“Who calls me?”
Virgil was shocked by the heavy masculine voice that emanated from Babs’s lips.
“We call you in the name of our friend Doris Milche,” said Almira.
Babs’s chest heaved. “Why have you called me?”
Of course he was just imagining it. But the candles seemed to have dimmed.
“I want to know if I’m welcome… on your side,” said Doris.
Babs seemed to flinch, and all the women gave Doris a funny look as though she’d broken some rule of the game.
“There is no welcome,” growled the heavy voice out of Babs’s throat. “If you come, you come.”
Virgil glared at Babs. Nice. Way to make Doris feel better. Why couldn’t she use a Sally Field voice and talk about Elysian fields and harps and the throne of God instead of frightening the shit out of her?
“But what about heaven?” asked Doris.
Silence. The women glanced nervously at one another, waiting.
“This is not heaven,” said the voice.
“They’re lost souls, Doris!” hissed Almira. “These spirits haven’t passed over yet, for Christ’s sake.”
Virgil felt like Babs could have done a better job of indoctrinating the trainees before their first session. He wondered what the hell Doris had thought was going to happen.
“Well, then, I don’t know what to ask,” said Doris, frowning.
“Spirit,” said Beckie Rossig, “can you tell me if my husband’s cheating on me?”
A gasp came from somewhere. Virgil stared at Beckie, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. If nothing else, the entertainment value had picked up a notch. Virgil was about to tell Beckie that he could answer that question, but thought better of it.
“You can’t ask questions like that!” hissed Almira.
“Well, I don’t know why not,” said Beckie. “No one else was asking.”
“Because we’re here for Doris,” said Claudia Hermman, shaking her head. “Doris, you go ahead.”
Babs’s palm was becoming clammy. Virgil really wanted to slip his hand away and wipe it on his pants, but he didn’t dare break the circle with Doris and the others watching.
“Now I don’t know if this was a good idea or not,” said Doris, catching Virgil’s eye.
He smiled, trying to look encouraging.
The candles flickered. A breeze—far too cold for the season—stirred the curtains. A low rumbling started in Babs’s chest, bubbling up her throat until it flowed from her mouth in a growl. “There is another here who would speak.”
“Speak, spirit,” said Almira.
“Who’s there?”
Virgil glanced over at Babs, wondering again how she did the voices. It seemed like she switched from a professional wrestler to an adolescent boy in midstride.
“Answer!” said Almira, nodding feverishly around the table. All the women besides Babs quickly announced their presence. Then they turned expectantly to Virgil.
“Sheriff Milche here,” said Virgil, feeling even sillier than before.
“I’m Timmy Merrill.”
The marrow melted out of Virgil’s bones. He didn’t know whether to slap Babs or to just stand up and walk out. A more tasteless joke he couldn’t imagine, but the women were staring at Babs spellbound and, God help him, something in the voice gripped Virgil as well. He didn’t know what to do or to say.
“I’m scared,” said the voice. For a second after the words died away, silence hung in the room like an ax over their heads. All the women continued staring at Virgil.
“What are you scared of?” asked Virgil at last. And what the hell was there for spirits to be scared of? Virgil shook his head, wondering if ghosts told people stories.
“I miss my folks,” said the voice.
“They miss you too,” said Virgil, playing along for Doris’s sake. But he wanted to end this. It disgusted him. He hadn’t had a lot of respect for Babs before. But this. This was too much.
“It’s cold here. And dark.”
Now that was just some more of what Doris needed to hear.
“My bike got thrown in the creek.”
Virgil’s skin went suddenly colder than the breeze, and he was sure that the candles were dimmer. No one had ever found Timmy Merrill’s bike. It was assumed that the kidnapper kept it. He moved his head, trying to make contact with Babs’s eyes, to figure out what kind of game she was playing at, but they were still rolled up in her head.
“Where, Timmy?” asked Virgil. “Where were you?”
Silence.
Babs’s chest was really heaving, and Virgil could have sworn that the candlelight was growing dimmer. It was like Babs was sucking in part of the light.
“The old bridge. Down behind Haylands Mills.”
Virgil couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Had anyone ever searched there? Probably not. It was miles from the Merrill home. How in the world could Babs have ever thought of that spot? And how did she do those damned voices? Glancing at each of the women, he knew they expected him to play along to the end, even though the game was starting to give him the jitters. “Where are you, boy? What happened to you?”
“It hurt,” said the voice. “It hurt bad.”
There was the sound of genuine pain and betrayal in the voice. Just the way a young boy might sound who had been put in the position Virgil figured Timmy Merrill probably had. Babs was starting to make him as nervous as he was angry.
“What did, son? Who hurt you?”
Silence again.
More gasps from Babs. She wasn’t looking too good. Her cheeks weren’t red anymore; in fact, they were getting kind of pale.
“I don’t know,” said the voice. “It’s dark here. And I’m scared.”
All the women looked terrified now, but Virgil couldn’t figure out how to end the farce. He couldn’t very well tell the spirit to shut up. The women would have it all over town that he’d missed a chance to solve a terrible crime.
“Tell me what happened,” said Virgil, frowning.
“I was riding my bike. Something hit me. When I woke up I was in a car and I was taped in.”
“Taped?”
“Yeah. It’s awful dark here.”
“Did you see who it was?”
“No. There was tape on my eyes. It was dark. It’s always dark.”
“Where did they take you? Do you remember?”
“I think it’s a basement.”
Virgil could hear Cooder, reciting over and over in his head, Bad things, Virg. I seen bad things. Was it even remotely possible that Cooder’s ramblings had anything to do with this? How? Virgil didn’t think Cooder’s house even had a basement, and no one in their right mind would let Cooder into theirs.
He shook his head. The stress of the two cases and Doris, and now this, was driving him crazy.
“I’m having trouble holding him,” said Babs in her own voice. Her hand shook in Virgil’s. She sounded weak as a kitten. “Come back, Timmy. We’re here for you. Don’t be afraid. We’re here.”
Virgil was twisted. On the one hand, he didn’t believe in any of this bunkum. Everybody in town knew that Timmy had disappeared on his bike. On the other hand, the voice coming out of Babs’s face frightened him. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out how she was doing it.
“It’s cold here,” said the voice. But this time it sounded far away. “And there’s so many of us.”
“Who are the others?” asked Doris.
Silence.
“Do you know the others?” asked Babs.
“I can’t see them. I just feel them.”
The fear in the voice chilled Virgil. He imagined himself in total darkness, surrounded by people he didn’t know, in some cold, tight space.
“I can’t stay,” said the voice, farther away than before.
“Timmy,” said Babs. “We’re here for you. Is there anything else you want to tell us?”
“There’s bad people here.”
The voice fa
ded to nothing on the last word.
Babs tried to make contact with the boy again, clamping her eyes tight, calling his name. When that failed, she tried to contact the original voice. But again there was no answer, and finally the sitting broke up. The ladies left one by one, expressing their concern for Doris, their assurances that the other side wasn’t so bad and that Doris wasn’t going there anyway, and their pleas to Virgil to check out the bike. Babs stayed long enough to explain to Doris about the mix-up. She didn’t claim to speak to heaven or hell and she didn’t know any authentic medium who could. She could only contact those souls that were still on this plane and had not yet crossed over into eternity. When everyone else was gone, Virgil sat on the edge of the bed holding Doris’s hand. He was shaken but didn’t want to show it.
“That worked out pretty well,” he said.
“It wasn’t what I expected,” said Doris. “Babs should have told me.”
Doris looked exhausted, but when she spoke again, some of her old fire returned to her eyes. “You go out right now and look for that bike.”
“Are you serious?”
“How could you not?”
For one thing, he’d feel stupid, wandering around in the dark down by that old bridge, on the word of a spirit out of the mouth of Babs St. Clair. “It’s getting late. I’ll go tomorrow.”
“You go tonight or you won’t get any sleep.”
“You mean you won’t let me get any.”
“That’s right.”
“What do you want me to do? Drag the creek by myself?” He thought of the sodden woods and the raging streams the year Timmy had disappeared.
“It hasn’t rained for diddly this spring. Likely that old creek is dry as a bone.”
“Maybe.”
“You heard that boy, Virgil. His soul can’t rest until you find his killer.”
“This is silly, Doris.”
“You won’t know until you look.”
He sighed so loud she blinked. “Why am I arguing?”
He picked up the sandwich tray, then went around blowing out all the candles the breeze hadn’t taken care of. He left the lamps out because, by the time he got back to the bedside, Doris was snoring lightly.
He kissed her forehead and left.
17
VIRGIL WONDERED WHAT KIND of coincidence it was that the road leading to the old bridge was the same one on which he’d narrowly missed killing Cooder. As he passed the spot where the accident had almost occurred, the moon broke through the trees and, for just an instant, Virgil imagined that the razor of golden light off to his right was Cooder, come back again to wait for him.
What if Timmy’s bike was here?
No. That was too crazy to even contemplate. This was a fool’s errand and a waste of time. But at least it had gotten him out of the house. He’d have just spent the next few hours pacing, pretending to watch TV in the room adjoining the bedroom, waiting for Doris to call out in the night when her pain needed its next feeding. Nowadays Virgil slept mostly in his recliner, when he slept at all. Still, he couldn’t help but stare up the road, picturing Cooder there again, making his ominous pronouncement.
Crazy.
His headlights tunneled ahead as the trees flashed past, stoop-shouldered mourners along a funeral route. He spotted the outline of the bridge and pulled over, just short of the cracked and pitted old cement guardrail. When he slammed the car door shut, gunshot echoes slap-slapped away up the creek, and he pointed his flashlight toward the bridge.
The old structure was four car-lengths long, built during the Depression by government workers. Virgil hiked down the embankment through the tall grass, careful where he stepped. A rusted exhaust pipe slithered through the weeds like a jagged brown snake. Farther down toward the stream, a tire still clung to the rear axle from a long-forgotten vehicle. Virgil played the light over the creek bottom.
Doris was right. The creek bed was mostly dry. Only a narrow trickle of water flowed around widely spaced rocks. Virgil scrambled down the gravel banks of what would have been a roaring waterway during early spring runoff. He brushed off his pants legs and pointed the light back up under the bridge.
Time had sent cracks meandering across the cement face, and conspired with the elements to reveal ancient steel re-bar where a few chunks of concrete had fallen away into the creek. But overall the old bridge was in good shape, considering the decades it had sat alone, uncared for, facing Maine winters and summers. It was a concrete monument to a breed of men who no longer existed.
The trees were thicker on the other side of the road and they grew closer to the creek. The arch of the bridge seemed to continue forever up the dark, wandering stream, creating an ominous-looking cavern, and Virgil’s old aversion to shadowy, tight places sent a little surge of anxiety through him. This was stupid. If he was going to search the damned creek, he ought to at least do it in the daylight. How did Doris expect him to find anything in the dark?
He glanced back over his shoulder, deciding whether to go or to stay. It had been an easy slide down, but it would be a rough slog back up to his cruiser. Hell, he was here. Might as well look around.
He approached the bridge, shining the light on any place that might remotely have concealed a bike. There was plenty more refuse hidden up under the arch. There was even part of an old motorcycle frame, shoved way up tight where the concrete met the creek bank, but no bike, and he was glad to exit the other side of the bridge where at least the stars could break through. He really didn’t care for the feeling of the dark hulk hovering over him. He’d already made it twenty yards up the creek on the other side of the bridge when it dawned on him that he was wasting his time going any farther.
The stream flowed the other way. If anyone had thrown anything into it, it would have been carried downstream. That was why there was less garbage the farther upstream he got from the bridge. He waded across the ankle-deep water and came back down the other side, shining the light up and down the slope. Of course, the bike might have been anywhere in the tall grass. If it was, the only hope of finding it was a long search in the daylight. He stopped for a moment, listening to the night sounds.
An owl hooted far off in the woods. To his left something rustled in the underbrush. Probably a raccoon or a porcupine. And of course there was the trickle of the tiny stream. He glanced overhead, but the stars were silent. Watching him on his fool’s errand.
He glanced up toward the road, but the embankment on this side of the bridge was much steeper, studded with large outcroppings of granite. He hunched his shoulders and hiked back beneath the bridge. Once again he was struck by an odd sense of being caught, the bridge pressing down on him. He shone the light quickly around the arch to force the gloom away, and once again he was glad to be out from under the old structure when he reached the far side.
Virgil turned to scrabble up the loose gravel bank. The flashlight twisted sideways in his hand and he froze, leaning against the slope. Through the trees along the bank he could see that twenty feet downstream, back in the underbrush, a flood had washed a stretch of rusted chicken wire into a thick stand of yearling pines. It hung there like an old fishing net laid outside to dry. Tangled in its web he could just make out the curve of a black bicycle tire.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered.
He pushed off from the bank, losing view of the wire, but never taking his eyes off the spot where he’d seen it. He approached the area with the trepidation of a hunter moving in close to a wounded animal’s lair, afraid of what might leap out at him from the darkness. When he pulled back a snarled mass of brush, his flashlight illuminated the enclosed area like a spotlight in an oven.
Hidden in the bracken was a boy’s bike. Virgil fought his way through the undergrowth until he stood directly over the bicycle, staring down at it as though it was the first he had ever seen.
“Damn.”
The cycle was in surprisingly good condition, except for a little rust and two flat tires. Obviously the wire had c
aught it on this higher ground during that first spring when the rivers were all running high, and it had lain here protected in the trees ever since. There wasn’t a dented fender on it. The plastic grips on the handlebars still shone bright black in the light. No one had tossed this bike out because it was useless. Someone had thrown it in the creek so no one else would find it, just like Babs said.
Just like someone had said.
He trotted back to the cruiser and called the station. Birch answered.
“What’s up, Sheriff?”
“I found Timmy Merrill’s bike,” he gasped, trying to catch his breath.
“No way.”
“Yeah. I’m on Old High Road at the bridge over No Name Creek. I’m going to cordon off the area. I want you to start scavenging up a search party for tomorrow morning. Get hold of Martin over at Fish and Game and see if Bill Keens’ dogs are available.”
“You okay? You sound shook.”
“Just winded. Find out about the dogs.”
“You think the body is there somewhere?”
“No,” said Virgil. “But we need to search anyway. Maybe we can turn up some more evidence.”
“Right.”
Virgil got the crime-scene tape from the trunk and returned to the bike. He considered running tape across from the upper edge of the bridge to the tree line, but decided that would draw too much attention. The idea was to protect the scene, not to attract gawkers before he’d even had a chance to figure out what he’d found. He crashed his way through the underbrush, laying out a large circle around the chicken wire and bike, wrapping the tape around trees and branches until he had the area completely encircled.
Then he stood for a moment with his eyes closed, listening to the woods.
“Are you here, boy?” he whispered.
For some reason he felt certain that he would know if Timmy’s body lay close at hand, but he sensed nothing from the woods. Nothing except a growing heat in his chest every time he stared at the forlorn bike. It seemed like a deserted pet awaiting a master who would never return.
He climbed back to his cruiser and tossed the tape in the trunk, slamming the lid. Staring off up the road into the darkness, he began to wonder which promise he was going to keep: his promise to Doris, his promise to Rosie Merrill, or his promise to himself.
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