by Tim Downs
Nick’s car pulled up in front of the trailer and stopped. Alena commanded the dogs to be silent and take sitting positions, and they immediately obeyed. When Nick’s window began to roll down she leaned forward and said, “Where have you been? This is why I wouldn’t go to Endor with you. You said it would only take a minute, but—” She drew a sharp breath and stumbled back from the car.
It wasn’t Nick. It was his car, but someone else was driving it—a tall man with wavy black hair.
The three guard dogs instantly sensed her fear and threw themselves at the car. Acheron was closest to the driver’s window; he turned his massive head sideways and lunged for the man’s throat—but a split second later a gunshot exploded and the dog dropped silently to the ground.
Alena looked down at her dog in horror, then at the man still pointing the gun out the window.
“Call them off or I’ll kill every one of them,” he said.
Alena blinked in disbelief.
The man turned and aimed the gun at the rib cage of Phlegethon, who was snarling and sprawling across the passenger-side window.
“No!” Alena hurriedly gave the command to “withdraw,” but she had to repeat it twice before the last of the dogs reluctantly obeyed.
Alena dropped to her knees and buried her face in Acheron’s thick fur. She tried to wrap her arms around the dog’s huge neck, but the lifeless form was so heavy that she could barely squeeze her arm underneath. She began to sob uncontrollably—a poisonous brew of sorrow, terror, and rage.
The man opened the car door; he had to shove the dog’s body aside to step out. He looked down at her. “So you’re the Witch of Endor. Funny, you don’t look like a witch to me.”
Alena glared up at him. “This is Nick’s car.”
“Yeah—I found it in front of his motel, so I borrowed it. I heard about these dogs of yours, and I figured I might get a warmer reception if I showed up in a familiar car. Sorry about the dog—I warned you.” He walked around the trunk of the car toward the kennels, giving a wide berth to Styx, who was staring at him and emitting a low growl. “Man, these mutts are big. What do you feed them, anyway?”
“Put the gun down and I’ll show you.”
He looked back at her. “Put them in the kennel.”
“What?”
“Both of them—lock them up right now or I’ll shoot them both.”
Alena hurried to an empty kennel and opened the gate; she snapped her fingers and pointed inside, and Phlegethon and Styx obediently trotted in.
Alena shut the gate and looked at him. “Are you the man who killed my father?”
“Me? I haven’t been around that long—but I know who did.”
“Who?”
“Let’s try not to get sidetracked here, okay?” He approached the kennels and looked at the line of dogs seated obediently in a row behind the fences. “Which one is the cadaver dog?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Alena didn’t answer.
The man raised the gun and took aim at the first dog in line. “Is it that one?”
She still didn’t answer.
He pulled the trigger and fired—the dog slumped over onto its side. The other dogs in the kennel scattered at the sound of the gunshot but quickly returned to their sitting positions.
“Stop it!” Alena screamed.
“Which one is the cadaver dog?” he demanded again. “Better tell me now—you might have a few dogs left.”
Alena bolted into the trailer with Ruckus at her heels.
Riddick lowered the gun when he heard the flimsy door bang shut. He turned and looked at the trailer. “C’mon, that’s not going to get you anywhere.”
Inside the trailer, Alena ran to her bedroom and threw open a closet door. The shelves were filled with stacks of sealed plastic bags containing shirts, socks, trousers—everything her father had ever touched, carefully sealed to preserve his scent.
Outside, Riddick crossed to the trailer and shouted, “Don’t make me come in there after you!”
Alena rummaged frantically through the bags, searching for one in particular. She found it on the top shelf—a bag containing a small white hand towel. She pulled it from the shelf and looked at the bag; in handwritten letters on the front was a single word: NICK.
“I don’t have time to play games!” Riddick shouted. He raised his gun and aimed at the trailer. He fired three shots into the trailer wall, aiming high so that the bullets would strike above Alena’s head. The bullets punched through the thin wall like an ice pick through tinfoil.
In her bedroom, Alena heard the shots and felt splinters of wood and chunks of drywall rain down on her; one shot caught the corner of a mirror and sent shards of glass flying across the room. She covered her head and dropped to the floor; Ruckus stood beside her and barked indignantly at the trailer wall.
“Stop wasting my time!” Riddick shouted. “You’ve got ten seconds to come out of there!”
Alena ripped open the bag and pulled out the towel. She held it out to Ruckus and let him take in the scent; the dog ran its nose back and forth over the rough fabric, then looked up at Alena. She snapped her fingers and pointed toward the door.
Riddick swung the gun around toward the kennels and pointed it at Phlegethon’s head. “I’m about to shoot another one of your dogs, and it’s a big one this time. I’d get out here if I were you.”
“Stop it!”
Riddick turned and looked. Alena was standing in the trailer doorway; a small dog squeezed past her ankles and raced off toward the woods. Alena let the door swing shut behind her and charged toward the man. “Who dares to set foot on my land?” she said, slashing an X across her chest with one finger and making a menacing mystic sign.
Riddick frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s the curse of Charon. I have summoned him to ferry you across the river to Hades—soon.”
He let out a snort. “You expect me to buy this ‘witch’ stuff ?”
“Wait and see.”
“Sorry, I don’t have time to ‘wait and see.’ Now—which one is the cadaver dog?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I’m going to kill it, that’s why. I can’t have it finding any more bodies.” He turned to the kennels again and aimed the gun at the next dog in line. “Is it that one?” He began to squeeze the trigger.
“No!” Alena shouted. “Not that one.” Her eyes passed down the row of dogs and rested momentarily on Trygg. The dog stared intently back at her, and Alena thought she could read the meaning in her eyes. “Open the kennel door,” Trygg seemed to say. “Don’t let us die this way. He can’t shoot all of us. One of us will get to him first. Open the door, Alena—give us a chance.”
Alena looked at the kennel doors—there were six of them. Phlegethon and Styx were both in the last kennel. They were by far the strongest dogs, but they were large and slow moving and there were only two of them—the man would shoot them both before they ever cleared the kennel door. She was a fool to allow them to be locked up in the first place, but she didn’t know any better. If she had known then what she knew now, she would have given the “attack” command and one of them might have reached him; at least they would have had a fighting chance.
The fiercest dogs were all in the third kennel; if she could only open that door—if she could give them the first shot at the man, maybe they would occupy him long enough for her to open the remaining doors. All the dogs together might overwhelm him—but how many of them would he kill first? How many could she bear to lose? She glanced at the first kennel and saw the lifeless form lying on the concrete; her eyes began to fill with tears. Then she glanced at Trygg again, and this time the dog seemed to say, “Do it, Alena. Have courage—we do.”
“Well?” Riddick said. “Which one?”
“They’re all cadaver dogs,” Alena said. “All of them—every last one.”
Riddick looked at her. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
Alena suddenly charged toward the third kennel. She prayed she might somehow make it to the door and fling it open before the man realized what she was doing—but before she was even halfway there the man shouted, “Stop right now or I’ll kill you where you stand!”
Ten feet from the kennel she stumbled to a stop and turned to face him; she extended both arms as if to make a shield. “You’ve got a problem,” she said.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“You didn’t come here just to kill my dogs—you have to kill me too.”
Riddick didn’t reply.
“But to kill me you’ll have to shoot me, and then my blood will be on the ground. There are thirty cadaver dogs here that all know my scent, and any one of them will be able to find my body wherever you try to hide it in these woods. You’ll have to kill all the dogs—every one of them. How many bullets will that take? How many have you fired already? Five? Six? How much ammunition did you bring?”
Riddick nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right, I do have a problem—but it’s only a small one. I can still kill you—I’ll just have to do it someplace else.”
Alena said nothing; she knew he was right. “Why are you doing this?”
“You’ve upset a very important person, lady—someone who doesn’t want your dog sniffing out any more graves.”
“Who?”
“That’s none of your business. I want you to walk over to the car and get in the trunk—right now.”
Alena’s mind raced. She knew she was out of options. If she got in the trunk she was dead; the man could shoot her and dump her body anywhere, and the authorities would have no idea where to look. But if she refused to get in the trunk she was dead too—the man preferred not to kill her here, but he would if he had no other choice. She was dead either way, and there was nothing she could do about it—but she had no intention of dying before she learned the truth.
“Who killed my father?” she demanded. “I won’t get in the trunk until you tell me—you’ll have to kill me here.”
Riddick shook his head. “You really want to know?”
Alena nodded.
“Okay,” he said with a shrug. “There’s a sweet little old librarian down in Endor. Her name is Agnes. She must be eighty years old—a real grandmotherly type, the kind you’d expect to find putting up preserves or knitting in front of a fire. That’s who killed your old man— she took a baseball bat and bashed his brains in, along with half a dozen other poor suckers over the years. Satisfied?”
“Why would she do that?”
“That’s a deep, dark secret,” Riddick said.
“But—why my father?”
“Because he had a cadaver dog, and people who can bring back the dead are dangerous to have around. Now—get in the trunk.”
Alena was devastated. She finally knew the truth—but only half of it. She knew who but not why, and that was almost worse than knowing nothing at all. Why would a woman kill half a dozen men? What kind of secret was worth that? She would have given everything to know— but she had nothing left to give. She had nothing left to bargain with, and she couldn’t bring herself to beg.
She was going to die—she knew it—but if she had to die, she was going to make it as hard on the man as possible. She had no intention of buying a few additional hours of life by climbing into that trunk and making his work easier for him. No—she would make him kill her right here, and she would make sure her blood hit the ground and mingled with the dust—and he could scrape it and wipe it all he wanted, but he would never remove the scent.
She imagined the kennel door ten feet behind her. She would turn and lunge for it and throw the gate wide open. She knew that the moment she turned, the man would fire, but with luck he would shoot her in the back and not the head, and she still might have the strength to make it to the kennel and give the dogs their chance. If not—well, she was dead anyway.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Yes. Let’s go.”
She spun around and dove for the kennel gate. She tensed every muscle in her body, anticipating the blast of the gunshot and the impact of the bullet slamming into her flesh—but to her astonishment she reached the kennel and slid her fingers into the chain-link fence. The latch on the gate was a foot to her left—she had never expected to get this far. She fumbled madly for the latch, and in the back of her mind she felt a desperate flicker of hope. There was no gunshot—no slam of a bullet into her spine or skull. It might work—she might make it.
As she reached for the latch she heard heavy footsteps behind her and a muttered curse. She felt a crushing blow to the back of her head and saw a searing flash of light.
Then everything went black.
35
Agnes slumped forlornly on the edge of the loading dock while Nick and Gunner stood over the body. Nick shined his flashlight down at the lifeless face.
“He’s not from Endor,” Gunner said. “I don’t recognize his face.”
“I do. His name is Daniel Flanagan—he was the FBI agent in charge of the investigation at the Patriot Center.”
“What was he doing here?”
“The same thing I was, I imagine—trying to figure this thing out. I hate to see this. Danny was a good kid—a little overeager, maybe, but very bright. He must have talked to my research assistant down at UVA. If he did, he had access to the same information I have. He must have put two and two together and come up with the same answer I did— he just got here first.”
Gunner looked at him. “Nick—what if you had gotten here first?”
“The thought occurred to me,” Nick said. “Thanks for not trusting me with the key.” He ran the flashlight up and down the body, searching for wounds, then got down on all fours and put his left cheek to the ground, studying the back of the skull where it rested in a small puddle of black liquid. “He appears to have been killed by a blow to the head; the back of the skull is crushed in—just like the victims at the Patriot Center.”
Gunner turned to the old woman. “Agnes, did you kill this man?”
The old woman sat quietly with her hands folded in her lap, staring down at her plump feet dangling over the ledge in front of her. “Couldn’t help it,” she mumbled. “He was pokin’ his nose where it don’t belong.”
“That’s no excuse for taking a man’s life. This man was a human being made in the image of God. Was he married? Did he have children? Do you have any idea of the pain you’ll cause—”
Nick put a hand on Gunner’s shoulder; he walked over and took a seat beside Agnes. “Where was he poking his nose, Agnes? What was Danny looking at that you didn’t want him to see?”
Agnes didn’t answer.
Nick glanced down at her thick, meaty forearms and gnarled hands. “What did you hit him with? You might as well tell me—they’ll find the weapon anyway.”
“Louisville Slugger,” she said. “Stan the Man autograph.”
“Stan Musial—you’ve had that for a long time, haven’t you?”
Again, no answer.
“What did you plan to do with the body? You dragged it out here to the loading dock; you must have been planning to take it somewhere.”
Agnes just shrugged.
“Did you plan to bury it on top of another grave or just dump it in the lake like you did with Marge?”
No reply.
“Agnes, there were three men buried at the Patriot Center who were all killed the same way Danny was—by a blow to the back of the head. They were all killed within your lifetime. Did you do that, Agnes? Did you kill them all? Stan the Man’s been around long enough.”
Nothing.
“And what about the man who was buried at Dogleg Lake? Did you kill him too?”
Agnes had nothing to say.
“I think you killed them all,” Nick said. “You’re old enough, and you’re strong enough, and you’re just about the right height—and Danny over there proves you’ve got the wherewithal to kill a man. Yo
u knew where those forgotten graveyards were located—you’re the town librarian—you had access to all the historical records. What I want to know is, why? What are you trying to hide? We’re talking about murder here, Agnes. I have to call the police—you know that, don’t you? I have to notify the FBI too. Danny was a federal agent, and they take a very dim view of losing one of their own. They’re going to ask you all these questions and a whole lot more, and they won’t be nearly as nice as I am. Why don’t you talk to me first? Maybe I can act as a go-between and make things a little easier for you.”
When the old woman still refused to answer, Nick got up from the loading dock and looked at Gunner. “Well, there’s one way to find out where Danny was ‘pokin’ his nose.’”
“How?”
Nick pointed to the smear of blood leading from the body back to the library door. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said to Gunner. “Keep an eye on her—and I wouldn’t turn my back if I were you.”
Nick entered the library and followed the bloody trail to a small room just off the lobby. He immediately recognized it—it was the “shrine” to Victoria Braden. But what would Agnes be trying to hide here? It was a shrine after all—a public place, a place that welcomed visitors and admirers. But maybe there was more to this shrine than met the eye; maybe Danny somehow violated this sacred place; maybe he took a peek behind the altar and found something he wasn’t supposed to see.
Bingo.
The crimson streak ended at a table in the center of the room. There was an open scrapbook lying on it; both facing pages were spattered with dots of blood. Nick took a pen from his pocket and used it to carefully turn the pages, examining the contents of the scrapbook from beginning to end. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck, and more than once he turned to look behind him.
A few minutes later he pushed open the library door and stepped onto the loading dock again.
Gunner looked up. “Well?”
Nick walked down the short stairway and stood in front of Agnes. “I found the scrapbook,” he said to her. “I read it from cover to cover. Was it really that important, Agnes? Was it really worth the lives of five people?”