Footprints of the Dead (Tom Gabriel #1)

by Tim Ellis

They thanked her and walked back to the Dodge.

  “Maybe we should pass what we’ve got to your friends in the police force,” Rae suggested once they were sitting in the vehicle.

  “You’d like to spend a few years in jail then? Make it part of your life experience, use it as research for an article, become somebody’s plaything? I’m sure there are lots of ways you can use a prison sentence to your advantage. I’ll deny all knowledge, of course. Mona is fully aware I know nothing about technology. She’d understand that it was down to you, that you used your feminine charms to manipulate me . . .”

  “I guess that’s a ‘no’ then?”

  “Taking evidence from a crime scene, perverting the course of justice, breaking and entering, criminal damage, suborning a person to obtain private information, bribing a city official, withholding evidence, conducting an illegal investigation . . . need I go on?”

  “I don’t think so. You’ve made it quite clear that you’re a criminal mastermind.”

  “Behind every criminal mastermind is a pretty woman in a new dress.”

  “Do you think I’m pretty?”

  “If it weren’t for the strange makeup, the hobnail boots, the studded choker –”

  “Don’t forget the tattoos.”

  “No, I quite like the tattoos.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “There must be something wrong with you.”

  He rubbed his eyes with the knuckles of his index fingers. “Lack of sleep probably.”

  “What now?”

  He checked his watch. It was five to three.

  “I think we need to go to 1547 Cherokee Ranch Road in Holly Ridge to find out what happened to Katherine Everett. If what we’re dealing with goes back longer than five years, then we need to know that.”

  ***

  It was the wrong time of day to be going anywhere. It took him three quarters of an hour to get onto the I-95, and then – because of a tanker spillage – he joined a three-mile tailback of crawling vehicles, which was made worse by the school run first and then the going-home crowd.

  He pulled up outside number 1547 on Cherokee Ranch Road at seven twenty. The streetlights were on, and most people had hunkered down for the night.

  “We should have left it until the morning,” he said. “Today’s been a day to forget.”

  “We’re here now.”

  “I’m astounded by your observational powers.”

  “Are ya going to take your bad mood out on me?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good, ‘cause it’s not my fault you got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.”

  As they approached the front door, there didn’t seem to be any lights on in the house.

  He knocked, but no one came.

  A dog started barking somewhere to their left.

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice came from behind them. “There’s no one there.”

  He turned. The woman was in shadow, but he could see an excited spaniel pulling on its lead. “You don’t know when Mrs. Everett will be back, do you?”

  “Mrs. Everett? No, you’ve got the wrong address.”

  “I’m sorry, who are you?”

  “Who are you?” she threw back at him.

  He walked towards the woman. “Sorry. I’m Tom Gabriel, and this is Rae Raeburn. We’re reporters from the St. Augustine Record.”

  “I see. Reporters, eh? I’m Mrs. Carolyn McClay. I live at number 1320 on the opposite side of the road.”

  “You say Mrs. Everett doesn’t live here anymore?”

  “Never heard of her, but then I’ve only been living here just over two years.”

  “Who lives at this address?”

  “Randy Francis and his loud-mouthed wife, Bex – I think that’s short for Rebecca, but who knows these days? They have a horde of scavenging, thieving kids as well.”

  “Do you know where they’ve gone?”

  “No, but hopefully they won’t come back.”

  “Do you know how long they’ve lived here?”

  “Look, if you want some history, you should talk to old Samantha Lewis at number 1573. That nosy bitch has been here as long as the roaches.”

  “Thanks for your help, Mrs. McClay.”

  They drove along the road to number 1573 and knocked on the door.

  “I’ve got a twelve-gauge shotgun, and both barrels are full,” a woman shouted.

  “Mrs. Lewis?” Tom responded.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I’m Tom Gabriel, a reporter with the St. Augustine Record.”

  “I ain’t shot me a reporter for at least a couple a weeks.”

  Tom laughed. “If you’d shot a reporter, you’d be in jail now.”

  A wrinkled old woman appeared on the other side of the door screen. She wore an orange beanie and a woolen scarf. He could see she didn’t have any teeth by the way her face had collapsed.

  “What makes you the expert?”

  “Used to be a detective.”

  “Now I wish I did have a shotgun.”

  “A Mrs. McClay said you might be able to help us.”

  “That bitch lets her bitch crap on my land. I should get me a shotgun, you know. I could go round the neighborhood and settle old scores before I meet my maker.”

  Tom had the idea she was heading in the opposite direction.

  “We’re here looking for a Mrs. Everett.”

  “Ha!”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Connie Everett done packed her bags and left over ten years ago. Once her daughter Kathy got taken . . . well, she didn’t see no point in staying around.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Kathy got taken’?”

  “You better come in. I ain’t got much, but I could give you some lemonade. You want a glass of lemonade?”

  Rae nodded. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

  Tom sniffed. He could smell coffee. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any Blue Mountain coffee?”

  “What’s it to you? It’s mine, and I ain’t sharing it.”

  He shrugged. “I suppose lemonade will have to do then.”

  “When did you have your last fix?”

  “First thing this morning.”

  “You got the cramps?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the shakes?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll let you have half a mug, but that’s all.”

  “You’re a lifesaver.”

  Old Samantha Lewis went into the kitchen to get the drinks.

  They sat on a two-seater sofa that was covered with a multicolored, crocheted blanket. The seat sank right down. He could feel springs digging into his butt, but it was surprisingly comfortable.

  “Hey, dumb ass,” someone said.

  They looked around, but there was no one there.

  “Take no notice,” the old woman said bringing in their drinks. “It’s Hershey,” she said pointing to a grey macaw in a large cage in the corner. “What have I told you about calling guests ‘dumb ass,’ Hershey?”

  “Sorry, dumb ass.”

  “Came with the vocabulary unfortunately, but he’s cute.”

  “You were saying about Katherine Everett being taken.”

  She sat down in an easy chair facing the television that had been parked on mute. There was a whole knot of knitting in a wicker basket on the floor under a small table by her chair. She put a steaming mug on a coaster.

  “Independence Day, 2001, it was. The carnival was in town. Everybody went, even me. I had my Harold then, but God borrowed him shortly afterward. I done told God I better get my Harold back when I’m done.”

  She took a swallow of coffee and stared into her memories for a handful of seconds. “Yeah, my Harold’s been gone much the same time. Well, the carnival was so busy that nobody noticed little Kathy was missing. Oh, her mum did, but where do you start looking? She told the Sherriff’s Department eventually, but what could they do? There was three ti
mes the number of people in town than normal. So, little Kathy Everett disappeared, and nobody could do a damned thing about it. They searched, but it was a half-assed attempt. Once your child gets taken, you ain’t got no hope of getting ‘em back.”

  “Taken,” Rae asked. “What do mean by that?”

  “All I know is, somebody takes ‘em, and nobody ever sees ‘em again. Little Kathy wasn’t the first, and she wasn’t the last. Every so often, another one goes missing, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it, so it seems. I see the reports in the newspapers, and their little faces on the milk cartons. There are stories, you know . . .”

  Rae tried to sit forward on the sofa, but she fell backward into the dip again. “What stories?”

  The old woman picked up her cup and nursed it in her two misshapen, arthritic hands. “Mostly stories to scare the children, keep ‘em on the straight and narrow, if you know what I mean. But they often say stories have a kernel of truth, don’t they? There’s one where a man with a flour sack on his head comes in the night . . .” She gave a short laugh. “You’re wondering why he wears that old flour sack on his head, aren’t you?” she asked Rae.

  Rae nodded, her mouth gaping open like the entrance to the ghost ride at the carnival.

  “You don’t never want to know. What he hides with that sack ain’t human. He snatches the children right from their beds . . .” She thrust a clawed hand forward. “SNATCH . . . and eats ‘em.”

  Rae jumped and gripped Tom’s arm.

  Tom smiled. “Are there any of those stories based on fact?”

  “Before they found her hanging upside down from one ankle in her barn, Josie Merryweather would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that she’d seen what was under that sack. Now if that ain’t fact, then I don’t know what is.”

  He threw back the last of his coffee and tried to stand up, which necessitated swiveling to the left until he was perched on the edge of the dip, and then pushing himself up.

  “Thanks very much for your time, Mrs. Lewis,” he said, helping Rae up, “and for the coffee.”

  “Always nice to have guests,” she said.

  “Dumb ass,” Hershey pronounced.

  “Hershey! You’re a bad boy. Stop saying that.”

  “Bad boy! Bad boy!”

  They made their way to the door.

  “You want to talk to the Sherriff’s Department. They searched for little Kathy for over two weeks, but they didn’t find hide nor hair of her. Gone, as if she weren’t never here in the first place.”

  “Do you know where her mother went?”

  “Nashville, Tennessee, so they say. Heard she wanted to be a country and western singer at the Grand Ole Opry.”

  The darkness had closed in.

  He felt completely drained and wished he was standing right next to his bed instead of a hundred miles away from it.

  There was a man sitting in a rocking chair on the porch. He was rocking to and fro, and smoking a pipe. “Tell the old crone I’m waiting for her,” he said.

  Tom smiled. It seemed that everybody was waiting for somebody. Carrie was waiting for him, and he guessed Rae’s mum was waiting for her.

  “You won’t find what you’re looking for here,” the man said. “St. Augustine is the place you want to be.”

  “Thanks, Harold.”

  “What’s that you say?” the old woman said.

  “Harold said to tell you that he’s waiting for you.”

  Mrs. Lewis craned her neck and stared up at him. “Of course. You’re that Tom Gabriel who can see the dead. I remember reading ‘bout you.”

  “The very same. Harold is sitting in a rocking chair on the porch smoking his pipe.”

  “Liked nothing better than to ruminate in his rocking chair, did Harold. And that pipe tobaccy smelled enough to knock down a herd of cows. Wouldn’t let him smoke it in the house, made him sit out here, come rain or shine.” Tears came to her eyes. “Tell the old bugger he won’t have long to wait.”

  “He knows.”

  They left Mrs. Lewis staring at the place where the rocking chair used to sit and creak when her husband, Harold, was still alive to ruminate.

  Even though it was far from cold, Rae shivered as they walked back to the road. “God, that’s creepy how you can just see dead people.”

  “Seen them all my life. When I was young, it used to scare the crap out of me, but I gradually got used to it. Listen . . .” he said as they climbed into the Dodge, “. . . I don’t feel up to driving back tonight. Okay with you if we stay in a motel?”

  “Two rooms?”

  “You think I’m made of money? Two single beds.”

  “Okay, but I get to use the shower first.”

  “You can use the shower all night if you want to. I’ll be going straight to sleep.”

  He looked at his watch. It was twenty-five past ten. He headed back towards the I-95 and found the Penny Farthing Motel with a flashing neon sign advertising vacancies.

  Rae pointed at the neon sign and laughed. The ‘h’ wasn’t working in ‘Farthing’.

  The reception was like something out of a 1960s black-and-white horror movie.

  A man with straggly, unwashed hair and at least a week-old growth of beard was sitting in a back room smoking and watching the television.

  Tom had to ring the bell twice – and then call out before he got any attention.

  “Yeah?”

  “A room please.”

  The man swiveled the signing-in book round, gave him the key to Room 17, and said, “Sign.”

  Tom signed.

  “Fifty bucks.”

  He paid in cash.

  “I’m surprised he didn’t ask any questions,” Rae said as they walked to the room.

  “This is not the type of place where people are asked questions.”

  As soon as he peered into Room 17 he stopped Rae from going in with his arm. “We’ll need to switch rooms.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t like that one.”

  He walked back to the reception and finally got the man’s attention again.

  “I’d like a different room please,” he said, sliding the key to Room 17 across the counter. “Preferably one that hasn’t had a murder committed in it.”

  The man gave him a curious look – but didn’t challenge him. He swapped the key for Room 21.

  “You saw a ghost, didn’t you?” Rae said when he came out of the reception.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you didn’t mind sharing rooms with ghosts.”

  “I don’t usually, but I’m not keen on sharing with ghosts who’ve had their throats cut.”

  “Oh!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tuesday, September 18

  The smell of burnt milk permeated the motel room. The carpet was a sticky, dark green. The beds were covered with stained, brown-floral bedspreads. The curtains were a sun-bleached khaki. There was a television, a microwave, and a fridge. Each item had a coin-slot attached to it. It certainly wasn’t the worst place he’d ever stayed in, but it came quite close.

  Rae was sitting cross-legged on her crumpled sheets. The information on Oscar Gibson’s Internet activity that Jane Cooper had provided for them was spread out all around her. There was a hand towel wrapped around her head and a bath towel tucked under her arms.

  “Have you got no shame?”

  “Eh, let’s be clear about this. You’re the one who didn’t have the stamina to drive back, and you’re the one who’s dumped me in the middle of nowhere without a change of clothing, a workable hair dryer, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and . . .”

  “So, you’re saying it’s my fault that you’re lounging around with no clothes on?”

  “I don’t see anyone else here with ‘I’m to blame’ tattooed on their forehead. And for your information, I have a towel covering the important bits, and I had to wash my panties with soap and water, and they’re still not dry.”

  “Is it really necessary to gi
ve me the gory details?” He scrambled out of bed and went to the bathroom.

  “I see your mood hasn’t improved,” she shouted as he opened the door. “The kettle has just boiled, and there’s some packets of coffee next to it.”

  He picked up a packet as if it were excrement. “This isn’t coffee, it’s . . .”

  “Yeah well, that’s all there is unless you want to go and get some proper stuff.”

  It would have to do until they could reach civilization. He made himself a mug. After the first mouthful, his tongue had grit all over it. “It’s even worse than I imagined.”

  “Do you want to know what I’ve found?”

  “Go on then.”

  “Hey, don’t do me any favors.”

  “I wasn’t planning to,” he said, sitting down on his bed. He was still half asleep. The very worst thing was waking up and not having any Blue Mountain to drink, or at least some half-decent coffee. If he hadn’t been close to death when they’d arrived, he would have thought of the consequences of staying overnight. When he got back, he’d have to make up an emergency bag with the essentials inside. Definitely coffee, a proper mug, a spare set of clothes, shoes, toothbrush and toothpaste, a couple hundred bucks . . . he’d make a list.

  “I did the same type of analysis with this as I did with the bank and credit card information.”

  “Okay.”

  “If Jane had only found his home and work computers, we’d have forgotten all about Gibson. He’s an average family guy, and it’s clear his wife and kids use the home computer. Sometimes, he does work stuff on it, but not a lot. There’s lots of games, but nothing to raise an eyebrow. His work computer is for work – houses, houses, and more houses. He sells a lot of houses. The emails under his own name are much the same – all boring stuff.”

  “Which leaves us with the secret computer.”

  “Who’s telling this story?”

  He screwed his face up. It was a good job nobody had a camera. His face was even baggier in the mornings. It was as if the elasticity in his skin took its time to get back into shape. A family of five could have used his face for the weekly shopping trip.

  “I’m certainly not going to check out any of the child porn sites that are listed. I don’t want to infect my tablet. Also, he has over two hundred fifty videos and nearly five thousand pictures. Do you want to see some of the pictures?”