by Nick Mamatas
“What else could it be about?” Colleen said automatically. Then she wanted to swallow her tongue. The question was a mistake.
“The murder of Panossian,” Hiram said, an edge in his voice.
“But…it can’t be. Leaving the hotel would basically give the cops an excuse to arrest and interrogate them. That’s the last thing Bhanushali wants.”
“True,” Hiram said. “Unless they feel the net closing in and have decided to make some sort of last-ditch attempt to…ditch!”
The SUV made a sharp left and drove into a narrow ditch, out of it, and onto a field. Hiram slowed his car and turned off the headlights. “My Lord, what are they thinking? They might be trying to bury some evidence.” He turned to Colleen and said, “You obviously misunderstood them completely. Now we’re both in danger. We should go back to the hotel immediately and tell the police what we saw.”
“Stop the car, we can just call from here, so we can tell the police exactly where we saw the SUV leave the road.” The Tahoe was about a quarter mile deep into the field, heading for the treeline.
Hiram pulled over and frowned. “Call, but do not call 911 as this isn’t an emergency. Then we’ll head back to the Bierce immediately. Better to deal with the police officers who have already seen our faces and know our circumstances.”
“I agree,” Colleen said. She looked up the non-emergency number for the Providence PD, called, waited, was routed to another number, spoke with someone who seemed very confused, and then finally got a police officer who took down the basics: an SUV went off the road. No, it didn’t crash. No, the driver didn’t seem inebriated. Yes, it appeared to be sufficiently suspicious that the call was warranted. The SUV was upright, but the lights were off. No, she was just passing by when she saw it and thought she’d call. No, she didn’t want to give a name.
“All right,” Hiram said. “Let’s—” Colleen snagged the keys to the car’s ignition with her left hand and snapped a flash photo with the phone in her right. The tiny car filled with light, dazzling Hiram. Colleen opened the passenger-side door and ran across the street to the ditch, and carefully slid down into it. She crouched down, and poked her head up.
“Colleen!” Hiram shouted. “Give me back my keys!” Colleen turned to shush him, but realized how ridiculous that would be, so she pocketed the keys, felt around for a pebble, and threw it at Hiram’s head. That set him running toward her, but he misjudged the lip of the ditch and fell right in, arms flailing.
The ditch was only two feet deep, so Hiram regained his balance in an instant. Colleen slapped her free hand over his mouth and hissed “Shut up!” in his ear. “We’re going to find out what they’re doing and get a picture or two, okay?”
Hiram grabbed her wrist and pulled her arm away. “Why? What is wrong with you?”
“Don’t you want to know? These people, they left you out of whatever they’re doing.”
“If what they’re doing has to do with Panossian’s murder, I am totally fine with that.”
“And I’m totally fine with finding out what they’re up to, and then watching the police drag them all away. Now, let’s go!” She didn’t wait for him; she was out of the ditch in a single stride, and staying low in the tall grass, snaked her way toward the SUV. If Hiram wanted his car keys back, he’d have to follow.
There were only a few trees in the field, but they were old and thick and made good hiding places. Colleen ducked behind one and waited for Hiram to catch up.
“You’re mad,” he said when he reached her.
“I was going to say the same about you,” she said.
Hiram frowned, then glanced ahead. “What are they doing?”
The other party were using their smartphones to illuminate patches of ground, except for Bhanushali, who had hers aimed at a piece of paper she was holding. Cob and Ginger J had shovels. Cudmore leaned against the SUV, either working as a look-out or sulking due to an argument he’d lost on the way to the location. Something was about to be buried, or dug up.
“Is that a map she’s holding, do you think?”
“Could be anything,” Colleen said.
“Should we move to the next tree?” Hiram asked. “They have their backs to us. We can get closer.”
“Okay.”
“Colleen!” Hiram whispered sharply, grabbing her shoulder.
“What?”
“Walk heel first, then toe. You’ll make less noise. Watch me.” Hiram stepped out from behind the tree in a low stance, and performed a funny little walk that Colleen had to admit was pretty close to silent. She aped him as best she could, and followed him to another, closer, tree.
He turned to her and smiled. “I feel like a cartoon character, tip-toeing from potted plant to potted plant,” he whispered. “This is so strange. I’m giddy rather than worried. Even if we’re about to stumble upon some terrible conspiracy, I have a very positive feeling about this.”
Colleen glanced around the curve of the tree trunk. “Asparagus Head is leaving. The rest of the men are digging. And—oh, the cops!” A red and white light flickered as it zipped along the black ribbon of road in the distance.
“Do we charge, or do we wait? If we’re too close, we might be implicated,” Hiram said.
Colleen pursed her lips. Hiram was right.
With a high-pitched yawp, the cop car turned off the road and took the ditch with a leap. High-beam lights cut through the low fog, flooding the area. Though it was summer, the grass was still brown, as if the life-force had been sucked completely from every blade.
“Go!” Colleen said, and she ran into the woods. She didn’t turn to see if Hiram followed behind her, but heard his footsteps close behind, and then farther away. She found herself almost immediately in a trackless wood, out of sight and out of earshot of the police. Lost, she spun around, looking for a landmark, and then saw Cudmore between the trees. He was strolling, hands in his pockets, like it was daylight and he was on the side of the road. Then he stopped short and waved and took off in a light jog, deeper into the trees. Colleen set off after him, her footfalls crunching leaves and twigs, but Cudmore either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He was plenty noisy himself.
“Hey, hey!” Cudmore said, waving an arm in greeting at someone Colleen couldn’t see. He turned a corner and was gone. Colleen stumbled over a root and took a knee.
A powerful flashlight swept through the woods and a man barked, “Get the hell back over here!” Colleen froze for a moment, unsure if she’d just be walking into a pair of handcuffs, waiting to see if Cudmore would turn around and walk past her. Something heavy fell, like a dropped rock, but there was no other movement. She stood up, tentative.
“I’m not kidding!” said the voice of the police officer. He had that commanding bark cops must practice in front of the mirror every morning. Her feet shifted under her ankles, unbidden.
“If I need to come in after you, we will have a significant problem with one another, sir!”
Sir! The word released something inside Colleen, a new kind of anxiety. She wasn’t relieved that she hadn’t been spotted, she dreaded being called upon next. Then something brushed past her and she yelped. From the shadows, Hiram’s froggy face sneered as he walked by, still walking in that odd and strangely silent bow-legged way. She followed him to where the wood met the field, so he wouldn’t turn her in and make everything even worse.
The police car was stopped about ten yards from the SUV and two cops had cornered the diggers. One made a beeline to the SUV and the other strode toward the tree Colleen and Hiram were loitering behind.
“Get out from there,” he told them. “Go stand with everyone else.” Hiram and Colleen marched over and stood next to Bhanushali, who was folding and refolding the papers in her hands.
She glared at Colleen and demanded, “You followed me!”
Colleen smiled. “Thanks for telling them that.” Then she turned to the cop. “We’re not with them.”
“Sounds well-rehearsed,” he said.
“What’s going on here?”
Ginger J started laughing. “Go on, tell them. This’ll be good.”
The cop who had spotted Colleen and Hiram walked over to the group. “Something funny?”
“Maybe,” Ginger J said. Cob was silent, arms at his sides, almost as if willing himself to melt into the gray of the moonlit night.
Bhanushali said, “Very well. We were looking for something…”
“What?” Hiram demanded. The cop raised his palm, and Hiram shrank back.
“Nigger-Man,” Bhanushali blurted out, only to slap her hands over her mouth. Ginger J yelped. The newly arrived police offer, who was black, glared. His partner glanced over at him warily.
“It’s a cat,” Cob said. “A long-dead cat who once belonged to a local author yclept Howard Phillips Lovecraft.”
“And he named his cat Nigger-Man,” the glaring cop said. Cob shrugged elegantly.
“Why on Earth would you want to dig up…N-Word Man?” the white officer asked.
Bhanushali held up the papers in her hand. “We’re scholars and researchers. I myself am an expert on Lovecraft’s correspondence. He penned nearly one hundred thousand letters and postcards in his life. A few of them mention his cat, and these few—these are copies, mind you—hint at where Lovecraft buried the cat. But there are only hints and insinuations. We came here tonight to determine whether or not I read the letters correctly. I believe I have determined…the cat’s burial place.”
“And you came at night because?” the black police officer asked. “Ah yes, I remember now. You’re all at Hotel Bierce, aren’t you? And none of you are to leave the grounds.”
“Someone pulled a fire alarm at the hotel…when was it, Lucius?” the white officer asked. “About ninety minutes ago?”
Lucius walked over to the hole. “Just about ninety minutes ago. A thirty-minute drive, and this hole looks like about forty minutes of work.” He looked up, and glanced around the field. “And twenty minutes to determine that this particular patch of ground, equidistant between three trees that were probably saplings back when this fucking cat died, was poor Nigger-Man’s final resting place. Is that right?”
“That’s right,” Ginger J said with a giggle. “I throw myself on the mercy of the court.”
“Don’t say anything stupid, John!” Bhanushali snapped.
“Too late,” Colleen said.
“And you two?” the other cop asked Colleen.
“We decided to follow them because I thought they might have been trying to hide evidence related to the murder that occurred in the hotel,” Colleen said.
“That’s not what you told me!” Hiram said. “I was hoping to find that they had discovered a book bound in human skin,” he explained to the officers.
“Oh, that’s much more normal,” Ginger J said. “Oh man, we’re just so fucked. Ah, it’s okay. I have a horrible job, no girlfriend, nothing. What are Rhode Island prisons like? How bad could they be?” He giggled again and turned to the white officer, squinting to see his nameplate. “Officer Bonner, it’s a very nice state you have here. I’m so sorry I helped dig a hole in it.”
“Did you find the cat?” Bonner asked.
“What?”
“Did you find the bones of N-Word Man?”
“No. I mean, not yet.”
Bonner looked over at Lucius and shrugged. Lucius walked over to the police cruiser, leaned against the hood, folded his arms over his chest and said, “Get back to digging.”
“What?” Bhanushali said.
“Dig.”
“Yeah,” Bonner said. “Show us some cat bones. We’ll see if your story checks out.”
“What about us?” Hiram asked, gesturing with a thumb toward Colleen, and then back to himself.
“Shifts,” Lucius said.
“Shifts,” Bonner repeated.
“This is cruel and unusual,” Bhanushali said.
“You were already engaged in the task,” Lucius said. “We can just take all of you in for some real questioning. We still might. But find that fucking nigger-cat—”
“Nigger-Man,” Hiram said. Colleen slapped her forehead with her palm. “Oh, I apologize,” Hiram said to Lucius. “I’ll take first shift.”
About thirty minutes, and two new test holes, into the dig, Bhanushali’s phone rang. Lucius pointed to her and said, “Max the volume and pick it up. Don’t hold it too closely to your ear.” He walked right up to her.
Bhanushali rolled her eyes and answered the phone. “Hello Ronald,” she said. “I can’t talk right—”
“Yes you can,” the police officer told her. “You can talk to him, or you can talk to us down at the precinct house.”
“What is it, Ronald?”
Ronald Ranger was given to bellowing, so his voice was easy to hear in the field, even through the tinny speaker of Bhanushali’s phone. “So, were you correct? Are your hands all blistered? Did you find our little Nigger-Man?”
Cob, who was digging, stopped to groan, then leaned on the handle of his shovel.
“No, not yet…the police are here!” she spit out, too quick to be stopped.
“Where’s Charles?” Ronald asked.
“He left; he went back to the hotel.”
“But he’s not here!”
“Oh Lord,” Bhanushali said. Lucius literally laughed at her.
Bonner pointed to Cob. “Who is this Charles character and where did he go?”
Cob made to step out of the hole, paused when Bonner’s hand went to his holster, but then stepped out of the hole anyway. “Charles went to go take a piss, and never came back. Maybe he saw your lights on the road. It’s not a ninety-minute walk back to the hotel, is it?”
Colleen shrugged. “He could have taken an Uber? Right? Perhaps there was some disagreement, or he was sent to complete some other task.”
Bhanushali said, “What are you implying, Colleen Danzig,” smirking as she gave Colleen’s surname to the police officers.
“I’m not implying anything…except that it is strange that someone drives out to a field with his friends, and leaves right before the evening gets interesting.”
“I don’t understand the secrecy around this project at all,” Hiram said.
From the phone, Ronald called out, “What are those two doing there!”
Bonner raised an eyebrow. “Okay, you two,” he said, “back behind that tree. We’ll have our own little conversation.”
“The rest of you, you have ten minutes to show me some cat bones,” Lucius said. “And one minute to describe this Charles character.”
“Well, his head is shaped like the top of an asparagus,” Ginger J said, giggling again. Lucius snagged him by the wrist, twisted his arm behind his back, and practically lifted him off his feet on the way to slamming Ginger J against the hood of the cruiser.
“I’m tired of this shit!”
“Wait, it’s true,” Bhanushali said. “I have a picture, in my contacts.” She hiked the hem of her long skirt with one hand and rushed to the car, waving her phone with the other.
Lucius kept Ginger J pinned, but glanced at the phone. “Well, that is a pretty pointy head.”
Bonner clamped a hand around Hiram’s forearm. “To the tree.” To Colleen, he just said, “Follow.”
Behind the tree, Bonner let Hiram go and said, sotto voce, “This is your first and last chance to explain exactly what is going on. We already have trespassing and obstruction of justice. I don’t care if the judge drops the charges first thing Monday afternoon, you get to stay in a cell tonight if what you have to tell me right now doesn’t make any sense.”
Colleen said, “I’m trying to figure out who killed Panos Panossian—”
“Stop right there,” Bonner said. “You’re investigating a crime, on your own.”
Colleen blushed. It sounded stupid when a cop said it.
“Tracking down a murderer,” Bonner said. “You two.” He gestured to Hiram, then back at Colleen. “Do go on.”
“Are you going to arrest me?” Colleen asked.
“I could do that right now, Nancy Drew, even if you don’t say another word about Panos Panossian. But maybe if you tell me something of interest, I’ll have something better to do than take you in and fill out paperwork for an hour.”
“We’re all supposed to stay in the hotel. I think someone in that group pulled a fire alarm for the purpose of coming here, though I didn’t know at the time that they just wanted to dig up a cat. I wanted to find out what they were up to because I thought they might have something to do with Panossian.”
“And why did you think that?”
Colleen glanced over at the party. Bhanushali was a middle-aged woman, an intellectual. Not really murderer material. Cob was certainly intimidating and weird. Ginger J, a gormless nerd. But there was something about Bhanushali’s mien; she was a leader, a bit of a bully. She was surely the one who decided to defy the police order, and Colleen couldn’t imagine her wheedling the men to follow her plan. She just declared her intentions, and they complied. Cob…was it an act? The goth affectations, the baritone, the long black coat straight out of a Leonard Cohen song—it’s all just what geeks thought cool was. Ginger J was probably just a few years removed from Columbine shoot-‘em-up fantasies.
“I just…” Colleen started. “Panossian was well-known, but he wasn’t well-liked. Not by those people, I don’t think. Maybe not by any of the Lovecraftians here this weekend.”
“‘Lovecraftians,’” Bonner said. “There’s a party name you don’t hear every day. Sounds a little kinky.” He nodded over at Hiram. “What’s your story? Are you a Lovecrafter too?”
“I asked Hiram for a ride, and he obliged,” Colleen said before Hiram could open his mouth.
“She didn’t tell me anything about investigating a murder, officer,” Hiram spit out. “She persuaded me that the car we were following either contained or was ferrying its party into the presence of a very rare book, one bound with human skin, that I would very much like to see and possibly handle.”
“Human skin? Like someone’s face, maybe?” Bonner said. “I’ve heard enough.” He turned on the radio clipped to his chest and called for more cars, despite Hiram’s calm explanation of the commonality of anthropodermic bibliopegy.