Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle

by Tim Downs

  She looked up as he approached. “May I help you?”

  “Yes—I’m looking for a doctoral dissertation titled ‘Systematics, Morphology, and Ecology of Chrysomya rufifacies, the Hairy Maggot Blowfly.’ Can you find it for me?”

  “Where was it done?”

  “Penn State.”

  “Which one? Penn State has twenty-four campuses.”

  “The main campus—University Park.”

  Her fingers began to skitter across the keyboard. “Let’s try Dissertation Abstracts Online—they cover every American dissertation accepted at an accredited institution since 1861 and selected master’s theses since 1962. Do you need an abstract or is this just an author search?”

  “I’d like an abstract.”

  “The abstracts only date back to July of 1980.”

  “It’s more recent than that.”

  “Can you give me a subject heading? It sounds like entomology.”

  “Good guess.”

  “Hmm—it looks like ‘Biological and Environmental Sciences’ is the closest subject heading they’ve got. I’ll do a Boolean search on ‘hairy-maggot-blowfly’—isn’t that what you said?”

  “Good memory too.”

  “It comes with the territory.”

  “The guy at the other end of the desk must come from a different territory.”

  “Here we are: ‘Systematics, Morphology, and Ecology of Chrysomya rufifacies, the Hairy Maggot Blowfly.’ I just sent the abstract to the printer. Would you like me to order the complete dissertation for you?”

  “That won’t be necessary. I wrote it.”

  She looked up. “You don’t have a copy of your own dissertation?”

  “Of course I do—I keep it on my nightstand. I just wanted to see if you could find it.”

  She paused. “What is this, some kind of test?”

  “You could say that. I’m looking for a grad student to do some research for me—someone who knows their way around a library.”

  “How did you know I’m a grad student?”

  “You have that hungry look.”

  She looked down at the computer screen. “Author: Dr. Nicholas Polchak.”

  “Call me Nick.”

  “I’m Carlyn Shaw. What kind of research are you looking for, Nick?”

  “Historical research. For starters, I’m looking for colonial-era grave registries for the area around Endor.”

  “Endor? Where they’re building the big mall?”

  “That’s the place.”

  “I’ve read about that. Does this have something to do with that graveyard they’ve uncovered there?”

  “As a matter of fact it does. It seems we’ve got a meadow full of caskets and no idea who they belong to.”

  “‘We’?”

  “The FBI.”

  “You’re with the FBI?”

  “No, I’m a professor of entomology at NC State. I’m assisting the FBI.”

  “Did you try the local library in Endor? That’s where I’d look first. Small towns take a lot of pride in their history—you’d be surprised what you can find there.”

  “I tried. No luck.”

  “Well, then you’ve come to the right place. UVA has fourteen libraries with five million volumes between them—some really good special collections too.”

  “That’s why I’m here—and that’s why I need you. I don’t have time to do all the digging; I need someone like you to do it for me.”

  Carlyn considered his offer. “How much?”

  “A couple of days, maybe a week or—”

  “Money, Nick—I’m a grad student, remember?”

  “What’s the going rate for research around here?”

  “Whatever the market will bear.”

  “I’ll pay you thirty bucks an hour, and I’ll trust you to keep your own time card.” He extended his hand to her. “Deal?”

  She looked at it for a moment before she took it. “Deal. Now—tell me exactly what you’re looking for.”

  Two hours later, Nick stepped into the Endor Regional Library and looked around. Not exactly UVA, he thought—but then, to be fair, it wasn’t designed by Thomas Jefferson. The library was empty except for a handful of hyperactive after-school kids furiously flipping through picture books in the Juvenile section. He spotted Agnes behind the circulation desk; the old woman seemed to keep turning this way and that, as though she couldn’t decide which direction to head first.

  Nick approached. “You seem to be in a hurry today.”

  “She’s coming,” Agnes said solemnly.

  “Who’s coming? Where?”

  She looked at him in wonder. “You don’t know?”

  “I’m working for the government—we’re always the last to know. What’s up?”

  “Victoria Braden—she’s coming here—to Endor!”

  “No kidding. When?”

  “In just a couple of days. Imagine—our own little Victoria is coming home!”

  “You’re in for a surprise,” Nick said. “She’s not so little anymore.”

  Agnes looked around the library in desperation. “There’s so little time and so much to do.”

  “You’d better polish the altar and fire up the incense burners.”

  “I’m sorry, Nick, I just don’t have time to chat with you today—can you come back another time?”

  “I just have one quick question: Remember the grave registries I was looking for? You said you’d ask around for me. Has anything turned up yet?”

  “I’m sorry—there’s just no trace of them.”

  “Because I asked at UVA, and they told me that the regional library would be the best place to look.”

  “It is—but I’m afraid we just don’t have them. If anyone would know, I would. Now if you don’t mind—”

  “Sorry, I’ll let you get back to your preparations. Don’t forget the sacrificial ox.”

  But Agnes was already scurrying off.

  20

  Nick left the library and looked across the street, where Ralph and Edna Denardo were busy draping the lampposts in front of the Skyline with patriotic red-white-and-blue bunting. He looked to his left; in the parking lot behind the Resurrection Lutheran Church he saw Gunner Wendorf ’s white Chevy. He crossed the street and entered the church. The Gothic arched door stood wide open, though no one was anywhere in sight. It figures, Nick thought. Theft probably wasn’t much of a problem in a town the size of Endor—after all, there wasn’t much to steal.

  He stepped through the narthex and into the sanctuary, where he heard the sound of an electric drill and spotted Gunner kneeling by a pew near the chancel. Nick stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked down the aisle; Gunner had just driven a Phillips head screw into the side of a pew and was tapping in a hardwood plug to conceal the hole.

  “You look like you know what you’re doing,” Nick said.

  Gunner looked up. “The pews keep falling apart—too many sleeping people.” He dropped the hammer and screwdriver into a metal toolbox and hoisted himself to his feet.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Nick said.

  “I’m glad you did—I could use a break.”

  “Do you take outside jobs? I’ve got a deck that’s falling apart back in Raleigh.”

  “Sorry—I’ve got my hands full here. I cover a lot of ground.”

  Nick smiled. “That’s what I was thinking last night when I saw you at Alena’s.”

  Gunner smiled back but didn’t reply.

  “I suppose you were a little surprised to see me too,” Nick said.

  “As a matter of fact, I was.”

  “You’re probably wondering what I was doing there.”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “I’ll tell you if you’ll tell me.”

  Gunner shook his head. “It’s not that simple, Nick. There’s a clergy confidentiality issue here; you see, Alena is a member of my congregation.”

  “A witch in the church? You people are really rea
ching out.”

  “She’s not a witch—you know that.”

  “She seems to think so.”

  “No, she doesn’t—I think you know that too.”

  Nick nodded. “Can we sit down for a minute? I need to talk to you.”

  They both took a seat on the newly repaired pew. Gunner wiggled in a little to test the quality of his work.

  “These things are just as uncomfortable as I remember,” Nick said. “Nobody could sleep on this.”

  “That’s sort of the idea.” He waited for Nick to continue.

  “I want to tell you why I was at Alena’s last night,” Nick said, “even if you can’t tell me.”

  “Oh? How come?”

  “I think somebody else needs to know.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because I have a feeling you care about Alena’s welfare—and because I think I can trust you.”

  “You’re definitely right about the first,” he said, “and I like to think you’re right about the second too. Go ahead—what’s on your mind?”

  “There was a woman hired by the FBI to locate all the graves at the Patriot Center. I called her ‘Marge’—she had a cadaver dog.”

  “Sure, the woman on TV.”

  “You saw that?”

  “Everybody did. I told you, news travels fast in a small town. She’s staying over at the Skyline where you are, isn’t she?”

  “She was. I have a feeling she’s dead.”

  Gunner did a double take. “Dead? How?”

  “I think she might have been murdered.”

  “By whom?”

  “By someone who saw that interview; by someone who didn’t want those graves to be found; by someone with something to hide.”

  “Have you told the police?”

  “Not yet. I plan to in the morning. I wanted to wait a day and see if she’d turn up first.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because Marge didn’t find those bodies, Gunner—Alena did.”

  “What?”

  “I went up there the other night. I told Alena that Marge just couldn’t do the job. I talked her into coming down and helping me with that three-legged dog of hers. She didn’t want to come at first; she finally agreed, but only if I promised not to tell anyone she was there. Alena found every one of those graves, but Marge took credit for it—I think that’s why Marge is dead and not Alena.”

  “That means Alena is in danger. We have to go to the police.”

  “Alena is safe as long as no one knows about her involvement. You said it yourself: News travels fast in a small town. If we tell the police, how long will it be before everybody else knows? No—right now our best chance of keeping Alena safe is to keep her out of it.”

  Gunner thought about that. “If you’re right, then you took a big chance even telling me. What if I turned out to be the town gossip?”

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. I have to trust you, Gunner—I need your help.”

  “Tell me what I can do.”

  “Look—I understand ‘clergy confidentiality’ and all, but is there anything you can tell me about Alena? This isn’t just idle curiosity. If I’m going to figure all this out, then I need to understand what’s going on here.”

  Gunner took a minute to consider his words. “I’ve known Alena since she was a little girl,” he said. “I knew her father—his name was Ken Savard. The land on the top of this mountain has been in Alena’s family longer than anyone can remember. Ken and Alena moved up there when she was just a little girl—just the two of them.”

  “And the mother?”

  “Divorced, I think, maybe deceased—I never got the details. I’m not sure Alena even knows.”

  “What did her father do for a living?”

  “He worked over in Front Royal at the Canine Enforcement Training Center—that’s where the Customs and Border Protection people train all the drug-sniffing dogs that they use along the borders; ATF trains bomb-sniffing dogs there too. How much do you know about detection dogs?”

  “I’ve worked around them; I’ve seen what they can do. I know they can be trained to find narcotics, people hiding in cars, large amounts of currency—things like that.”

  “Most of that started in the ’70s—before that, dogs didn’t really specialize. If you had a convict on the loose, you sent for a bloodhound; if you had a body to find, you sent for a bloodhound. It was sort of a ‘one dog fits all’ approach—but Alena’s dad helped change all that. He thought dogs should specialize—he thought they could be more effective if they concentrated on detecting only one thing. That’s what he did at the CETC: He developed methods for training dogs to perform specialized tasks. They say he taught them to do some amazing things.”

  “Is that where Alena learned to train dogs? From her father?”

  “That’s where she got her start—but to tell you the truth, I think she’s done things her father never dreamed of.”

  “I’ve seen a sample of what she can do,” Nick said. “Those guard dogs of hers—and that three-legged cadaver dog—I’ve never seen anything like them. She never says a word to those dogs, but they seem to know exactly what she wants them to do.”

  “People around here say she can talk to animals. She can’t, of course— she just knows how they think. It’s a gift, in a way. I suppose it’s what happens when you withdraw from people and pour your life into dogs; you learn to think like a dog instead.”

  “What happened to her father?”

  “He was quite a celebrity around here for a while. The newspapers picked up on what he was doing, and pretty soon people started coming to see him. Then one day he disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Vanished without a trace—Alena was about ten at the time. There was a big storm one night. Her dad heard a noise in the woods and went to check on it. He never came back.”

  “What happened to Alena? What did she do?”

  “She stayed up there.”

  “Alone? She was only ten years old.”

  “I know—talk about impressive stuff. Alena practically raised herself, with a lot of help from people like me and my wife—Rose is her name. We heard what happened to her father and we went up to see her. We tried to get her to come down to Endor, but she just wouldn’t do it.”

  “Don’t you have Child and Family Services out here?”

  “Sure. They placed Alena in a foster home—she ran away. They put her in another home—she ran away again. She’d head back up to the top of the mountain and hide out in her woods for weeks at a time. That’s awfully hard on a little girl; after a while the authorities got tired of chasing her down, and we started to realize that we were doing her more harm than good. Social Services sort of forgot about her, so Rose and I took over; we decided it was best to let her stay in her home and just try to take care of her there. It’s all we could do; you can put a kid in a foster home, but you can’t make her stay. Alena just refused to live in Endor.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she hates the people here. When her father vanished, no one called; no one raised a finger to help. They left her up there to take care of herself; she might have starved if Rose and I hadn’t gotten to her first.”

  “Why didn’t anyone help?”

  “The stories.”

  “What stories?”

  “These are the mountains, Nick. People are deeply superstitious here—it’s sort of in their blood. There were too many stories about Alena’s father: the man who could talk to animals, the man who could raise the dead—”

  “I’ve heard the same stories about Alena.”

  “Exactly—but when her father disappeared the stories got worse. Some people said that he turned into an animal himself and ran away; some said that he was like Enoch in the Bible, only it was the devil who took him away and not God.”

  “That would be pretty tough on a ten-year-old girl.”

  “The
stories almost killed her. It’s hard to blame her for hating Endor—I guess maybe I would too. She’s been living up there ever since, just her and her dogs. That’s the same trailer she lived in with her father, and those are the kennels he built.”

  “Did her father leave her any money? How does she live?”

  “Her father didn’t have a dime—just a thousand acres of Virginia mountaintop. Alena makes a living finding dogs for the CETC. About four times a year dog breeders from all over the country bring their puppies in. The trainers there test the dogs and buy the ones that have the qualities they’re looking for.”

  “Can you make a living that way?”

  “A good pup is worth about forty-five hundred bucks, and Alena knows what they’re looking for. She manages to sell quite a few— enough to get her by.”

  “She seems to have a few of her own.”

  “Thirty or so, last time I counted.”

  “Where does she get them all?”

  “Animal shelters—she takes the ones they’re about to put down. She brings them back to her place and trains them. The ones that are good enough she sells to the CETC; the others she keeps or finds homes for. They’re a mangy lot—there’s not a purebred in the bunch—but brother, the things they can do. Alena can look in a dog’s eyes and tell you its gift—the natural ability it has that can be developed with the right training. It’s spooky sometimes.”

  “She told me her dogs pick their own names.”

  “That’s right. They tell her who they are—get the idea?”

  Nick shook his head. “She’s an amazing woman.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Beautiful too.”

  Gunner stared into Nick’s eyes.

  “I just meant—I couldn’t help but notice, that’s all.”

  “My wife and I love Alena as if she were our own daughter,” Gunner said. “I go to her whenever she sends for me. I sit with her; I talk to her; I let her take Communion. You put her in danger, Nick.”