A Cold, Fine Evil

by A. C. Alexander

  That was true, but didn’t explain why it still leaned, like a malicious omen, against the shed. Jon found he was gripping the phone hard enough his fingers had started to ache. He consciously loosened his grip. “I know, but how did it get here? It could be kids.”

  “Out there?” There was open skepticism. “In the summer maybe, but—”

  “I heard them laughing just now, and once before too.”

  Silence. George said after a long moment, “I have that number for Dr. Truman if you want it.”

  How nice when a professional psychologist thought you were cracking up. Not that he disagreed necessarily. He’d just looked to see if there were children swimming in a lake that had to be about forty degrees. Jon replied agreeably, “Text it to me. How are you feeling?”

  “Fine. Jon, maybe you should come into town. Stay with me tonight. This is not the Ritz or anything but I have a guest room. As I have mentioned before, I’m really starting to come to the conclusion that a lonely cabin on a deserted lake isn’t the best place for you right now. Solitude is all well and good, but for some people it can be the worst possible choice. I wonder how many times the words; I just need to be alone, have come back to bite someone in the ass. You think you’re working it out, but I think you’re doing everything but work it out.”

  George had a point, but he’d also planted a seed of an idea. “I might, but I have to take a little field trip first.”

  “Like what?”

  “I appreciate the invitation.”

  “Jon—”

  He ended the call and finished his drink. That he needed.

  Then he picked up his keys and headed for the door.

  He remembered well where the place was outside of town, down a small overgrown road that hadn’t been graded in decades. There was a wince or two as his car scraped bottom but he was going to trade it in anyway. Alicia was right about him needing an SUV.

  William Murray’s farmhouse was a ruin. It had started the process of disintegration long ago, part of the roof caved in, the walls crawling with ivy, the front door boarded up. Jon got out of the car amidst the knee high grass and crimson sumac bushes and wondered who owned the property now. In his memory no one had ever lived in the house, but the story was that William’s daughter had stayed on even after her father was sentenced and hanged, though she was shunned by the community. She’d finally hung herself in the house, which was more than poignant to him on many counts.

  The sad part was that her rotting remains had not been discovered for days, not until the postmaster had realized she was not picking up her mail, and sent the sheriff to check on her. At least Jon had been able to spare his mother that indignity. The description in the paper had not been pretty.

  The family burial plot was in the back but not very accessible. He picked his way through dying nettles and blueberry bushes gone wild, and found the rusted fence around the enclosure of graves. The gate screamed as he opened it, in a melancholy wail of rusted hinges.

  A depression he didn’t anticipate assailed him as he stood there amid the overgrown and forgotten graves, the cold wind ruffling his hair. No one missed these people. They were just…gone.

  So was William’s headstone. The earth around one grave was disturbed where it had been yanked clear. The old reports had stated the church refused to have him interred in the Lutheran churchyard, so of course he would be here.

  Jon stood there, his hands in his pockets, and didn’t feel vindicated because he’d drawn the correct conclusion. Someone had given him the unique gift of a serial killer’s tombstone.

  He felt even more unhappy when he turned to leave and saw the blood. Glossy dark drops trailing back toward the house.

  Time suspended. The earth stood still as his mind rejected a terrible possibility. Fairly fresh, but visible, diluted and yet he saw them.

  What the hell?

  He didn’t want to do it, but he followed the trail, until he saw the body sprawled in the weeds by the foundation, her clothing soaked in blood and by the rain, a sickly pink puddle by the corpse. She had dark hair, and one arm was out flung, the other across her body, her eyes open and sightless.

  The sun had sunk behind the trees and the shadows thickened. A part of his consciousness registered this had really happened, and another part immediately started a different process of denial.

  Think.

  Not a good time for a panic attack, but he could feel it coming; he was having trouble swallowing, his heart started to pound, the rush of adrenalin beyond his control. Jon backed away, tripped and almost fell, and all the time his mind was racing forward, wondering how he could possibly ever explain his presence at this Godforsaken farm with a dead body.

  He couldn’t. Gravestones and ghostly faces?

  No one would ever believe him. He wasn’t sure he believed it.

  The police sure as hell wouldn’t.

  Chapter 11

  It’s funny how I remember more about death than life.

  You’d think it was the other way around, that I’d dream of roast chicken and mashed potatoes on Sundays, that first kiss, and being held and rocked in my mother’s arms.

  I don’t really.

  It’s as if I only sort of know about them, but those things don’t make a difference, so they are dismissed. I can’t tell that they ever did matter to me.

  I just don’t know. I’ve asked the question but the blank answer is disquieting, so I just leave it alone.

  As little as I am interested in my past, I am an avid observer of the present.

  Some candidates have more potential than others.

  Troy massaged his temples and felt like the weight of the world had settled unfairly on his shoulders. “I don’t know what else we can do right now. The state police are on this too, and maybe we should all go home and get some sleep.”

  He needed it. No question.

  All the night before, helping scour every obscure county road—and they had a lot of meandering roads bordered by stands of woods…it was truly God’s country if someone wanted to conceal a body—he hadn’t even laid his head on a pillow.

  They weren’t going to find her alive. He wasn’t quite resigned to it, but she was still gone, and it had been too long. Everyone else knew it too. The energy of a search always changed when the participants came to the conclusion they were looking for a corpse instead of success.

  Hope had waned into doubt.

  Poor Anne Gibbons.

  When the briefing was over, he called Amy. “I’m heading home. It’s been over twenty-four hours. We’re still looking but there’s been no word.”

  She sounded subdued. “I’ll have dinner ready. Soup okay?”

  “Thanks. I’d eat shoe leather.”

  “So not the right response, buddy.”

  But at least she laughed.

  Their last argument lingered in the background as he hung up the phone. Maybe he really had been out of line mentioning Palmer…Hell, he knew he was, it was ridiculous, but he was suddenly out of his depth and that sinkhole had been opening for quite some time, trying to swallow him whole.

  Before he could even walk out into the parking lot and get into his vehicle, his phone rang. It was Peter Hammond. Troy cursed softly and answered the call. “Good news, I hope. Talk to me.”

  “Possibly not good news for our missing woman. One of our search party members found a man’s shirt with suspicious stains that look like blood on it stuffed into a garbage receptacle at a wayside pull-off north of town. A complete fluke. He went to throw away a candy wrapper, saw the shirt, thought it was damned strange, and dug it out.”

  Elation was not a correct way to describe his reaction, but more a fatalistic satisfaction that if the shirt was linked to a crime, they would have some evidence. “Bag it and maybe we can get some samples for DNA.”

  “Done, boss.”

  On the drive home he thought long and hard about what they knew, and what they didn’t know, about the recent disappearance, and the
re was no way the history of the area could possibly stay out of his mind.

  There had been some bleak moments, no doubt about it. He was not a history buff, but it was impossible to be born and bred in Black Lake and not realize that some bad things had happened in these cold woods. It was a beautiful place, but there were a lot of those spots in this world. The top of frozen mountains, the depth of trenches in the ocean, the glittering water off a sunny tropical beach…all held the potential death. Beauty did not preclude danger.

  Amy was in the kitchen, and she’d baked biscuits to go with the soup. The aroma filled the air, and though he knew she hadn’t made them from scratch, that was fine with him. It had been one hell of a long day.

  And night. He was starving.

  His wife glanced up as he came into the kitchen. “No news?”

  “No good news.” He thought about crossing the room to kiss her, but decided that between their argument and the possibility she’d been drinking, maybe he shouldn’t. Instead he leaned against the counter, unclipping his badge and setting it aside. “We all know it is unlikely she has been voluntarily missing for all this time.”

  “I’m so unhappy.”

  “We all are.”

  Amy looked away, the swing of her hair by her cheek drawing his attention as she stirred the soup. “I’m not talking about the missing woman, though I am very worried about what might have happened to her.”

  Ah, the conversation he never wanted to have, but this was the day for it?

  He walked over and sank down into a chair at the kitchen table, the bone-weary ramifications of the conversation hitting him. “What are you talking about? Our marriage?”

  “Yes.”

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t know. “Okay. Is this a sliding scale? How unhappy?”

  “Very. I just haven’t wanted to say it out loud.”

  He so didn’t need this. It wasn’t like he didn’t know it, but when she said it there was more reality than he wanted. “Walking out the door ‘very’?”

  “You suggested it.” Her eyes were accusing.

  “I suggested you might be thinking about it.”

  She very carefully considered him. “Do you want me to?”

  “Walk out? No. Jesus, Amy. How can you even ask me that?” He rubbed his forehead. “I love you.”

  “Because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t have put up with my obsession. Right?”

  Now they were getting to it.

  Right. To his credit, he didn’t say it. “I don’t ‘put up’ with you. We live together, share a life, and our problems are not mutually exclusive.”

  “Come on, Troy. It is my problem. You don’t understand it.”

  He didn’t. Not completely. But fuck it, he’d tried.

  “I understand to the extent that if you care about it so much, I care too. I would love to make you happy. I would love a child. But I’m willing to accept it might not happen. You aren’t. That’s the part I find so hard.”

  He really wished she hadn’t started to cry. Tears started to run down her face in a silent crystal cascade he frustratingly couldn’t fix. He also really wished his phone hadn’t yet again rung at that crucial moment. Peter again. He answered more harshly than he intended, “Walda.”

  His deputy said, “You really aren’t going to believe this.”

  “I don’t believe in a lot of things. Try me. What’s going on?”

  “I’m afraid we have a body.”

  This evening wasn’t improving. Troy was on his feet. “Give me the location.”

  “That’s the part you won’t believe.”

  * * * *

  She wasn’t home.

  Maybe it was just as well. Jon was so shaken he’d probably just scare Alicia half to death and he certainly was not in the mood for a romantic interlude.

  Unlike her neat little bungalow, George lived in a square box of a house probably built in the fifties, the exterior brick but the shutters in need of a coat of paint. There were no potted plants on the plain front stoop and the doorbell didn’t work evidently, because Jon ended up having to knock. George’s car was there and he could hear the television, so he knew he was home, but with his recent heart attack in mind, was starting to wonder if something was wrong when George finally answered the door.

  “I was in the can,” he said, stepping back in invitation. “Thought I heard someone. Come on in.”

  Jon followed him into the tiny foyer, stopping to take off his boots, which had mud on them from walking to the cemetery. Maybe blood as well, he thought with a flicker of panic. He should clean them thoroughly. “I decided to take your advice. Maybe a little company isn’t a bad idea.”

  George, wearing old gray sweat pants and a baggy sweater that did nothing to improve his already dumpy appearance, pointed past the living room with its little sofa and tables with doilies toward a hallway. “For both of us maybe. I’ve made one of the bedrooms into a den. Let’s go there.”

  “I could use a drink. I don’t know what the doctor’s orders are, but maybe you should have one too. I need to talk to you about something.”

  In the realm of understatements, that had to be in the running for first place.

  “You saw me swilling down booze fifteen minutes after I was released from the hospital. Obviously I don’t give a shit what they said. I have a little fridge in there loaded with beer.” He led the way. “For whatever reason, I feel guilty keeping it in the kitchen because my grandmother didn’t approve of drinking and this was her house. I always worry the old bitch is watching me from the grave. I mow the lawn like a religious fanatic because she wanted it that way all the time.”

  Maybe she was watching him. Jon was starting to think this world didn’t make much sense, so surely the afterworld was even worse. He murmured, “No comment.”

  The little den had worn carpet, two recliners, a coffee table with a glass top that had rings on it, a giant flat screen mounted on the wall, and the small refrigerator sat next to a recycling bin. George picked up the remote and turned down the volume on the television, then went and got out two bottles, deftly opened them, and handed one over. “Have a seat. By the way, if this is another Larimer story, I’m not going to swear that I won’t recommend you be committed to the nearest psych ward.”

  He wasn’t sure he shouldn’t be.

  Jon said slowly, “I don’t know what kind of story it is, but there’s every chance that your cousin might call you on the gravestone question. I’d appreciate it once again if my name didn’t come up.” He chose the least worn chair, assuming the other was a favorite.

  “Okay…” George trailed off. He sat down heavily and stared. “Oh shit, now what?”

  For twenty years, George had kept his mouth shut about Larimer. Part of it, Jon knew, was self-preservation. That night when he’d helped Jon dispose of the body he willingly taken on part of the responsibility and he was smart enough to weigh the implications on a legal level.

  Hopefully the trend continued. Jon said, “If I didn’t have to tell you this, I wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “It occurred to me this afternoon when we were talking that maybe I knew whose tombstone was deposited next to the cabin. You said something about a family plot and I thought of William Murray.”

  “How the hell did your mind make that leap? You said you couldn’t read the name. It was too worn.”

  Jon wasn’t positive he could sit still. He got up and paced instead. “They didn’t put his name on the stone at all. I’m sure they knew the grave would be desecrated if they did. The birthdate is legible though. I’m not positive why I didn’t make the connection immediately, but then again, I was not expecting to get up one day and find an old tombstone outside of my cabin.”

  “I’ll grant you that one…where are you headed with this story? Just asking.” George ran a hand through his thinning hair.

  “It is Murray’s old tombstone, I’m sure of it. I went to the abandoned farm. One of the graves was recen
tly disturbed.”

  “A sick joke, I’ll grant you, but—”

  Sweat prickled across his skin as he interrupted. “The body of the missing woman from Black Lake was there. I found her. It?...I don’t know, what do you call a body?”

  What? George didn’t even have to say it. His mouth dropped open, the beer suspended in his hand.

  There wasn’t much choice but to go on. “I’m going to bet the police know by now, but if they should notice the missing headstone while they canvas a crime scene, and I have no doubt they will, Troy will remember your question. You’re right, he’s not stupid. He’ll connect the dots.”

  “Maybe they won’t find her for a while.” It was a weak response at best. George looked pallid and unwell.

  “No, they’ll find her.” Jon stared out the window. “I couldn’t not report it. All those people looking, her family agonizing…I had to. She was just lying there.”

  The image would haunt him the rest of his life.

  “Christ, Jon. How the hell do you think this won’t slam back at you, either with or without Troy? Every phone call can be traced.”

  That had been a very real problem. “I didn’t call. I handled it another way, but don’t think for a minute I didn’t consider just driving off and not saying a word.”

  “You should have done just that.”

  Truer words never spoken, but there was enough keeping him up at night as it was, and guilt didn’t need to be piled on the mix. “I know. But I felt sorry for her.”

  “She’s dead, right?”

  He turned his head. “Definitely.”

  George drank his beer, nearly draining the bottle in one swallow. Jon stared out the window. The neighbors had built a tall fence, so the view wasn’t all that interesting but that wasn’t what he was really seeing anyway. They probably had gotten tired of the unkempt backyard.

  “So, what you’re telling me is that I have to come up with some sort of plausible story of why I asked in the first place, lest I become a person of interest in this case.”