by Tom Deitz
“What about Calvin’s eyes?” Brock inserted. “Wouldn’t that hold for him too? Wouldn’t they be proof he’s okay?”
“Wasn’t thinkin’ ’bout it then,” Don admitted. “Was dark, anyway.”
“Okay,” Robyn sighed. “But what are you gonna do about your friend’s folks? They’ve gotta find out sometime.”
“Probably already have,” Brock noted, “considerin’ that the cops have found his body.”
“He’s only got a dad, anyway,” Don informed them. “And if they did call him, I’m sure he’s gone by now.”
“Okay, okay,” Robyn announced resignedly. “Maybe we ought to at least check out what’s goin’ on in town and make sure there’s nothing we can do.”
“Good job,” Brock cried, slapping his sister on the back. “I knew you’d see sense.”
“I see disaster,” she snapped back. “But maybe it’s like you said, maybe I couldn’t forgive myself.”
“Okay, so let’s boogie.”
“Not so fast,” she replied. “I still think we need to move camp. That way if Calvin does spill the goods on us, the cops won’t find us as quick.”
Brock frowned, but finally nodded. “And then we go to town.”
“All of us?” Don wondered. “They’re gonna be lookin’ for me too—and Mom’s gonna be worried. I’d kinda like to touch base…”
Brock’s frown deepened. “Good point. And since they know your friend’s dead now, they’re bound to want to ask you questions.”
“Hard questions,” Robyn appended. “And if all this magic stuff’s true, you’re gonna have to be real careful how you answer ’em, or you’ll wind up in the funny farm.”
“Yeah,” Brock continued, with a glare. “So maybe you’d better lie low until we get back.”
“I’m goin’ with you,” Don said flatly.
“Yeah, maybe he’s right,” Robyn conceded, eyeing Don narrowly. “You in good enough shape to truck through the woods for a while?”
“I’m tough,” Don replied.
And then the ground began to thrum ever so subtly. And that brought an end to discussion.
Chapter XXI: Put to the Question
(Whidden, Georgia—just before dawn)
…a bare light bulb, plain white walls, and three faces leering out of the shadows, angry and piggish.
“You do it?”
“No.”
“You have anything to do with it?”
“Indirectly, but not by design.”
“What’s that s’posed to mean?
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a…religious thing, like confession…I took a vow.”
“Is that like the Fifth?”
“Stronger.”
An exasperated sigh. “You know who done it?”
“Maybe.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“How d’you know, then? You witness it?”
“No.”
“How, then?”
“By the signs.”
“You mean them livers?”
“Yes.”
“An’ you won’t tell?”
“Can’t tell.”
“How come?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
A long pause. “Boys, I’m goin’ for a cup of coffee. Might check on the fuse box while I’m at it. Wouldn’t want that video camera to go off at the wrong time, would we? Might be gone ’bout twenty minutes. You boys look like you could use a little exercise.”
PART IV
Earth and Water
Chapter XXII: Comin’ To
(Whidden, Georgia—Thursday, June 19—morning)
It was something wet trickling into Calvin’s eyes that awoke him, and he thought for a moment it was more blood, because that was certainly what had been running into them when the sheriff’s thugs had finally left him alone the night before—or this morning, or whenever it had been. Morning, probably, because he thought he remembered the sky being pale when Deputies Adams and Moncrief (as Whiner’s nametag proclaimed his real name to be) had dragged him out of the County Mounty car and across the parking lot and into an unlighted and azalea-shrouded side door of Whidden’s Gothic courthouse, whence they’d pushed and shoved him down about a million hard-edged stairs and then down a long, humid corridor full of pipes and boilers and mechanical hums, through a steel door marked STAFF ONLY, and thence along a dank, brick-walled tunnel and through another STAFF ONLY door to a surprisingly homey interrogation room where they booked him and printed him and were assertively polite for about five minutes (taping all the time)—or exactly until Calvin had begun to relax just a smidgen. Whereupon the sheriff had vanished, and it had been back to the brick tunnel again, this time into a cramped and dirty room that opened off it where…things had happened, and then, finally (when the sheriff returned from his “coffee break”), to this cramped detention cell that was—Calvin had decided before he passed out—truly under the jail.
And there wasn’t a sharp corner or projecting object along either route that he hadn’t somehow “stumbled” into, or “fallen” upon—with maybe just a little bit of encouragement. Just like they’d “helped” him stay awake with assorted attention-getters in the form of fists—and once with a cup of remarkably hot coffee “accidentally” spilled into his crotch.
It was still wet too, but clammy cold now, and as Calvin slowly dragged himself to greater wakefulness on the narrow cot, some part of his consciousness informed him that if blood were running into his eyes it would be warm, whereas this liquid obviously was not.
He blinked then, or tried to, for his left lid was crusted shut, and the right only slightly better from having been lately soaked in whatever it was. The blink let in a stab of light, though, that made his head hurt—or hurt worse; it was already pounding, and come to that, everything else was too. A grunt, a groan, a yawn (not a good idea—his jaw wasn’t just optimum either, never mind what he’d earlier done to his lip, which was yet another, though fortunately much dimmer ache), and Calvin swung himself upright enough to manage a stiff-shouldered slump.
A gust of damp, chill air from somewhere above and behind made him shiver, but it also helped him focus enough to see that it came from a missing pane in the barred window hard up under the ceiling—the same one that was letting in occasional spits of rain, which (coupled with an impressive leak directly over his head) were evidently what had awakened him.
Knuckles to his eyes then (when had he scraped them like that?), about a ton of dried ick dragged out of the left one, and he was finally able to take stock of his surroundings.
In spite of the barred window and the grillwork that replaced the door, he doubted that the stone-walled eight-by-eight-foot room had either started out as a cell or been intended for long-term occupancy. But then, he imagined a little county like Willacoochee didn’t have a lot of need for spacious criminal quarters, and when you had a real desperado like he supposedly was that you wanted to keep in solitary (especially if he’d gotten a little too roughed up—Calvin doubted all the local cops were as brutal as his interrogators had been), you just stuck them where you could.
Like here, which he suspected was some kind of converted storage cubby—safe enough with the stout bars, the concrete walls, and the high (easily twelve-foot) ceiling.
Furniture? Only the cot bolted to the wall and a chamber pot in the corner.
Calvin eyed it warily, wondering whether it was wiser to toss his cookies into it (as his pirouetting stomach was beginning to suggest) or to use it for its more traditional function first.
He was still debating when the sound of a door opening drew his attention to the narrow bit of corridor he could see beyond the bars. Two men were talking, one angrily, one definitely on the defensive, their voices accompanied first by the slap of feet against bare concrete, then by a sudden pause.
“You better watch it, Moncrief,” the angry voice snapped. “I do
n’t care what he’s wanted for, all you guys’ve got him for’s attempted breakin’-and-enterin’ and criminal trespass—and that ain’t enough to justify beatin’ the hell outta nobody. Wilson’s way outta line on that. He may think he runs the county, but this jail’s mine as well as his.”
Calvin perked up immediately. This was the first time anyone in authority had shown the slightest sign of being reasonable. He wondered who it was—local police, maybe? But before he could speculate further, a chillingly familiar voice whined, “Shit, chief, ain’t you ever heard of circumstantial evidence? Boy’s wanted on s’picion of murder up at Stone Mountain, and they found his tracks everywhere ’round that little gal, and—”
“Suspicion of murder ain’t murder. They found Larry Mather’s ’coon hound’s tracks too, and it there, but that don’t mean she done it.”
“You believe that Injun’s story?”
“Wasn’t there when you interrogated him, since Wilson didn’t bother to contact me. But I’ve seen the tape, what there is of it, and he don’t sound like no criminal to me.”
“Don’t sound like much of nothin’ ’cept a crazy man,” Moncrief snorted. “‘I can’t tell you’ ain’t no answer—and that’s what he said ’bout half the time.”
“He also said he found the body and was on his way to report it when he heard you were lookin’ for him. Wouldn’t that kinda put the wind up you, especially if you knew you were already wanted?”
“So you are on his side, then!”
“I’m on the side of the law, Abner—and don’t forget it. But there’s somethin’ weird ’bout this case that don’t make sense.”
“Like what?”
“Like them missin’ livers.”
“Nothin’ to that; boy’s a goddamned Satanist—you seen that tattoo on his ass. We got that on tape real good.”
“That’s not one of their symbols, though; I took that seminar up in Atlanta and they showed us a bunch and it’s not one.”
“What is it, then?”
“Hell if I know. But I don’t think that boy cut out them livers. ’Cordin’ to Bill, they was kinda scooped out from inside through a little bitty hole ’bout as big as your finger. I don’t think there’s any way that boy coulda done that.”
“Maybe he had an accomplice.”
“Maybe.”
“Shit!”
“We’ll know more when they get them tests back. Find out what was in them dirt traces they found in the wounds.”
“Shit.”
“You buckin’ for suspension, Moncrief? I may not be your boss, but the Ordinary listens to me much as he does to Wilson and likes me better. There’s plenty of folks can be deputies. Some of ’em even got brains.”
“Yes, sir.” The voice was tinged with hostility—the same hostility the owner had vented against Calvin in person last night. Not a sterling example of Homo sapiens, that was for sure.
The steps started again. “Good, then you go see that boy gets cleaned up and put in a proper cell. Get the doc to sew him up if you have to.”
Calvin was feigning sleep when the steps paused outside the barred doorway. “You there,” a voice barked.
Calvin grunted and wondered suddenly if dissimulation counted as lying.
“You there!”
Calvin flinched at that and pretended to come full awake, though he tried to look groggy and didn’t have to fake moving stiffly. He blinked at the man leering at him from outside the bars—and wished he didn’t recognize him. As he had assumed, it was one of his tormentors from the night before—the one who’d been with the sheriff when they’d apprehended him. Tall and thin and youngish, he sported a mustache that looked too dark for his fair hair. High-school sneak gone pro, or Calvin couldn’t call ’em.
“Police chief says I’m t’ get you cleaned up an’ move you,” the man spat resentfully.
Calvin did not reply but rose obediently, keeping his arms where the deputy could see them. Another gust of breeze assailed his chest (the T-shirt was in even more tatters than he recalled) and he shivered and hoped the gesture would not be misinterpreted.
For his part, the deputy glared at him, rattled keys and locks, and finally got the cell door open. Calvin coughed nervously—and unintentionally—and abruptly found himself staring straight at the muzzle of a Smith and Wesson .38. “Sorry,” Calvin murmured quickly, but the apology was met with a deepening of the glare into a full-fledged snarl of contempt as the man motioned him out. He kept the revolver trained on Calvin while he shut the door one-handed.
A short walk down the corridor, and Calvin was ushered into a locker room that appeared to have been cobbled together inside the shell of a much larger restroom. There, with the man looking on with rather more interest than Calvin felt was strictly procedural, he tended to nature’s functions, undressed, and stepped into the shower, noting gratefully that his war paint had not survived two transformations. As the cold water beat him to full alertness, Calvin tried not to think about hostile eyes flitting over his bare body, tried instead to arrive at an accurate assessment of his situation.
He had to escape—that much was a given. Spearfinger was loose in the woods; he had friends there; and there wasn’t a soul around to protect them. Now that he was starting to think clearly again, a part of him took grim comfort from wondering what would happen when bodies kept turning up minus their livers while he was safely stashed away in the hoosegow. Would his captors see sense then, and let him go? Or would another such occurrence merely convince them he was an accomplice to some vast and degenerate mutilation cult? Or might they simply brush the whole grisly affair under the rug, proclaim him guilty, and details be damned? The sheriff and his cronies evidently thought he was their man; the police chief wasn’t so certain; and he didn’t have a clue which way the coroner was leaning.
More to the point, though, he was worried about Brock and Robyn—and poor Don. The first two might make it okay, if they were smart and boogied on out, but he really had his doubts about Don. Surely the two runaways would take care of him, see him safely to the authorities. If he was lucky, Don’d even help Calvin out of his scrape—if they believed him. Calvin’s only hope was that he’d somehow be able to get somebody to check out the boy’s campsite again and see if any of Allison’s prints had survived the morning’s rain. If there were some and there was some way they could be dated. If…
Lord, this was a complicated mess! And a whole lot of its resolution depended on getting people who were used to looking at the world in a certain way to consider it otherwise. But how did you prove supernatural intervention? If Calvin’d had his scale, he could have demonstrated quickly enough, but he hadn’t seen it since they’d taken it last night, officially, at least, as evidence.
Another thing that might be useful too, was if they could get a geologist in to investigate those stone formations that were so patently unnatural in south Georgia. Or maybe get a forensic specialist to examine the wounds on the bodies (he had some hope there). Or find someone to analyze that weird doll they’d surely discovered by now. Yeah, now that he thought about it, there were a lot of details that could be looked into, but the fact was that people were turning up dead, Calvin was obligingly in the neighborhood and sufficiently unorthodox, and the law was just jumpy enough for the facts to get lost in convenient suppositions.
He wondered what he should do about a lawyer. Maybe Sandy’d have one. He supposed that’d be his one phone call.
But another thought struck him. What about Dave? Calvin’d hoped to solve this whole thing without involving his friend, but now…what?
“That’s enough, boy,” the deputy barked. “Get dried off and let’s get movin’. Sheriff’s gonna want to talk to you later.”
Calvin shut off the water and reached for the scratchy, threadbare towel the deputy tossed him. He felt much better now, though his body was a mass of scrapes and bruises and he suddenly found himself vainly wishing he could shapeshift a couple more times and dispose of them the sam
e way his lip was healing.
Once dry, Calvin dressed quickly in the clothes they’d provided for him: cheap jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers. At least it wasn’t prison blues—yet.
That done, he was escorted back into the corridor, where the deputy held him at gunpoint while he delivered Calvin’s clothes to a hard-faced woman who promptly ducked into a door marked STORAGE/EVIDENCE, whence she soon returned empty-handed.
“Put it with that arrowhead-hickey and that bow and quiver and knife—that all right?”
“Fine,” the deputy grunted, and prodded Calvin onward.
Another steel door—this one with some kind of fancy electronic locks attached at both top and bottom—let onto a staircase kinking upward in short flights with frequent landings. But just as he set toe to the first tread, voices sounded somewhere above, quickly rising in anger.
“I don’t care what procedure is!” a woman was protesting violently. “I wanta see the son-of-a-bitch that killed my baby!”
“Now, Liza-Bet,” a familiar male voice replied softly, “you know you’re not s’posed to do that.”
“Bullshit!”
“Liza-Bet…”
“You let me in to see him!”
Some inarticulate mumbling followed, and somebody said it wouldn’t do no harm, especially since they were just bringing him up now anyway, and then a door slammed and there were footsteps which quickly grew louder. Calvin and his escort had reached the first-floor landing by then, and through an archway, Calvin glimpsed a hallway and a series of doors open to what were probably offices lit with daylight—the nearest of which was abruptly filled by the guy who’d first discovered the body (Rob, he thought, now in policeman’s blues)—and Liza-Bet Scott, whom Calvin had last seen bemoaning the death of her daughter.
Both parties halted awkwardly and abruptly, and for perhaps ten seconds the woman stared at Calvin.
She would have been quite striking, he thought absently, if she hadn’t obviously been up all night—he could tell that by the way her eyes were red, and the circles of smeared makeup around them which she’d evidently tried unsuccessfully to remedy. She was shaking and held a cigarette in her hand.