RMBrown - The Hunt Ball

by The Hunt Ball (v1. 0) [lit]

  “Bet the boys have the usual—spaghetti in pots masquerading as brains, grapes as eyeballs. The boys aren’t as imaginative as the girls. Course, they might surprise me.” Carter watched the clouds move in swiftly, black against black.

  “Guts, gore, screams,” Charlotte laughed.

  Carter peered up at the sky. “You know, honey, I really do think the damned ridge is haunted.”

  “It will be tonight,” she agreed.

  Inky, on the far side of the ridge, heard the school buses laboring to climb up the twisting dirt road. Usually she avoided Hangman’s Ridge, but the grinding of gears intrigued her. Who could be negotiating that road this time of night?

  As the black fox picked her way through the underbrush, she felt a dip in temperature, a bit of breeze from the west. Hangman’s Ridge ran southeast to northwest and winds would rake its long flat expanse.

  The girls jostled behind the boys’ bus.

  “How did women wear these things?” Tootie kicked up her skirt. She was dressed as Madame du Barry and made a note never to do that again.

  Valentina looked sleek in her Catwoman outfit and Felicity settled on being a witch.

  Pamela, two rows back, as Little Bo Beep, touched Tootie on the shoulder with her shepherd’s crook. “You’ll answer to me, you little black sheep.”

  Her devotees giggled.

  Bill, sitting behind the driver, was unaware of the exchange.

  “You’re so tiring,” Tootie called back.

  “You’re so chicken,” Pamela replied.

  “Shove it.” Valentina, next to Tootie, turned around, speaking over Felicity, immediately behind them.

  The buses finally made it to the top, cars behind them. The boys poured out first, darting to the girls’ bus.

  “Close your eyes!” Terry Durkin, one of the leaders, told them. There was no need to close their eyes as they were plunged into unrelieved darkness. Charlotte and Carter parked behind the Custis Hall bus. Amy parked behind them. Knute pulled up behind Amy.

  As the girls approached the tree they began to peek and turned on their little sparkly flashlights from the black widow.

  Felicity screamed as she drew closer. All the girls opened their eyes and screamed at the sight of two corpses hanging from the tree. One was dressed as Lawrence Pollard, the first man hung, in 1702, because of a real estate swindle. The other corpse was dressed as Zorro, wearing the mask.

  Only Tootie refused to scream. “Mannequins.”

  Valentina peered up. “Yeah.”

  Felicity remained frightened. “Zorro looks real.”

  “Oh, he does not,” Valentina said. “You are so—”

  “Who strung up the second victim?” Terry asked another boy, who shrugged.

  Tootie walked under the corpses, followed by Valentina. They pressed their tiny lights upward. The Miller School chaperones assumed the boys had gilded the lily. The boys also assumed one of their number had done so.

  Inky stuck her glossy head out from under the mountain laurel. She was fifty yards from the huge tree. The effluvia of a freshly hung human assailed her nostrils. Fresh death. The small muscles that go into rigor mortis first hadn’t even tightened up.

  Tootie, directly underneath, could smell him, too. She gazed up into bloodshot eyes bulging through the openings in the silk mask. This was no fake.

  C H A P T E R 7

  Delia delivered seven healthy puppies. Sister had fallen asleep sitting on a low chair next to the brood box; a long heat lamp, overhead, glowing with dimmed light.

  The dog hounds gave cry when the first screams were heard flying down from Hangman’s Ridge like an arrow of fear.

  Sister opened an eye, then closed it again, smiling. She imagined the girls spooked up on the ridge, the Miller School boys proud of their accomplishment. The next set of screams aroused the gyps sleeping out in the toasty large boxes on stilts in the large runs. The boxes had porches, the interiors filled with fresh straw. All the outdoor runs, dotted with spreading old trees, provided room to play or sleep. Younger hounds lived inside the main brick kennels. The arrangement gave each hound plenty of personal space so tempers didn’t flare from overcrowding.

  The continued screams awakened everyone.

  Again Sister opened an eye, sighed, then opened both eyes. The sound of two sirens in the far distance presaged something terribly wrong. She patted Delia on the head, hurried to the small bathroom off the office, splashed water on her face, dashed outside, hopped into her pickup, and drove up Hangman’s Ridge.

  She reached the back side of the ridge just as the sheriff’s squad car crested the Soldier Road side. The blue lights washed over the two hanging corpses. She knew immediately that one of the hanged men was real. Swaying slightly, his back to her, the angle of his neck gave it away. The young people, some crying, stood at their respective buses, the chaperones attempting to comfort the more obviously distressed. Tootie, Valentina, and Pamela also did what they could to help others. Felicity shook like a leaf but was in control of herself. Sister noted the remarkable poise of the three young women. Charlotte and Carter greeted Sheriff Ben Sidel as he stepped out of the car.

  The rescue squad van pulled up behind the sheriff’s car.

  Sister waited until Ben, Charlotte, and Carter walked toward the tree, the rescue squad following at a discreet distance.

  Ben spoke to Sister, “Hell of a Halloween.”

  She simply replied, “Yes, it is hellish.”

  Charlotte, the muscles in her face tight, met Sister’s gaze as the older woman walked toward her.

  Sister now faced the corpse, Zorro. She registered disbelief.

  “Al Perez,” Charlotte whispered to Sister.

  Ben carefully checked the ground underneath, motioning for a deputy, Ty Banks, to come over. Deputy Banks, flashlight in hand, listened intently as Ben Sidel, in a quiet voice, gave him instructions.

  Sister noted Inky still as a stone.

  “What happened?” Ben asked Charlotte.

  Briefly she explained the after-party plan by the Miller School boys, how at first they thought this was part of their night of fright, as they called it.

  Ty examined the bark on the tree, and, like the sheriff, he inspected the ground underneath the corpse. Four imprints from a stepladder pressed into the earth. “Sheriff.” He wordlessly pointed to the ladder footmarks, scanning to see if footprints were visible. The earth, fairly dry except for the light dew that would turn to frost, yielded no sign of footprints.

  “Yes, I noticed that, too. Was he dead before he was hanged or was he killed by hanging?” Ben thought out loud.

  “He couldn’t have been dead longer than half an hour,” Carter opined. “Warm, no rigor even in the small muscles.”

  When the students were walked back to the buses, Carter carefully touched Al’s leg to feel for body temperature. He did not touch any other part of the hanged man’s body for fear of damaging evidence.

  “My husband wanted to make sure Al was, well, dead. If by any chance he wasn’t, we would have cut him down and done our best to revive him. I mean, Carter would,” Charlotte spoke.

  “I understand,” Ben said sympathetically.

  “Will you need to question the students?” Charlotte thought first of her flock.

  “Not now.” Ben knew that some of the kids were aflutter from hysteria, despite the efforts of Knute, Bill, Amy, Bunny, and the other girls. “Did any of them see anything unusual?”

  “No.”

  Charlie Thompson, chaperone for the Miller School, quietly approached. “Sheriff, three of my boys strung up the mannequin. They were alone. I guess you’d like to interrogate them.”

  “Well, that might be too strong a word. Mr. Thompson, take them back to school. I’ll ring you first and then talk to the boys. Right now, these kids need your attention. You can all leave. I’ll be in touch.”

  Charlotte looked to her husband, then back at Ben. “Should we tell his wife?”

  “No, I’
ll do it. I hope no one has called her,” Ben responded.

  “No, I made that clear to all,” Charlotte firmly replied.

  “It’s the worst part of this job,” Ben flatly stated. “You all can go as well.”

  As the Custis Hall people and the Miller School people left, Ben asked Sister, “Hear anyone come up on your side of the ridge?”

  “No, nothing. I was in the kennel whelping room. I would have heard a car or truck.”

  As the buses and cars dipped over the ridge onto the rutted road, Ben’s eyes followed the receding red dots of light. “You have an opinion on Al Perez?”

  “He was pleasant, competent, very upbeat. I knew him from serving on the board of directors.”

  “Enemies?”

  “I don’t know. Charlotte would know better than I. Custis Hall is her bailiwick.” She hesitated a moment. “He didn’t get along with Amy Childers—old romance—but we all have a few of those. We don’t usually hang for it.”

  “One hopes.”

  Ben, not a country boy, learned to ride when he came to Jefferson County four years ago. He discovered that riding wasn’t easy, but he enjoyed the challenge. He’d reached the point where he rode with the Hilltoppers. He was working toward riding up with first flight, taking all those exciting jumps.

  He had keen powers of observation, trained powers. He also had a sense of people’s character, having heard every lie known to man, so he particularly valued an honest person. Sister Jane was rock-solid honest. Her powers of observation were also highly trained. She proved a shrewd judge of character, too, where humans were concerned.

  Sister raised her eyes to Al’s darkening face. “Hanging is a definite form of suicide. Anyone who hangs himself truly wants to die, but you’ve seen the stepladder prints, as did I. Al Perez didn’t hang himself. Whoever killed him wants to tie the past to the present, to scare the hell out of all of us. This is the place of public execution.”

  Ty, twenty-nine, in thrall to his work, drank in every word. He’d not thought of that.

  “A warning?” Ben thought out loud.

  “Yes, but to whom? This is just a feeling, but the warning involves the school.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Sister paused. “If this person only wanted to warn and warn publicly, he could have hung Al somewhere else, or shot him, dumping him in a public place or a well-traveled spot. But it seems you’ve got a fevered imagination at work.”

  Ben felt the cold slice of breeze from the northwest. He reached in his pocket for a small round hard candy. He offered Sister one, then Ty. “In charge of alumnae affairs. Important post. Financially critical.”

  Sister folded her arms over her chest. “I doubt very much Al Perez is an innocent victim.”

  “M-m-m.” Ben was thinking the same thing.

  As Sister walked back to her truck, Inky shadowed her. Inky liked Sister. It was mutual.

  Sister put her hand on the door handle, stopped to call back to Ben. “Shrouds have no pockets.”

  “What?”

  “Shrouds have no pockets. I don’t know why that popped into my mind, except that a lot of money flowed through his hands.”

  C H A P T E R 8

  Hounds ate at six-thirty this Sunday to the sound of the power washer cleaning the kennels. The jets of water hit the walls and floors with such force, every speck of debris and dirt was dislodged, swirling into a huge central drain, a big trap underneath it. Shaker cut off the washer.

  Sister, who had slept fitfully, walked into the feeding room. Raleigh and Rooster remained in the kennel office. They got along with the hounds but it wasn’t wise to allow them into the feeding room. They hated being separated from Sister, grumbling whenever they were left.

  Shaker walked back into the feeding room just as Sister did. He took one look at her face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Al Perez was hanged last night at Hangman’s Ridge.” She gave him the details as she knew them.

  “Jesus, there are sickos out there. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “You rarely get time to yourself. I figured after the firehouse party you spent the night out.”

  “Yep.” He paused. “Gruesome end, gruesome. I liked Al. He was a nice guy.”

  “It wasn’t clear whether he was hung to death or dead before he was hung. I studied the body as best I could under the circumstances. I didn’t smell blood or powder burns. And my nose is pretty good.” She then apologized to her hounds. “For a human my nose is good, but no one is as good as you all.”

  Trident, a lovely young hound, smiled at Sister before diving back into the feed trough.

  “Why’d you go up there, or did Ben come for you?”

  “Forgot to tell you that. I heard the screams. Woke me up. I didn’t think too much of it since I knew the boys had planned their Halloween surprise. Then I heard the sirens.”

  “You would have heard someone drive through here.”

  She replied, “No one did.” She switched gears. “How are the puppies?”

  “Nursing. Delia’s a good mother. Even if you’d been sound asleep next to her, she would have warned you if someone drove through the farm. You would have known. It’s a crazy thing, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “Sooner or later, they’ll catch ’em.”

  “One hopes.” She reached for a gallon of corn oil.

  Shaker opened the door for the fed group of young hounds to return to their runs. He then washed out the troughs, refilling them with kibble. Sister poured a line of corn oil over the feed as Shaker opened another run door for older hounds to enter. They rushed up to Sister in greeting, then dove for the chow.

  “It’s supposed to rain Tuesday, temperature’s supposed to drop, too.” Shaker checked with the Weather Channel constantly.

  “Yeah, I saw that, too. But I’m betting the rain will come in after we wrap it up at Mud Fence.” She named that day’s fixture, an old estate whose fences in the mid-eighteenth century were made of mud. The first settlers lacked the money for nails. They could fell trees and plane boards but nails were very expensive. Eventually they built snake fences once the work of clearing began in earnest. One didn’t need nails for that. Some folks had to make do with a mud fence until they could clear more land, get more timber.

  “Want to bet?”

  “Five dollars.”

  “Bet.” He held out his hand and she shook it. “Boss, ever consider murder?”

  “You mean me killing someone or someone killing me?”

  He laughed. “Ever consider what drives someone to it?”

  “Sure.”

  “I expect any of us can kill. Just need the right or wrong circumstances.”

  “We might be mad enough to kill yet we don’t. We don’t step over the line.” She listened to the hounds chewing their kibble, a comforting sound. “If one of these hounds kills another hound, why does it happen?”

  “Sometimes they know a hound is weak, sickening. They take him out. Maybe that’s canine mercy killing. Doesn’t happen often.” He thought a bit more. “If there’s a fight, it’s a challenge, a top-dog thing.”

  “Same with horses. They rarely kill but they can sure kick the powder out of one another if they take a notion.”

  “You’re saying we murder, they don’t.” Shaker kept an eye on Dragon, growling. “That’s enough, Dragon, shut up.”

  “Apart from war or self-defense, if we kill it’s revenge, that’s straightforward. Sex killing or serial killing is men against women. Sickness and anger, I reckon. Then there’s money. Always that.”

  “And a challenge to authority. The top-dog deal.” Shaker’s auburn curls caught the light.

  “Right. For the life of me I can’t figure out how Al Perez, a mild fellow, fits any category. Can’t see him as a sex criminal taken out by an enraged victim or father of same.” She noted Shaker’s expression. “Well, Custis Hall bursts with girls becoming women. That’s a potent cocktail for a certain kind of man.
Money? He raised millions for the school. But he didn’t work on a percentage basis. Yes, he received a big Christmas bonus. Being on the board, I’m privy to the financial life of the school, but I can’t divulge details. He could have gotten resentful and figured he should get more given all that he raised for the school. It’s possible.”