by Tony Healey
“It’s not that I doubt what you’re saying—” Harper starts to say.
“Stop.” Ida looks Harper straight in the eyes. “Give me your hands.”
“What—”
Ida’s face says it all. Her cheeks clear of tears now. Eyes bright, and burning with an inner fire. Harper places her hands in Ida’s, feeling completely out of her element. Out of control. She has surrendered herself to a woman she’s only just met, and it goes against every fiber of her being, every instinct instilled in her through her training.
Ida’s eyes roll back into her head as they close. She squeezes Harper’s fingers. Harper is acutely aware of the air in the house, the jingle of a wind chime out on the porch, Ida’s chest rising and falling steadily as she inhales, exhales, inhales, exhales. Again, the air in the house seems to grow warmer, thicker, and the light dimmer.
“Your partner has matching scars on his chest and back, where a bullet went straight through, narrowly missing his left lung and a crisscross of vital arteries. He calls it his miracle bullet and wears it on a silver chain. You asked him about it the first time you slept together.”
Harper pulls her hands away, simultaneously repulsed by the way Ida has read her and disgusted with herself for acting as if Ida has done something wrong. She gets up, ready to run out of there, make her escape. But she can’t—she’s moved by what Ida revealed to her. The better part of her tells her she has to stay. She is confused.
“Sorry to scare you, sugar,” Ida whispers. “But that’s how it is.”
Harper runs a hand over her face, feeling lost. “Can I use your bathroom?”
“Sure. Upstairs, first door on the right.”
Harper runs up the stairs, goes in, and locks the door behind her. There’s a mirrored sun catcher hanging in front of the window, splintering the daylight and sending it shimmering around the room. She takes a good, long look at herself in the mirror over the sink. Ida couldn’t have known about Stu. How they’d talked about the bullet hanging around his neck.
“The miracle bullet,” Harper whispers, thinking: There has to be a reason she came chasing after me, got me back here. She said everyone’s got ghosts. These girls are hers and they’ll never be put to rest while the killer’s still out there, doing what he wants. She’ll always wake up in the middle of the night, picturing his hooded face coming toward her, seen through her mother’s eyes . . .
Harper heads back downstairs.
Ida turns around to look at her, face expectant. “Well?”
“Okay,” Harper sighs.
Ida closes Harper’s car door, then leans on the frame. “Whatever I can do to help, I want to do it. I’ve spent a lot of years out here on my own, going to bed early. Jumping at shadows. Hoping a foul wind don’t blow. I think I’ve kept out of the way for long enough.”
Harper nods, just the once. “That old phone I saw in there work?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’ll call to let you know what’s happening.” She starts the engine, starts to leave, then stops. “Can I ask you something, Ida?”
“Sure.”
“You ever wondered about him coming after you the way he did your mom?”
Ida’s face grows heavy as stone. “All my life, sugar. All my life.”
5
Gertie Wilson sits midway on the bus, earbuds in, Taylor Swift drowning out the noise from the engine and the other passengers.
A notification sounds in her ears. She looks at the cell phone.
It’s a text from Hugo:
Why do we live on opposite sides of town? ☹
Gertie taps her reply and sends it in seconds.
Because it makes you miss me even more?
Hugo’s reply is instant.
I always miss you. I don’t stop thinking about you. Does that make me sound like a fucking stalker? LOL
Gertie smiles.
If you are then you’re MY stalker. Can’t wait to see you tomorrow.
She looks out the window at the town rolling by. Gertie is the first in her family to attend college and do something other than work the dirt for a living. She plans to keep her hands clean.
Her phone pings.
Love you. Call me tonight XXX
Gertie’s stop comes up, and she joins the half dozen people about to get off. The bus slows, the doors open, and they spill out. She would be glad to be free from the hot confines of the bus if it weren’t raining. Gertie darts beneath the shelter of the bus stop and taps a reply.
Promise. Love you too, Hugo ☺ xxx
She riffles in her bag for her umbrella. It’s a pocket-sized contraption that just about manages to keep the rain off her head and shoulders. The rest of her is getting steadily soaked. As she crosses the street and heads for home, walking by the side of the road, she can feel the water getting in her shoes, seeping in around her toes.
Her father continues to nag her about taking driving lessons and getting her license, and she’s seriously considering it. Days like this, she could put her environmental concerns to one side if it means getting home dry. Her studies so far have incorporated the cause and effect of climate change. In all good conscience, she can’t warrant expending the additional carbon just for her own comfort . . . but there comes a point, sometimes.
A car would make sense.
“Hey!”
The voice makes her jump. She looks to her right. A truck has slowed next to her, the window down so that the driver can call out to her.
She ignores him and continues walking.
“I faid hey!”
Gertie stops. “Can I help you?”
The rain drums down around her, beating the top of the umbrella.
“Are you going far? I could give you a lift. You look foaked!”
Gertie looks at the man. He appears harmless enough. Funny scar running along his top lip, lifting it up a shade to reveal his gums and teeth. “I’m okay, thanks.”
“If you ain’t got far to go, jump in,” the man says. When she hesitates, he shrugs. “Look, I’m juft doin’ my good Famaritan bit.”
She knows she shouldn’t. She knows it goes against every impulse to get in the man’s car. But he looks honest enough. Perhaps even a little simple. “I just live up the road,” she tells him, getting closer to the driver’s-side window.
“That farm up there? I know it.”
Now she remembers his truck driving past her the day before. He really does drive through there on a regular basis. Perhaps he even knows her parents . . .
“Yeah it’s not far,” she says, deciding. “Are you sure you don’t mind? I’m pretty soaked. I don’t want to ruin the inside of your car.”
The man laughs. “Thif old thing?”
Gertie walks around to the passenger side and gets in. The man waits for her to buckle herself up, then takes off. The wipers just push sheets of water around the windshield; the rain is falling so heavy.
“Thanks for doing this,” Gertie tells him. “It’s not often someone does something for someone else around here.”
“I know what you mean,” the man says. “There are fome rude people out there.”
“Do you live far?”
“Outfide of town. Got my own place.”
“Married? Kids?”
The man guffaws like a simpleton next to her. “Gofh no!”
Gertie laughs along with him, the ice broken between them. “Ah, this is my place coming up on the left. My daddy owns most of this.”
“One of them big-time farmerf, huh?”
“You could say that,” Gertie says, frowning as the man drives straight past her front gate. “Hey, uh, that was it back there.”
“Oh fhit! Here, let me turn thif old girl around,” he tells her, slowing the car and bumping it up on the mud. He turns the steering wheel, as if he’s getting ready to do a U-turn and head back the way they’ve come. Gertie looks back through the rain-smeared window at her front gate.
So close to it.
“I can get
out and run along, it’s no—”
Gertie feels a sudden sharp pain in the side of her neck. She turns to look at the man. He holds a syringe in his hand, face studying her.
She tries to open the car door, manages it, but only halfway. Gertie swings one leg out, and that’s as far as she gets. Going any farther is impossible, as if her limbs are filled with lead. She struggles to keep her eyes open and can hear her own heartbeat in her ears as she watches the man get out, run around the front of the truck, and tuck her right leg back inside. He closes the door, then runs back to his own side. Now they’re moving.
She can’t keep her eyes open any longer. It’s creeping up on her, like a warm hand on the back of her head. She looks at the man. It is a hand. He is stroking her hair.
“Fleep.”
The Gator’s Snap has a distinctive eau de broken toilet—a combo of sweaty work shirts, tired feet in old shoes, bad aftershave, smoke, more smoke, and spilled beer. But despite the questionable hygiene of such a darkened, musty establishment, it is a cop hangout. Only lawmakers and retired lawmakers frequent The Gator’s Snap, which means it’s free of drug dealers in the toilets, old hookers working the tables looking to score for the night, and dubious under-the-counter transactions. Midweek it can get quiet in there, so Harper isn’t surprised to find it fairly empty when Harper walks in, shaking off her umbrella. She spots Stu right away, his back to her at the bar, nursing his drink. She plops herself down next to him.
The bartender, Lenny, works every night, without fail. He wears a T-shirt cut off at the arms, showing off his large biceps. The one on the left carries an inscription: “Ma.” The one on the right bears the likeness of The Boss, accompanied by stars and stripes.
“Still rainin’ out there?” Stu asks her.
“Cats and dogs.”
“Hey Jane,” Lenny says. “What’re you having?”
She runs her fingers through her hair—it’s been a trying day, and she feels unhinged. “Something strong, Len.”
“Like that, huh?” he asks, fixing her drink.
“Could say that,” Harper says. Stu glances sideways at her. He’s finishing up his usual, pouring the last of the whiskey down his throat. “And another of whatever he’s drinking.”
“Got it.”
Stu watches Lenny refill his glass. As usual, he’s overgenerous with the measure—no doubt one of the main reasons cops keep coming back. Lenny sets their drinks down.
“Thanks,” Harper says as Lenny moves off, busying himself wiping down the tables, collecting errant glasses.
When he’s sure that the bartender is out of earshot, Stu produces a notebook and turns to the last written page. He speaks in a low voice. “I’ve been busy. I’ve made a list of everyone who fabricated a report.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. One of the names on there you will recognize right away,” Stu says. “Hal Crenna.”
Harper’s eyebrows rise to peaks. “The mayor?”
“Well, mayor hopeful. He’s runnin’ for it, and from what I’ve heard through the grapevine, there’s a strong chance he’ll make it, too,” Stu says. “What we got would sink him before he’s even afloat.”
He pushes the notebook toward her.
“All these names,” Harper says. The cover-up includes not only the actual investigating officers, but the captains and chiefs at the time. “When we reveal this, the PD is going to come under some intense scrutiny, I can tell you.”
“About time, maybe?”
Harper sighs. “The reasoning behind it, that it was to protect the town . . . it just doesn’t wash. Sure, a murder here would impact tourism. Maybe for a little while. But eventually Hope’s Peak would recover. Things pass. I have to believe there was something more to it.”
“When we’ve caught this guy, I think we should pay Hal Crenna a visit.”
“Amen to that.”
Stu says, “So I take it you went to see Ida Lane . . .”
“I did,” Harper says.
“How’d it go?”
She can’t shake her last words to Ida: You ever wondered about him coming after you?
And Ida’s reply: All my life.
“She’s a woman who’s spent her whole life in fear. Lived away from town, kept to herself, has a television and a phone, and little else. Ida’s off the grid, Stu. About as off the grid as you can get, bar moving out to the woods and living in a shack.”
“Jesus.”
Harper takes a hearty swallow of her drink. For her nerves, to settle them after her experience at Ida’s. She’s aware of the tremor in her right hand and hopes Stu hasn’t noticed. It’ll pass. Might take another couple of drinks . . . but it’ll pass.
She hopes.
“There’s something else, Stu, and I need you to be open-minded about it.”
He frowns. “Go on.”
“Remember what Claymore said? About her touching her mother’s hand and passing out?”
“Yeah.”
“Well it wasn’t just shock. She claims she had some kind of . . . vision, I guess you could call it. She told me how she witnessed her mother’s murder. The killer coming for her, forcing her down on the ground. The whole thing. She’s relived it all these years, in her dreams. Over, and over, and over.”
Stu smiles. “Jane, you don’t believe this, do you? I’m sure it’s just some kind of trauma. I mean, that’s quite a thing to go through as a kid.”
“There’s more.”
He looks at her. “What’s gotten into you? You’re not usually like this . . .”
Harper leans in close, her eyes locked with his, voice lowered. “She told me the killer wore a white sack on his head, holes cut out for eyes. Belt around his neck.”
He knocks back what he has in his glass, almost gasping from the hit but needing it. “Who else have you told?” he whispers.
“No one but you. There’s no way she came up with that on her own. But that’s not the weirdest part.”
“I don’t know if I want to hear this.”
“You need to,” Harper says. “Stu, you need to hear this.”
“Alright.”
She takes a deep breath. “She detailed the bullet wound you got. The way you wear the bullet around your neck. And how we talked about it the first night we slept together.”
Stu gets up, walks to the door without another word. Harper goes after him. The night air has a chill to it. Chasing a stiff drink, it’s refreshing for Stu to feel it on his face, filling his lungs. He fumbles for a cigarette from his jacket pocket.
“I thought you quit?” Harper asks him.
“I did.”
He lights up. Harper can see he’s about as unnerved as she was. “You okay?”
Stu blows smoke out into the night. It meets the black and comes apart. “I don’t know. You?”
“I’m getting there. Freaked me out, I have to say. It was just so unexpected. And uncanny. How can she know this stuff if she doesn’t have some kind of gift?”
Stu doesn’t say anything. He smokes and chews it over.
“It happens when she touches things. Her mother’s body. My hands,” Harper says. “Her grandfather hung himself. When she touched the rope, she saw him committing suicide. It’s connected to physical contact.”
“Okay.”
“You alright with this so far?”
He shakes his head, blowing smoke. “Yes. No. I don’t know, Jane.”
“Well, you haven’t heard the nutty part yet.”
Stu’s eyebrows rise. “I haven’t!?”
“I want to take Ida to the morgue, to see what she can get from Alma Buford.”
Now Stu shakes his head for real. He drops his cigarette, stubs it out on the concrete. “Absolutely not, Jane. I can’t let you do it.”
She holds his arm in a firm grip and forces him to look at her. “I want you to help me get in. You know one of the guys there, right?”
“Damn, Jane . . . you realize that not only is it completely immoral,
we could lose our jobs because of it?”
“Yeah, but we won’t. Anyway, she’s only going to put her hands on Alma’s body. Just to see what she picks up on,” Harper says. “Please, Stu. Help me do this. I’m convinced Ida has something, something we can’t explain, something that is some kind of gift. I think she’s meant to help solve these murders.”
He looks away. Harper grabs his chin, turns his face back to hers, and plants a long, hard kiss on his lips.
“What was that for?”
“For being you, and trying to steer me right.”
“And have I?” Stu asks her.
She smiles. Gives him one more quick peck. “Nope. But you keep trying and that’s what matters, stud.”
“Listen, Jane, I don’t know when they’re moving the body. Or when I can get us in there, if I can at all. But I’ll try my best,” Stu tells her.
Harper opens the door to the Snap. “Come on stud, let’s go back inside. I’ll buy you a nightcap.”
“I think I need it.”
She stops. “Stu, you should meet her. Make up your own mind. I’m skeptical, but . . . there’s that part of me that believes what she’s saying. That believes her as a person.”
Stu leads the way to the bar. “Yeah, okay, let’s have a drink first, though, eh?”
The sun has not yet risen. A faded band of light has crept in on the horizon, revealing the hazy green smudges that delineate stretches of woods. Above that, the sky is still dark blue and, directly overhead, it is darker yet. The stars are burning bright, making the most of their moment to shine before the dawn forces them back.
Gerry Fischer gets out of his truck, flashlight in hand. A half hour before, he got a call from a friend passing through. He mentioned seeing a truck parked at the side of the road, thought it was suspicious—he drove past it so fast he never got a good look at the make, model, or plate. Gerry has worked his land for close to twenty years; it’s not the first time he’s gone out in the early morning to see about trespassers. He stands at the edges of the field, endless rows of soybeans, waist-high and lush green. Gerry reaches out with his flashlight. The light lands on something at the edge of its beam.