The First Time I Hunted

by Jo Macgregor

  At once, my chest hurt as though it was being squeezed. I couldn’t take a full breath, and cold sweat beaded my top lip, yet I could see nothing scary in there: a dirt floor, a low metal roof, a rolled-up rope ladder, a covered tubular shaft sunk in the middle with a hand pump beside. This must be an old well house. I shone my phone’s light around the interior, nibbling a fingernail. Then remembering what all I’d touched that day, I dropped my hand.

  The bones of some long-dead critter — a raccoon or squirrel, perhaps — lay on an old newspaper against one wall. Wanting to see the date on the paper to get an idea of when the farm had last been occupied, I brushed the small skull aside with the back of my hand.

  A cat.

  A gray cat hisses and writhes under the booted foot pinning it to the ground.

  A rock smashes down onto its head. It lies twitching and bleeding on the dirt.

  A hand in a dirty work glove holds a bowie knife. The blade flashes in the light, then plunges down.

  I jerked upright, banging my head on the roof and dropping my phone. Flakes of rust rained down on me, and spots of light popped in my vision. Staggering back from the bones, I braced a hand on the lid of the well to keep from falling.

  The man shouts, his face mottled red with rage. Idiot! Look at what you made me do. Can’t you get anything right?

  He stares down into the wide well. It’s fallen right down to the bottom! Go get the ladder. You’re going to go down there and fetch it back, you stupid excuse for a—

  The metal teeth of a green-handled rake shove into his chest, once and then again.

  The man grunts, steps back, and opens his mouth to yell.

  The rake is thrust once more. Harder.

  The angry man grabs the head of the rake and tries to wrest it away from his attacker. But a hard shove sends him stumbling backward. He tumbles over the edge of the well and falls into the tunnel of darkness below.

  A moment of silence, then a bellow of pain and rage. Curses echo up from the hole. Orders to fetch the ladder. Warnings of vengeance and payback.

  The person holding the rake doesn’t move.

  The shouting continues and then a banging rises from inside the well. Next comes the sound of a rock hitting stone over and over again. After a long while, the banging stops, replaced by a scream of incomprehensible fury.

  At the top, the presence waits, silent and patient, a spark of joy flickering inside.

  The yells subside into pleas for help. The man begs, promises to change, to be better.

  Up in the well house, the flame of joy grows.

  The cries from the well slow and weaken. There will be no reprisals, he promises. Just let him out, just drop the ladder. Hoarsely now: he’s hurt, his hip is broken and maybe a rib. He can’t breathe. He’s suffocating. It’s cold and wet. Get him out of there. Please, please!

  When the weeping starts, the presence slides the cap over the top of the well, trapping the sobs inside.

  Trembling, I fell to my knees and vomited. When all that was left was empty retching, I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and reached for my phone.

  “I told you not to call me” was Singh’s greeting.

  “And I told you I could find more to do with this case.”

  “Whatever you think you’ve found—”

  “I have a jurisdictional question. If I’m at the scene of crime — a murder or an attempted murder that I think is related to the Button Man killer — should I notify the local police department or the FBI field office in Albany?”

  I could almost hear Singh’s inner struggle in the long silence on the other end. He so did not want to have anything more to do with me.

  “Where are you?” he asked eventually, and I told him.

  After the call, I went back to my car, cleaned my hands with the wipes from my mother’s backpack, and rinsed my mouth out with water, mentally adding a toothbrush and toothpaste to my growing list of essential private eye equipment. Then I made another call.

  “Hey, Garnet,” Ryan said. “How are you doing?”

  “Hey,” I said. “Remember how I told you that I was hunting for a particular house and barn?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I found it.”

  “The one you saw in your vision?”

  “Uh-huh. And I think maybe I found a body too.” Had I, though? Suddenly, I had doubts. The body felt both there and not there.

  Ryan cursed. “Where are you now?”

  “On a farm outside of Crowbury, in Caledonia county.”

  He cursed again. “I have no jurisdiction there.”

  I paused, then said, “I wasn’t calling you in an official capacity.”

  “I’m on my way,” he said at once.

  “No, that’s not necessary,” I found myself saying, even though I wished he were there to hold me; I couldn’t stop shivering. “I just needed to hear a friendly voice, you know? I’ll be okay in a minute or two. I’m just a little spooked.”

  I told him what I’d found and seen in my visions, and I felt calmer afterward. Something about putting it into words helped corral the crazy foulness into a describable experience, and I could feel my heartrate slowing. Of course, that might have been the effect of Ryan’s calm voice and empathic responses.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive up?” he offered again at the end of our chat.

  “No, by the time you get here, Singh will already have evicted me.” The agent had said he was in Montpelier for a meeting; he’d be at the farm within the hour. “I’ll see you tonight?”

  “Call as soon as you’re back in town, and I’ll come over with a pizza and a bottle of wine.”

  “And a shoulder. I might need to discharge some eye water.”

  “I’ll bring two.”

  I scratched at my hand, trying to remove a splinter, while my mind raced, attempting to put together the mismatched pieces of what I’d seen. I knew the man who’d been pushed into the well was the same man I’d seen in my previous visions, though he’d looked older and meaner. Strangely, my feeling about whether the body was still down there kept waxing and waning.

  I hadn’t seen who’d attacked him. The most likely candidate, I figured, was the woman, the boy’s mother. I could easily picture a scene where she finally reached a point where she couldn’t stomach it anymore and got rid of the man who’d made her and her son’s lives a living torment. But could it possibly have been the little boy, several years older and possibly bolder than the timid kid I’d seen in the cage? Maybe he’d done it as revenge for his grandfather killing his cherished cat. I had to concede that it could have been anyone, even a fed-up farm worker or another relative. There would’ve been many people with a grudge against such a horrible individual.

  I felt bone-tired and confused but good, proud of myself for finding something that even Senior Special Agent Singh with all his arrogant condescension wouldn’t be able to dismiss. After this, he’d have to admit I had a genuine and useful ability, and going forward, he’d have to include me in the investigation. For the first time since I’d been fished out of that icy pond and yanked back from the beyond, I felt like I knew, at least a little, what I was doing. I was a psychic investigator, and whoever didn’t like it could suck it.

  – 26 –

  I was resting in my car, fighting off the flashbacks that came every time I closed my eyes, when Singh arrived. He came alone. Clearly, he wanted to make sure this wasn’t a false alarm before he declared it a crime scene and summoned backup. He directed a disparaging look at my scruffy appearance — cobwebs and rust flakes in my hair, dirt on my clothes and face, and mud slimed over my Doc Martins — and wrinkled his nose, no doubt catching a whiff of vomit. While waiting, I’d caught a glimpse of myself in my car’s side mirror but could find neither the energy nor the inclination to give a rat’s ass about how I looked.

  “Where’s this supposed crime scene?” Singh asked.

  I led the way to the well house, stopped several yards away, and p
ointed. “In there. In the well.”

  Seeming to feel no hesitation at that border of darkness I could all but see and touch, Singh marched up to the well house, wedged the flap open, and stuck his head inside. Looking back over his shoulder at me, he said, “You’d better not have called me out for a dead possum.”

  “It’s a cat. It was once gray.”

  He gave me a look. It wasn’t an appreciative one. “What makes you think a murder or attempted murder happened here?”

  “I saw it. I mean,” I added quickly, “I didn’t see it see it, but I saw it.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “And there are human remains inside the well. At least, I think there are,” I said.

  “You think?” Without waiting for an answer, he went inside the little building and inspected the lid of the well. I knew what he was observing: spiderwebs, a thick layer of dust, and a frosting of rust from the roof.

  “How can you possibly know what’s down there?” he demanded. “This well cap hasn’t been moved in years.”

  “I saw,” I said again. “A man, mid-fifties maybe, was pushed into the well. He was wearing dirty blue overalls, and his hip was likely broken. A rib, too, maybe.”

  “Is this vomit yours?”

  “Yes,” I said, bending down so I could see what he was doing. “Sorry.”

  Singh pulled on a pair of latex gloves, heaved off the heavy well cap, and peered down into the well. “It’s black as pitch in there.” With a stern warning not to touch anything, he exited the hut, stalked back to his car, and returned brandishing a Maglite as large as a baton. No friendly cartoons on the side of Agent Singh’s flashlight, no, sir.

  Noticing the pair of handcuffs he was clipping to his belt, I frowned. “He’s been dead a while, Agent. I don’t think he’s going to be resisting arrest.”

  “They’re not for him,” Singh said darkly.

  Wonderful. So if he didn’t find anything in the well, he’d arrest me for wasting police time. And just like that, I was back to biting my nails. Singh, meanwhile, shone the strong beam down into the stygian depths of the shaft then hung the rope ladder over the well wall so that it dangled inside. He climbed over and disappeared from view. When he emerged ten minutes later, he stared at me for several long seconds.

  “What did you see?” I asked, wondering if he was going to cuff me or congratulate me.

  Neither, as it turned out.

  “I’ll tell you what I didn’t see,” he said. “A body.”

  “No body? Oh,” I said, deflated. “Well, maybe that’s because—”

  But Singh didn’t want to hear my excuses or qualifications. “Come with me,” he ordered.

  I trailed him back to where our cars were parked, puzzling over what it meant that there was no body in the bottom of the well. If the old man wasn’t still down there, he must’ve been rescued. He would’ve been seriously pissed, possibly enough to murder whoever had put him in the well. That might be why I’d had a strong sense of death. And if the person he’d killed had been his grandson, that would explain why there were no more height lines for the kid after he was fifteen. If the old man was still alive, then he could easily be that mean old man at the creepy house in Hucknall.

  When we reached our cars, I slouched against my Honda, pretending to be checking my phone while I eavesdropped on Singh, who was making a series of phone calls to the local cops, Agent Washington, a specialized recovery and CSI team, and others.

  “If you didn’t find a body, why the need for all the experts?” I challenged him.

  “I saw some … things which might — might — be evidence, and I need specialists to check them out,” Singh replied.

  “Oh!” I said, feeling a little cheered by this. “So there was something? Did you find a bunch of animal skeletons down there?” Maybe the killer had slain loads of little animals, and that was the reason for the sense of death in wellhouse.

  Instead of answering, Singh demanded, “How did you find this place?”

  I explained about my visions and the search for the right barn and house.

  “Did you touch anything here?” he asked.

  I fessed up about all the surfaces I’d touched in the house, barn, and well house. He was seriously annoyed — shocker — and said I’d have to have my prints taken for exclusion purposes.

  “Sure,” I said. “But what exactly did you see down in the well?”

  He ignored me.

  “Did you notice the newspaper under the cat bones? Did you check the date?” I pressed.

  He answered an incoming call and grunted terse answers. “Yes … Possibly, and a 10-45 … one team should do it. And did you remember to— Good, thanks.”

  When he ended the call, he took my statement, writing down what I said and recording it on his phone too. I took perverse delight in describing my visions and the accompanying feelings in minute detail, enjoying the discomfort I knew this caused him. Local police arrived first, taped off the scene, and spoke to Singh out of range of my hearing. Then a couple of FBI agents and a crime scene team pulled in and trooped off toward the well house. After getting my fingerprints taken, I crept closer to the action but was blocked by Singh.

  To my surprise, he told me I was free to go but warned me to say nothing to the press. “Not a single word! I mean it.”

  I tried again to get more information from him and to persuade him to let me touch whatever they recovered, and once more, I struck out.

  “Ms. McGee, I am under no obligation to give you any details, let alone involve you in this investigation. This is official business, and you are a civilian.”

  “I’m more than that, and you know it.” I couldn’t believe he was still dismissing me, still acting like I hadn’t just found something really important. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

  He blew out an annoyed breath. “Why on earth would I trust you with confidential information?”

  “Because I found this. I helped your serial killer investigation.”

  “You found an abandoned house and a well. No body. No evidence of a crime having been committed. And no proof that this is in any way related to my investigation.”

  “You found something relevant. I know you did. You just won’t tell me what it is.” Incensed by his refusal to reply or acknowledge the truth of my involvement, I snapped, “Dammit, Singh, you owe me!”

  “I owe you nothing. You trampled all over a possible crime scene, vomited, and touched everything in sight, contaminating the area with your biological evidence. Then you called me out on the basis of a mere hunch.”

  A flush crept up my neck. “What will it take for you to trust me?”

  “A badge. Nothing less than an FBI or a police officer badge.”

  “But I don’t want to be a police officer or an FBI agent.”

  “Then stop trying to act like one!” Summoning an agent to escort me off the premises, Singh asked her, “Any media out there?”

  “So far, just one reporter from the local rag and a few looky-loos,” she said.

  “Do you have something to cover your face?” Singh asked me.

  Was he being protective of me or just trying to cover his butt by not wanting the media to see me? Either way, it was probably a good suggestion. I put on my sunglasses and a floppy sunhat from my mother’s backpack and, before I left, gave it one last shot with Singh.

  “No one needs to know I’m helping you,” I told him softly. “We could meet somewhere else, like we did before. At my mom and dad’s house?”

  The mention of that occasion seemed to flip a switch in Singh. He glared at me and, between gritted teeth, said, “Not a chance.”

  “But—”

  “It was an error of judgement for me to have allowed you anywhere near this investigation in the first place, and I am not going to repeat it, especially since I now know that you’re related to someone who was a person of interest in this investigation.”

  “Related to— What?” I said, bewildered.
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br />   “Didn’t see that one coming, did you? A major failure for a psychic who’s lived with the man for years.”

  “Are you— are you talking about my father? No way!”

  “Get her off my crime scene,” Singh told the agent.

  “Wait!” I said furiously as she laid a hand on my shoulder. “What did you mean about my father?”

  “Ask him,” Singh said coldly. “Or better yet, touch his watch or something.”

  He stalked off, and I gaped after him, my mind reeling.

  The agent took my elbow and steered me to my car. “I’ll drive ahead of you to the police cordon,” she said, “then move the barriers for you to drive through. Don’t make eye contact with anyone, and don’t say anything to the media. I’ll follow you for a couple of miles to make sure you’re not followed. Which way are you headed?”

  “Uh,” I said, trying to gather my teeming thoughts. “Into town. I, uh, I need to grab something to eat before I drive back to Pitchford.”

  I wanted to speed home and ask my father what the hell Singh was talking about, but I needed to shelve that for now because there was more work to do while I was in this neck of the woods. I wanted to ask around about the farm and the family who’d once lived there. Besides, I was starving.

  And I could delay speaking to my dad because I knew there was no way he was a suspect in the killings. Yeah, there had been a brief period of paranoia about my father’s fishing trips back when I’d been investigating Colby’s death, but back then I’d been fresh from taking a couple of knocks to the head and dying. My brains had been scrambled. Now, however, I wasn’t going to make the same stupid mistake again. I knew who my father was, and he wasn’t a killer, not even of fish.

  I got into my car, cracked my neck, which had gotten progressively stiffer and sorer during the course of the morning, and started the engine. As I drove past the cluster of people who’d gathered to watch, I caught a glimpse of a thin white face with a mostly bald head. A reporter stepped up to my window, shouting something at me and blocking my line of sight. When I could see again, the man was gone.