by Sylvia Nobel
I pondered the situation for a minute before retracing my steps and pulling one of the kerosene lamps from the shelf. It took another minute or so to locate matches and several more to figure out how to light the lantern. My grandmother had always lamented that from the time I was a toddler, I’d exhibited a true redhead’s personality, headstrong and stubborn to the max. My first reaction to being told I shouldn’t do something was to challenge the reasoning and then try my best to figure out how to get my way. Apparently I hadn’t changed much.
My senses on high alert, I walked back to the cellar door and in the wavering lamplight, slowly descended the staircase, more worried about encountering a spider than a rat the size of a garbage truck. The stairs creaked a little, but appeared to be in pretty good shape. I wished there’d been enough light to see better, because I was pretty sure the giant rusted apparatus in front of me was the ammonia ice-making machine Gretchen had mentioned. Even with the flash on my camera, I doubted the picture would come out very good, but what the heck. Trying to hold the lamp steady, I took several shots and then moved on, passing several rooms filled with old furniture, piles of boxes and miscellaneous aging junk, following the orange cord until I found the source of the humming. A freezer. It stood alone in a tiny room illuminated by faint light from a grimy window high above it. There was nothing at all sinister about it, but for some unexplained reason, as I stood there in the thick silence, an ominous foreboding settled around me like low-lying ground fog. Taking Myra’s occupation into consideration, it should not seem odd to find a freezer in her basement. But it did. Especially since she’d been so adamant about the dangerous conditions. There was no water seepage, no rotting timber and so far, not a single rat.
As I approached, my already tense stomach muscles constricted. Perhaps it was because I was already in an anxious state of mind, but when I reached for the latch, I hesitated. What was I expecting to find? Was Tally right? Was I always looking for excitement where there was none? Obviously, my imagination was working overtime again and I was going to feel like a total idiot when I opened it to discover a pile of frozen food.
I held the lamp high and lifted the right hand lid, my breath stalled in my throat. Yep, I was an idiot. With the exception of a small selection of low fat dinners piled in one corner, the space was filled with nothing but giant blocks of ice. I blew out a long relieved breath, lowered the lid and turned to leave when something, I don’t know what, compelled me to turn back and open the other side. I released the latch, lifted the lid and a dim appliance bulb flashed on. A cursory glance revealed more blocks of ice, but one appeared to have a dark shadow in the center of it. As I moved the lamp closer, I thought at first my eyes were playing tricks on me. But they weren’t. Sickening horror rocketed through me and my knees turned to liquid when I realized what I was looking at. His handsome features frozen in a look of perpetual disbelief, the startled blue eyes of Judge Riley C. Gibbons stared back at me.
28
Paralyzed with revulsion, my heart kicking painfully against my ribs, I didn’t know whether to retch or scream. I did some of both before I dropped the lamp and sprinted away from the horrid little chamber, still shrieking, jolts of sheer terror radiating through me. Stumbling and falling, every nerve ending on fire, I groped along the rough, cold walls, lost in the inky maze of rooms. Violent shudders wracking my body, my ragged breath echoing in my ears, I fought off waves of hysteria that threatened to rob me of all intellect. Get your shit together! My jacket snagged on something and as I felt around the sharp edges I realized it was the old icemaker. Within seconds, and much to my relief, I finally spotted the faint rectangle of light from the doorway above. I scrambled up the stairs, my mind still grappling to comprehend what I’d just seen. When I reached the landing, I bolted ahead blindly and upended the table containing Myra’s collection of cherub-cheeked angels.
The crash of breaking glass was horrendous as we all went down. Sprawled on the floor among the shattered debris of the porcelain figurines, fighting spasms of nausea, I desperately tried to gather my frazzled wits as I stared at the pile of wings, arms and angelic faces, most broken beyond repair. How could this be possible? How could someone as kind, refined and educated as Myra Colton, a woman endowed with the talent to create such haunting beauty, possibly be capable of cold-blooded murder? And what was the meaning of that horror in the basement? What had Fritzy called it? A trophy head?
I struggled to my knees. Blood from gashes on my arms and hands dripped onto several of the angels and then, as the realization slowly dawned on me, needles of renewed alarm prickled the nape of my neck. Stunned, I stared hard at the assortment of little faces looking back at me. They were all the same face. “All the same face,” I whispered aloud, surveying my mute porcelain audience. And a familiar face at that.
With trembling hands I fished my phone out and punched the VIEW button on the text message Brian had sent me. When the picture appeared, it rocked my senses. “Jesus H. Christ!” The answer to the puzzle was spread out all around me. All the figurines shared the identical facial features of the long-dead Sarah Scarborough. I had to inhale a couple of super-deep breaths to stave off the new shockwaves and resist succumbing to panic. Okay. Okay. Breathe. Relax. Breathe. Relax. So there it was. Myra Colton was actually Jean Scarborough. The memory of the specter in the mist at the funeral popped into my mind along with the words HATE HAS TURNED MY DAYS AND NIGHTS INTO HELLISH TURMOIL.
Her soul must be steeped in hellish turmoil to have committed such a heinous act. How fascinating that she’d employed the judge’s favorite genre, his veneration of the written word to turn the tables on him and what ghoulish irony that she would choose decapitation as fitting punishment for his crime of allowing her daughter’s murderer, in her mind at least, to walk free. The seeds of hatred had germinated into a lifelong obsession for vengeance. In a strange way, I could understand her twisted logic. The justice system had failed her miserably. Her life had been torn apart and there had been no real consequences for those involved, so she’d invented her own unique method of punishment. One by one she’d exacted revenge upon the people she believed were either directly or indirectly responsible for her daughter’s death. What had she called it in one of the letters she’d mailed to the judge? REVENGE IS A KIND OF WILD JUSTICE? And she’d taken her sweet time about it. Her axiom Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet, obviously held a very special meaning for her. Would I ever be able to erase the vision of the judge’s dead eyes looking back at me? But then another ghastly thought occurred to me. Were the body parts of the other two victims also in the freezer?
No wonder Riley Gibbons had feared for his life. After he’d heard about the deaths of the other two men, he must have had some inkling that she might be the person responsible and if so, that she’d eventually get around to him. How clever she was to have insinuated herself into his life, befriended his wife and finagled her way into his home. What a perfect setup to weave her evil web around him. Her web. My blood ran cold. What was it she’d warned in her last letter to him? BEWARE THOSE WHO FEAST AT THE TABLE WITH THE EVILDOER. No wonder Ruth had been worried about Tally or anyone else close to the judge. Anyone else close to the judge. What had I just seen written in her journal? THE SPAWN OF EVIL MUST PERISH. “Oh my God! Marissa!” It made sense to assume that because of her vindictive obsession, there was no way in hell she was going to permit the child of Riley Gibbons to be born!
Galvanized into action, I shot to my feet, crunched over the broken faces and raced outside, feeling enormous relief to leave the vile scene behind and breathe in the invigorating wind. On the run, I dialed 911, but of course the No Service message blinked back at me. “Stupid friggin’ phone!” I jumped into the truck and turned the key. Nothing. “Come on!” Frantically, I pumped the gas and attempted again, remembering too late what Tally had said about flooding the carburetor. “Shit! Double shit!”
Groaning, I laid my head back against the seat, agonizing that in this day
and age with every modern convenience of the 21st century at my disposal, I was stuck here with no working phone and no transportation. It might as well be the 19th century.
I waited two minutes before trying once more. Still nothing. My mouth dry as cotton, I thought, what if Myra showed up right now? What would I do? What would she do? And then another thought occurred to me. What if she returned, removed or destroyed the evidence of her crime and disappeared again? What would happen to La Donna and Winston? Horrified, I knew what I needed to do. No! Anything but that. I tried to talk myself out of it but realized that I had to return to the basement and get some proof.
Before I could change my mind, I picked up the camera and returned to the old building. My hands trembled as I lit another lamp. It was an effort not to hyperventilate. “O’Dell, you are truly insane,” I murmured, once again descending into the dark confines of the basement. I stopped a couple of times to make withdrawals from my courage bank and then, heart hammering hard in my throat, I proceeded to the freezer and lifted the lid. Swallowing back spasms of nausea, I clicked a series of pictures. While the experience was equally as hair-raising as before, for some reason a strange calm settled over me. What was there to be afraid of really?
As I stood there studying the skin on the judge’s face, it was interesting to note how well-preserved it appeared to be—ruddy cheeks, eyes still startlingly clear, perhaps just a bit of whitish freezer burn on his nose and ears as one would expect with any other kind of fleshy thing such as chicken or fish. All at once, dissecting a frog in biology class fell to the level of insignificance and my admiration for Fritzy swelled a hundredfold. Day in and day out in the course of her job she dealt with situations like this and probably far worse. Not something I could ever do. But, I did feel rather proud of myself for overcoming my numbing fear as I took the stairs two at a time. For added insurance, I stooped to pick up one of the little cherubs then grabbed the photos of Tally from the table along with the note and scurried back to the truck. This time the engine roared to life.
“All right!” I drove like someone possessed towards Yarnell, alternately checking my phone for a signal, knowing instinctively that time was of the essence. What a conniving, calculating mind Myra possessed. She’d apparently thought of everything. It seemed inconceivable, but I now suspected that it had been she who had run us off the side of the road after Grant had spilled the beans regarding Marissa’s pregnancy and voiced his casual remark that if anyone could catch the murderer, I could. With all she had invested, she was not about to take a chance on my foiling the final installment of her Machiavellian plan. Feeling confident that we’d perished in the crash, she’d planted the incriminating evidence and then placed the anonymous phone call to the sheriff, which achieved the desired results—removing La Donna and Winston from the property and thereby leaving Marissa alone. She knew she had a finite amount of time to tie up one last loose end. Hadn’t I recently seen a story on the Internet detailing how a woman had killed her neighbor, slit the woman’s stomach open and removed the baby? Sick. Sick. Sick.
I finally picked up cell service when I reached the main road, swiftly dialed the sheriff’s office and gave Marshall a rapid-fire synopsis of my gruesome discovery. “You’ve got to get out to Hidden Springs right away! Marissa could be in immediate danger!” I said, an urgent sense of anxiety sending my pulse sky high.
“On my way,” came his terse reply.
The 411 Operator connected me to Hidden Springs, but after a dozen rings and no answer, my spirits tanked. Oh, my God! Was I too late? I punched the speed dial for Tally and maddeningly got his answering machine. I left a message, then said aloud, “Okay, old boy, let’s see what you can do.” A NASCAR driver would have envied the way I hurtled around the hairpin turns on Yarnell Hill. Traveling through town was a complete blur and the drive along the gravel road to Hidden Springs seemed to take forever. Behind me in the rearview mirror, voluminous charcoal clouds bore down from the northwest and obscured the waning rays of afternoon sunlight. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of having to deal with yet another downpour, but at least the strong tailwind aided in pushing me up to the crest of the hill. When I reached the top and got my first look at the secluded valley, I got one of those painful heart jolts. A plume of black smoke rising from the exact location of Hidden Springs formed a dark shroud over the Praying Nun. “Oh, no!” I breathed, jamming my foot on the gas. Traveling so fast I almost missed the entrance, I wrenched the wheel and the back end of the truck fishtailed, nicking one of the date palm trunks on my frenzied turn. I blasted along the gravel driveway and skidded to a stop inches from the low stone wall in the parking area, my worst fears confirmed as I stared at the conflagration of orange flames devouring the old hotel. Holy crap! I grabbed the camera and did a quick inventory of the other vehicles as I leaped from the truck—Marissa’s white SUV, two patrol cars and Myra’s white panel truck with the front grill crushed in. I’d been right. Sadly right. Turning, I dashed towards the burning building, smoke stinging my eyes, my chest tight.
“Kendall!” a voice shouted. “Over here!”
I jerked around, both surprised and relieved to see Sheriff Turnbull kneeling on the ground holding a limp, apparently unconscious Marissa in his arms. Duane Potts, his uniform scorched and torn, came trotting from La Donna’s house, coughing loudly and carrying blankets.
“What happened?” I asked, rushing to Marshall’s side.
“You were right,” he said grimly. “We found her bound and lying on her bed when we got here.”
Duane cut in, “Probably overcome with smoke. The doors were all barred, so we had to break the glass to get in.” He gestured towards Marissa’s shattered bedroom window. “That crazy woman is still in there somewhere. I tried to find her, but she wouldn’t respond. I finally had to get the hell out.”
I stared at Marissa’s pale soot-blackened face. “Is she all right?”
“Don’t know yet,” Marshall growled. “Ambulance and fire equipment are on their way.”
All three of us flinched and looked up when a loud crash emanated from within the old structure, sending a shower of sparks shooting out one of the windows on the third floor. Even though I could hear the wail of sirens in the distance, it appeared that Myra’s and the old hotel’s fate was sealed. My reporter’s instincts kicked in and I jumped up and sprinted around the rear of the structure, snapping pictures along the way. I stopped and lined up the shot I wanted, capturing the drama of the moment—the flames pouring from the windows, burning embers and ash falling around me, the smoke-hazed outline of the Praying Nun in the background. I swung the camera around for another shot and gasped in horror at the image in the LCD screen. Myra stood at one of the windows on the third floor. I was pretty sure by its proximity that she was standing in the room Riley had used for his library.
I lowered the camera, shouting, “Myra! Jump before it’s too late!” It probably wasn’t more than twenty or twenty-five feet to the ground and if she landed in the thick cluster of bushes it might break her fall enough so that she wouldn’t be that badly hurt. It was certainly worth a try, but she just stood there immobile, like one of her remarkable statues, a serene smile pasted on her lips as the flames behind her loomed brighter. There was nothing I could do but stand there helplessly as huge drops of rain spattered on my head. I watched the inferno consume this tragic woman, knowing deep in my gut that she had planned right from the outset to destroy herself along with the last vestiges of anything that Riley may have cherished, therefore fulfilling her final destiny of avenging her daughter.
The heavens opened up and buckets of water poured from the sky causing the fire to hiss and send out billows of steam. Call it the haze of smoke in my tear-filled eyes, call it my overwrought imagination, whatever, but it looked to me as if the smiling figure of a small boy appeared beside her in the window and took her hand just before the roof collapsed.
29
My explosive front-page article, complete with a dram
atic color shot of the flaming hotel, stunned everyone and by Saturday, Castle Valley was once again besieged by reporters from the national news media, print and television. It seemed that everywhere I went that weekend people wanted to buttonhole me for a firsthand account of my grisly discovery and grill me about the traumatic scene I’d witnessed at Hidden Springs. The only part I’d left out was seeing the ghost of the little boy. I had mentioned it to Tally, who’d arrived on the scene not long after the firefighters, but being the pragmatic guy he was, he had scoffed at the idea, believing that it was most likely an optical illusion caused by the thick smoke. Because I’d been in such a state of shock it was possible my eyes had deceived me, but thinking about it later I wasn’t so sure. It actually helped ease the heartache of that awful moment to convince myself that Myra had not been alone when she died, that the lonesome spirit of the child who’d wandered the halls of the old building for over a hundred years waiting for his mother’s return finally had some company. I felt certain it was a scene Riley would have appreciated.
It seemed as if that’s where the story should have ended, but more surprises unfolded the following week. I’d only been at my desk an hour or so Monday morning when Ginger appeared at the door, chomping on gum and waving an envelope. “Don’t wet your drawers or nuthin’,” she announced breezily, her tawny eyes shining with excitement, “but a letter from the Great Beyond just got delivered.”
I gawked at her. “What are you talking about?”
“This,” she said, advancing into the room. “It’s from Myra Colton.”
My heart plunged uncomfortably. “What?”
She handed the envelope to me, pointing. “Looks like she transposed the zip code so that’s probably why it didn’t show up until this morning.”
I stared at the neat block printing in disbelief.