by Gene Lazuta
He always called Harpersville, “down home,” as if he were referring to Georgia or some other part of the Deep South.
“You’ve got to let us use your eyes, Mike,” he said. “It’s all about the way you see things. Understand?”
In his seat near Norris’ bed, Cooper’s face looked distastefully grim; as if remembering the urgency in Woodie’s voice still unsettled him.
“I asked him how he knew the Church had facilities like that, and he said, ‘Mr. Green told me. He knows all about what you guys can do. I told you, he knows everything. You can’t get anything past Mr. Green. You wouldn’t believe the things he’s capable of.’
“Like what, specifically, I asked,” Cooper said. “Which was exactly what he wanted.”
The bluntness of the detective’s questions had seemed to irritate Woodie, and a devious look came over his face. It was as if broaching so serious a subject as the powers of the great Mr. Green somehow diminished their importance, and yet, it was the very opening for which the young man had been so obviously waiting.
“You’ve been checking up on him,” Woodie said with a cockeyed grin. “He knows all about it, but it doesn’t bother him. He says that there’s always a price to pay when one steps over the boundaries of everyday experience into the realm of ‘apparent reality’s’ hidden truths. He accepts this. He’s that kind of man.
“But if you want me to answer your question, you’ll have to do what I ask by conducting the research Mr. Green needs to complete his studies. He could do it himself, but it would take time, and by cooperating you could save him years of work. If you do that for me, I’ll tell you anything you want to know about him.”
Cooper hesitantly agreed to this deal, saying he’d run Woodie’s questions through the Church’s computers on the condition that Woodie not see Mr. Green again until he returned with whatever information he could find. Woodie promised that he’d stay away from the Institute for a week, which was a lie and Cooper knew it. But he hoped that playing along with Woodie’s request would buy his friends in the Narcotics Division enough time to dig up something with which to nail this Mr. Green and shut down his Institute for good.
During the following week, the guys in vice went over the area with everything they had, putting pressure on local dealers, a few users who had talked to the cops in the past for dope money, even the pimps who seemed to know everything about everyone in the neighborhood, but on every attempt they came up dry. The Institute of Metaphysical Research was clean. No one had ever supplied anybody associated with it with drugs of any kind, and no one had ever even spoken to the mysterious Mr. Green. Other than Woodie’s verbal insistence that peyote was being used on the premises, there was nothing that anyone could identify that would physically link the place to illegal activity.
Cooper knew that he’d need more time to get to the bottom of this problem. He also realized that he’d have to produce the information for which Woodie had asked or risk angering him into future silence. So the Friday before he was supposed to see Woodie again, he spent a late-night session on the Church’s computers. And what he discovered was, quite frankly, a revelation…
“Whoever this Mr. Green is,” Cooper said, leaning forward in his chair, “he’s apparently right about his assertion that there’s something seriously wrong with the Killibrook Valley. The place is like a killing field: murders, rapes, mutilations, all stretching back as far as police records go, and all scattered around without a pattern or a focal point other than the one provided by the actual forest itself. The area’s so big that unless you were specifically looking for it, the concentration of these episodes wouldn’t be apparent. And the number of reports is low enough that the time between each one would allow for a cooling-off period that would erase any apparent connection in the local cops’ collective mind.
“But when I set up a search parameter using the park as the confines of the search, and allowed for an association of episodes that happened miles apart, in different jurisdictional districts, the computer constructed a neat little graph showing a distinct, seasonal relationship between reported violence and the boundaries of the Valley—a graph exactly like the one you’d expect to find if you had a full-fledged, completely functional homicidal psychopath calling this area home.”
“Which means what?” Norris asked, against his better judgment.
“Which means that, whether I liked it or not, Woodie seemed to be getting himself caught up in something that looked, at least on the surface, like it was real. This Mr. Green character looked like he might actually be onto something. There were even a few moments there when, looking at the printout of all those killings, I could actually imagine some kind of ‘thing,’ human or otherwise, running around loose down here…or even a whole family of…whatevers…given the extended time frame of the data-points.”
“So, what did you do?”
“The next morning, I showed Woodie my report.”
Norris’ expression betrayed what a mistake he thought that had been.
“I thought that it might scare him off,” Cooper continued after a guilty pause. “But it had exactly the opposite effect. When he looked at those numbers his eyes went wide and he got all excited.
“‘This is fantastic!’ he yelled at me, jumping up from where he’d been studying the file I’d spread out on his coffee table. ‘It’s just like Mr. Green said! Oh, Mike, man, you’re a saint!’
“That morning was the last time I saw him alive.”
Cooper finished his story in cold, precise tones that proved just how deeply he felt his responsibility for what had happened to Woodie.
“I waited a couple of days, and then I called his apartment. When I finally went over there, his landlady said that he hadn’t been home since Saturday, and that nobody had seen him around. I checked his job, and he hadn’t been in there either. So I went down to the Institute, but the place was boarded up tight. Shut down. Gone. I ran every check I could but it was no soap. Woodie had disappeared and I was scared.
“At ten last night, I’d just gotten my nerve screwed up enough to call you when my phone rang. It was Woodie, and he was in trouble.
“‘Mike!’ he says, real close to the phone. ‘I figured it out, and now it’s gonna kill me! You gotta help me, Mike! It’s Bob! For Christ sake, I never would’ve believed it, but it’s Bob! He’s gonna let the beasts from the woods come out! He’s gonna kill me, and he’s gonna kill you too if we don’t stop him! He’ll kill everybody, and the worst thing is that he won’t even know he’s doing it!’”
Cooper looked into Norris’ eyes with naked contrition.
“His voice was panicky, really flipped-out. But he was alive! And for a second, I was relieved. I tried to calm him down, listened to what he had to say, and was just about to hang up the phone when he said the two things that have been sticking in my mind like thorns.
“The first was that he had a diary with him, right there in the phone booth. He said that he’d put it together so that I’d have an explanation, even if he never got out of the Valley. He said that it would explain everything and that once I saw it, I’d understand.
“‘Be careful with it,’ he said. ‘It cost me my life to write.’”
“Was that his diary in the car?” Norris asked curiously.
“I guess so,” Cooper replied. “But it’s really more of a theory, I’d guess you’d call it…a lot of rambling bullshit about some kind of energy linking different members of your family from one generation to the next. Crap like that.
“But,” Cooper continued, seriously, “the second thing he said he had with him was much more important. It was a girl. That’s what he called her. Just, ‘the girl.’”
“‘I’ve got the girl with me,’ he mumbled near the end. ‘So they’ll be after me for sure. Without her, it’s no good. None of it! It’s no good! They’ll do anything to get her back, so if you don’t come—like right now, Mike—I’m dead meat!’
“Whoever the girl is, she’s a w
itness,” Cooper added, clenching his hand. “Together, she and Woodie were running for their lives. But he still stopped the car long enough to call me and talk like he was crazy…totally spaced-out. Even though I was sure that he was stoned, there was still something in his voice that told me that whatever was happening to him wasn’t just in his head. So I hung up and took off.
“I was careless, Bob. I guess that’s what it all boils down to. I guess that’s what I wanted to say to you, face-to-face. I should’ve called the cops down here and had them run him down. I should’ve taken precautions. I should’ve treated it more seriously. But I didn’t. I just told him to take it easy, and that I’d meet him wherever he said. But he never showed up. I’m really very sorry.”
Norris lifted his hand as if to wave the apology away as unnecessary.
“I waited for him for over an hour,” Cooper continued, softly. “And then I started driving up and down Route 36, looking for his car. Apparently he ended up here at the motel at about midnight.
“At one-fifteen, Sheriff Conway responded to a disturbance call, notifying the local hospital and calling for a pretty hefty backup. I just followed the noise on the radio. As soon as I heard that ‘man down’ call, I knew I had fucked up royal.”
He sighed and stared at the floor for a moment. Then he looked up and added, “Sheriff Conway had to get a key from the motel manager before he could get in the room, so Woodie must have locked the door. This animal, unless he opened the door for it—which I doubt he’d do—must have been waiting for him inside.
“Supposedly this was a random stop, at a random motel. He got a key to a random room, walked in, locked the door, and found something waiting that tore him apart and then jumped right through the goddamn window, since the glass was all blown out, not into the room…leaving his female companion to disappear into the night—or carrying her off. If it didn’t take her, she can’t be far since Woodie’s car is still here.
“So when you’re ready,” he concluded, handing Norris a large yellow envelope, “here’s everything I’ve got so far: photographs of Woodie’s body, detail shots of specific wounds, body position, schematics of the layout of the room, pictures of footprints, and an outline of events as I know them.
“Study it. Work on it. You know the people down here and the lay of the land. These local cops think you ain’t got a backbone so they’ll probably leave you alone. Sticking around to ask a few questions, maybe tagging along behind a deputy or two to see if they’re any closer to finding out who killed your brother, and why, won’t be seen as terribly unusual. Especially with you being a park ranger, which I’d imagine is like being in the National Guard to these boys…like playing Army. They’ll leave you alone, and you can find the girl.”
“Why me?” Norris asked.
Cooper snapped his briefcase shut, placed it on the floor, and rested his elbows on the arms of his chair.
“Listen,” he said, seriously. “I don’t know what Woodie stumbled on down here, but according to my computer’s profile, whatever it is has been around for a very long time—like over a hundred years. It can’t be a single man working alone, that much is clear. We may have a family of psychopaths who, for generations, have been tearing people to shit themselves, or breeding some kind of dogs to do it. Or maybe it’s a fucking family of man-eating bears. Maybe it’s anything…but whatever it is, a dope peddler named Mr. Green sent Woodie down here to find it, and it killed him while I was driving around with my thumb up my ass.
“Now a bunch of Tractor Pull enthusiasts is going to try to sort things out. I’ve got a platoon of really good people, and a truckload of state-of-the-art equipment waiting to help me back at the department, but I can’t use any of it because I don’t have the jurisdiction. But that’s not going to stop me this time. This time, I’m getting involved. This time I’m making the arrest…and you’re going to help me do it.
“This is your neck of the woods, and you’re a hunter. I’d do it myself, but I’m a realist. I was born and raised in the city, and I don’t even have a real pair of boots. I’d be lost in ten minutes. While I was fucking around, precious seconds would be ticking away. I could let Conway handle it, but I want the collar for myself. So that leaves you.
“Find the girl for me, Bob!” he concluded, rising from his seat. “Get out there and do what you know how to do better than anybody down here. Get out in those woods and find that girl.”
“But, Mike,” Norris protested, weakly, looking up at his friend. “I’m not a cop.”
Cooper’s lips were bloodless when he answered, “You are now.”
And then the sound of something exploding ripped through the morning air so abruptly that it made both med jump.
The sound was a harsh one…
A blast of concussion close by.
The sound was a deadly one…
Like a shotgun going off across the yard.
19.
As Norris emerged into the new-morning sun, he expected to find policemen running toward the sound of shouting. What he didn’t expect was an angry sheriff, waiting for him in the snow.
But that’s what he got.
The transformation of the motel from a nightmarish, mist-enshrouded oasis of eerie, flashing lights to an unassuming barracks squatting beneath a bright blue sky, had occurred during the time he had spent locked in his room. The sun was up, and a luxurious layer of new-fallen snow reflected its vivid rays, making the yard a painful glare in which four men stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a single, dark smudge not ten yards away.
It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the light. But once they did, the sheriff’s face became unmistakable.
Norris knew him.
And the man knew Norris.
Sheriff Conway was short and thin, with blondish-grey hair. He stood with his feet firmly set on the ground, his back erect, and his eyes, which were little more than a pair of black slits against the sunshine, were riveted on Norris’ face. His left hand was hidden in the pocket of his tan vinyl jacket, and his right held a notebook that was apparently Woodie’s diary.
But where the sheriff’s visage remained statue-like and unmoving, the three deputies who accompanied him—two to his left and one to his right—reacted to Norris with animated expression of…
Fear!
He was stunned.
To a man, the three dropped their jaws and stared at him, taking a single, reflexive step back and moving their hands nervously over their arms as if, beneath their heavy coats, their skin had begun to itch.
Somewhere behind them, shots were fired: sounding like tiny pops cracking off the frozen Valley.
Neither the deputies nor the sheriff reacted to the sound. But Cooper moved his head back and forth a couple of times and shouted, “What goes on here?” which seemed to break the spell. Blinking, the deputies stumbled backward, turned, and ran toward the motel’s office: the apparent source of the original shotgun blast, as well as the subsequent pistol reports.
Other men were running.
Cooper drew his gun.
And Sheriff Conway pointed a lean spike of a finger at Norris’ face, saying, “I won’t let you do it. This time, I’ll kill it.”
These words made Norris’ blood run cold, because, somewhere beneath the veneer of his conscious mind, he seemed to understand what they meant. In that instant, a brief, almost mystical contact seemed to occur as this old sheriff reached into Norris’ soul and touched it with a threat so chilling that it made something physical happen inside his skull. Suddenly he felt the echoing reverberations of some haunting, distant knowledge—some memory long hidden, and yet complete—calling out to him from the misty haze of forgotten years. It seemed familiar, in a disturbingly insubstantial way that reflexively he tried to ignore…
But couldn’t.
No more than he could ignore the sensation of heat—real heat—throbbing at the center of his fist. Without his having thought to do so, his hands had sought out Woodie’s eye and was squeezing it in
his pocket, protectively containing the warmth that was now climbing up his arm.
Whatever expression he wore, it was apparently the one for which the sheriff had been searching because, before turning to follow his men, the older man smiled and snapped his fingers as if to say, “Gotcha!”
Then he was gone, and Cooper had Norris’ arm.
“Stick close, Bob,” he said, leading the way. “I don’t like the sound of this.”
Together the two men approached the motel’s office, Cooper clutching his gun and Norris walking stiffly against the tugging on his jacket sleeve. Around them, all motion ceased as the last deputy disappeared inside the motel and a strange stillness settled on the yard. The only sound was that of snow crunching underfoot.
At least until they reached the office door.
And then things started up again.
The door’s lock had been smashed, leaving broken, splintered wood. Just as Cooper was about to step through the door, a series of shouts made him freeze, and two white-faced deputies burst from inside, one holding a hand over his mouth, the other brandishing a hunting rifle. They rushed past the detective, stuttered on the ice, chopped their feet a couple of times, and then split up, one breaking into a full run for the patch of parked cars at the lot’s south side, while the other remained, slack-jawed and staring at Norris like a kid at the zoo.
In seconds they were followed by more, even less organized officers.
“Goddamn!” someone shouted from within the depths of the motel.
“Sweet Lord Jesus!” someone else said.
“I wish Emil was here with his dogs,” yet another man observed.
A truck’s engine fired up and tires hissed as the first deputy maneuvered his pickup out of the lot.
Men thundered down the office’s three wooden steps and dispersed into the yard.
“Fucker hauled ass!” someone said, laughing, raising a hand to his brow, and watching the pickup disappear in a roiling, snowy ball down the road that connected Harpersville with State Route 36.