, the blue curtains are a nice touch. Would that be baby blue or sky blue? Or maybe powder blue? I have a hell of a time remembering which is which. And look at those ruffles! Three rows of them! Must be a bitch to iron. Still, if it’s…”

  Phillip poured the coffee and waited for his friend’s humor to run its course. The cutesy country décor of this rented house never failed to amuse Mackenzie. And I keep telling myself that it’s not permanent, that I can live with it another few months. But by god, I’m sick of pink and blue and ruffles and leering teddy bears.

  “…maybe get some tips from you for spiffing up the jail. I know I read somewhere that pink walls can make the prisoners calmer and easier to handle—”

  “Mac, what do you know about that guy who hangs out at the Gudger’s Stand bridge? Lives in that old brick building? Lizabeth was talking to him this morning and something he said, something about noticing her daughter, has got her all stirred up.”

  The sheriff reached for his coffee mug and rolled his eyes. “I guess I don’t even want to know why Miz Goodweather’s talking to Tom. Has she been over checking out the silo too?”

  God knows, thought Phillip. “So what about this guy? Is he a squatter? Local fella or what? Lizabeth said he sounded ed
ucated but smelled like booze. And this was just an hour ago—a little early for a drink.”

  “Unless you’re an alcoholic. Tom’s a serious drunk—gets up, takes a drink or two to get a nice little buzz going, then works on it the rest of the day.” The sheriff crumpled up the wrapping from his sausage biscuits and lobbed it toward the plastic-lined garbage pail in the corner of the kitchen.

  Phillip watched as the wadded paper dropped dead center into the receptacle. “So you know him. Does he have any history on him? Any criminal record?”

  “It’s not a crime to be a drunk—as long as you don’t drive. But to answer Miz Goodweather’s question: there’s nothing to link Tom Blake with any of these ongoing investigations.” He cocked an eyebrow at Phillip. “It is her question, isn’t it?”

  Phillip shrugged. “Inquiring minds, et cetera.”

  Mackenzie put his elbows on the table. “Tom Blake’s an interesting story. He’s the last of a prominent local family—the family that owned Wakeman’s—you know, that hardware store downtown—and quite a few other businesses in the county. Tom’s no squatter—he holds the title to that old ruin he’s living in.”

  “So he’s not a bum—just a drunk.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much it. I checked him out when I first took office. You know, scruffy-looking guy, no visible means of support, and hanging around that park that’s full of kids and paddlers in the summer—I was definitely suspicious. But there’s never been a complaint against him—he just likes to watch the river and what’s going on.”

  “No job?”

  “None that I’ve ever heard of. His folks are dead and I guess they left him enough to live on. Story is, he was a career officer in the army in the seventies, and then, all of a sudden, he was back home with a drinking problem. But like I said, he’s never caused any trouble—you tell your lady not to worry about it.”