Nightblood

by T. Chris Martindale

“What is it?”

  He grinned and hoped she didn’t realize he was scrambling for an answer. “Research. The book, remember?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Really? You mean the scary stuff? Great. I’ll come along.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, come on. I ain’t ’fraid of no ghosts.”

  Stiles was adamant. “I said no. It could be dangerous. I won’t take that chance. Not with you.”

  There was a protective tone in his voice that she liked, but she began to bait him anyway. “Oh, yeah? Well, how do I know this isn’t some kind of stall. I mean, there are other women in this town, maybe you’re seeing one of them. . . .”

  He reached across the table and cupped her chin and pulled her toward him. She gave no resistance. His kiss was insistent yet tender and convinced her that yesterday morning had not been a dream after all.

  Giggy yelped from being snapped with the towel again and turned back to the counter reluctantly.

  Stiles stood to leave. “Do you think you’ll get it done tonight,” she asked, “whatever it is?”

  “Possibly. Or it could take another night, or two. There’s no way to tell.”

  She took his hand. “Well, whenever you’re done,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “stop by. Okay?”

  “No matter how late?”

  Her smile widened. “If I’m in bed, get me up.”

  He turned and waved to the ladies at the counter before he left. This time the bell sounded.

  Charlie Bean eased the squad car down the main drive of the Nevermore, then slowed near the rear of the park. A police cruiser just like his own was once again parked outside the beat-up Windsor trailer—Rusty Sanders was not known for his subtlety. Bean wondered how the other residents, mostly conservative, God-fearing folk, perceived Sanders’s blatant immorality, but there had been no complaints to his knowledge. Surely their disapproval had been tempered by the security a police car conveyed.

  A mischievous thought flickered through Bean’s mind. He wondered how Rusty would like it if his distributor cap disappeared or someone stuck a banana up his tail pipe.

  Or up his ass, he thought, a bit more irritated after he remembered running into Georgetta Stovall last night. When he stopped by the A & W for a few burgers and a root beer he saw her there, eating with some youngster he didn’t recognize—probably from out of town, and barely eighteen if that old. Her condition had immediately caught Bean’s eye. Georgie was always a bit too made-up for his taste but last night her rouge was deep enough to plant corn in and the glistening lip gloss did nothing to hide the gash in her lower lip. In fact, the makeup did more to enhance her contusions than hide them. Somebody’d bounced her around pretty good, and he doubted it was her adolescent suitor. Georgie was a big, buxom woman and could have spit in the boy’s ass if she’d wanted (or if he’d ask). He could think of only one person who patronized her little Windsor on a regular basis and seemed capable of such treatment. And Rusty’s name seemed all the more logical when she reached for a cigarette and he saw the handcuff bruises on her wrists. He questioned her about it, hoping she might swear out a complaint or give him any reason at all to hang the little bastard’s butt on a nail. But she just smiled sweetly if a bit vacantly and said nothing.

  I swear, Charlie thought, if he’s using that badge for coercion I’ll pin it to his spleen. Personally.

  He thought about the banana again and his second use for it and the idea began to appeal to him. He couldn’t stomach a woman-beater. Hell, he’d been married once and had three different relationships since, and not once had he raised a hand against any of them, not once. Not that he didn’t want to on occasion. Take last night for instance. Especially last night, he thought. It was probably the worst row he and Susie had to date. But he didn’t lose his temper.

  No, he told himself cynically, all you lost was Susie.

  Scowling, he put the car in gear, left the trailer park, and headed back across town. His watch beeped but he couldn’t remember why he’d set it for seven o’clock. It was almost dusk.

  He found Isherwood just as he’d left it earlier. Restive. Sleepy. Catatonic. The main street saw few cars and the shops even fewer customers—what shops were open. Many hadn’t even bothered. The apparent emptiness of the town didn’t cause any great concern in Charlie Bean. Isherwood was never a lively place except for special occasions like Christmas or the Fourth of July or when the Hoosiers won the NCAA title. But the shops were normally open, all of them, rain or shine, waiting for that one tourist who might wander through and leave a buck or two behind. He slowed the car and peered into the darkened windows that lined the block. The lights of the barbershop and the Woolworth’s were usually out by seven on a Sunday, but the knowledge that they and others had not been on at all today bothered him. Across the street Moore’s was still open—a Sherman tank couldn’t keep Sharon Lou from her business—but only for the moment. The lights in the rear were winking out in succession, and he realized how much slack the drugstore had been taking up. With its closing, the street was plunged into a gloom that only deepened with the flight of the sun.

  He shivered. Must be something going around, he thought. Another Asian influenza, maybe an epidemic. Hell, the marshal hadn’t even made it in today. Bean coughed by association and felt his forehead and made a mental note. Nyquil and vitamin C and a lot of zinc. Stop by the IGA before it closes.

  He couldn’t get his mind off Susie. Why don’t you call her? a voice kept nagging, though another retorted that she wouldn’t talk now any more than the five times earlier. She had ran off to Bedford last night after he’d gone to bed, and her parents’ home was as much a recognized sanctuary as the church. Norman and Bernice were always cloyingly protective—her mother had already rebuffed each of his calls, answering in a burst of short, staccato yesses and nos. Another call would not change anything. Why waste the time?

  Yeah. Why?

  He steered into the Sunoco station just as it was shutting down for the night. The sign was still lit and the doors open, but Kenny Houter was already out front in his stained coveralls, pulling the heavy tire displays toward the bays and struggling to make headway as the wiggling casters kept catching in the rutted asphalt drive. The young man grinned when he saw the deputy get out to help him. “I ’preciate the hand, Charlie,” he sighed. “These babies can be a bitch by yourself.”

  They tugged the obstinate display free. “Where’s Myers?” Bean asked once they were inside the empty work bay. “I thought he usually works on Sunday.”

  “So did I,” answered Houter, disgusted. “Probably sleeping off a drunk someplace. I hope the boss fires his ass.” He looked at the squad car outside. “Anything I can get you ’fore I close up?”

  “No thanks. I just wanted to use your phone.”

  “Help yourself.” He headed back toward the drive. “I’ve gotta get busy or my supper’s gonna be cold by the time I get home.”

  Bean used the phone in the back room of the station and dialed the Swango’s number from recent memory, no longer needing the dog-eared paper from his wallet. But there was no answer at the other end, just a busy signal. Probably off the hook. Damn. This thing was dragging out too damn long, and he didn’t like it. The apartment seemed too quiet already and he wasn’t even there yet. For a change he really dreaded going home.

  “ ’Scuse me, Charlie,” Houter said from out in the middle of the bay, where he was setting water cans and an unplugged air hose atop the dormant lift. “I wonder if you could do me a favor?”

  Bean looked at the phone in his hand, considered calling again, but hung up instead. “Sure, Kenny. Shoot.”

  “Well,” the attendant hemmed and hawed, “it’s not really for me. It’s for Poop-deck Pappy out there.” He nodded out toward the pumps to where a familiar scarecrow loitered. George Bailey stood in the middle of the island clutching an Isherwood
Hardware bag in one hand and a small gas can with the other, barely keeping erect against the stout breeze. He was staring away at the horizon, his pinched and scowling expression matching the dis­array of his silvery hair. He looked like a refugee from a Frankenstein movie or, better yet, from an old issue of Creepy magazine.

  “Oh, that weird duck,” Charlie said. “He’s ornery as hell. What’s he want?”

  “Well, he was wanting me to call him a cab, but Lorene at the switchboard told me two of their drivers didn’t show up and the other’s on a call all the way to Bedford. Mr. Bailey could be waiting out there for a good while and I’m almost ready to close, so I was in hopes you’d give him a lift. It’s not too far, just up to the old folks’ home.”

  Bean thought about it. “I don’t know. Why are you so worried about this crotchety old bird?”

  Kenny threw up his arms. “I figure I’m gonna be old some day, you know, an’ I’ll probably be pretty pissed about it myself. C’mon, Charlie.”

  “Might as well,” Bean sighed. No one to hurry home to anyway. He slapped Kenny on the shoulder as he passed. “Give the little lady a flourish for me too, you hear?”

  “That depends on what’s on TV tonight,” Houter laughed. “See ya, Charlie.”

  George Bailey was still staring at the dwindling light at the horizon and didn’t realize the deputy was next to him until he spoke. “I’ve seen prettier sunsets. How about you?”

  The old man staggered sideways and crashed into the “Unleaded” pump and would have fallen had Bean not caught him by the arm. “You sneakin’ som’bitch,” Bailey croaked, once he’d cleared the heart from his throat. “What do you want me to do, have a heart attack?”

  “I’m sorry. I thought you saw me.”

  “Well, I didn’t.” He straightened himself on his cane and sloshed the gas can to make sure the cap was on tight. “Well? What do you want? I’m not under arrest, am I?”

  Bean forced a laugh. “No, nothing like that. Kenny tells me there won’t be any cabs available for a while so I thought I’d give you a lift back home.”

  Bailey turned his hawkish stare on the patrol car a few feet away, then glanced back at the horizon. The sun had abruptly sank out of sight behind the trees. Without a word he crossed to the car and climbed into the front seat, his sack on his lap and the can between his bony knees. “Well?” he called back. “What are you waiting on, the first snow? I don’t have all night, you know.”

  Bean scratched his head and shot a perturbed glance back at Kenny Houter but the attendant wasn’t in view.

  “So,” he said as they pulled out of the station and started through town, “did your car run out of gas or what?”

  Bailey looked out the window. “Don’t own a car.” He kicked the can with a knee. “Lawn mower. Figure we might have to cut again ’fore it gets really cold. It ain’t me that’s gonna do it, by God. I’m just a gopher. I was going into town anyway, to pick up a few things. But goddammit, nothing’s open. ’Cept the hardware store, thank goodness.” He crunched the sack against him and said, more to himself, “I need these things.”

  “What’s in there?”

  “Just things.”

  “Oh.”

  They drove in silence for about a block before Bean started fishing for a conversation again. It was too quiet otherwise, and he was afraid that the old man might slip away when he wasn’t looking and slump dead as a carp against the passenger door. He didn’t need the aggravation. “You’ve been around here a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Long enough.”

  “Born here?”

  “No.”

  “No? I was, on the other side of town. You have any relatives around here, Mr. Bailey? Any brothers or sisters, any children or grandkids?”

  “No.”

  “Not around here, or—”

  “Nowhere. I don’t have any family.”

  Bean nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Me neither.” He changed the subject. “So, what made you come to Isherwood then? When was that, back in—”

  “I came here in 1950, for a friend’s funeral. This looked as good as any other town so I stayed. My height is five-nine, my weight is one hundred and twenty-five pounds, and my hat size is seven and three-quarters. Now, is there anything else you’d like to know, Deputy, or should we just check my prints and have it over with?”

  Bean laughed. “Just making conversation, Pops. You’re a crotchety old fart, you know that?”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  They passed the edge of town, turned onto Moffit Trail, and began the winding drive to the top. The boardinghouse was already in view, standing out against the reddened sky of dusk. It was still light enough to make out the big old structure with its vigilant elm tree out front, its ornate eaves and ivy-encrusted trellises and a honeycomb of shuttered eyes, some dark, others already glowing with lamp light. It was a homey-looking old fortress, had stood for nearly a century, and had functioned as a boardinghouse for about half that time. It had never had a formal business name, nothing you could look up in the Yellow Pages under “Room and Board.” But the people of Isherwood had rectified that years back when they bestowed a moniker from TV. The name still stuck today—as long as Petticoat Junction lived in syndication, the big house on the hill would always be known as the Shady Rest.

  Bean wondered what it would be like to live in such an airy old palace instead of a cramped apartment or mobile home as he had most of his life. “It must be great to have such a big old home like that,” he said, mostly just thinking out loud. Bailey turned in his seat and looked at him as if he were stupid.

  “Oh, it’s wonderful. If you like to hear the pop of old, brittle bones and the creak of muscles as stretchy as sandpaper, the panting of people who’ve lost their breath and ain’t likely to find it again. This ain’t no home, friend. Ain’t nothin’ but a depot for the dying.” Then, under his breath, “Well, not me. Not yet anyway.” He kept muttering that until they pulled to a stop in front of the house.

  There were people out front. Hubert Ranall was just finishing mowing the lawn. A woman not much older than he, Jessie Shively, rose from her flower bed and peeled off her rubber gloves, brushing soil from her knees. A handsome woman with gray hair and still very vital, she had just transferred several late bloomers from bed to pot and would take them inside to protect them as long as any mother could. On the porch was the only person Bean actually recognized by name, Avina Atchison, the house’s owner, rocking with a sweater around her shoulders and some needlepoint on her lap. She was long-faced and dour, not quite as old as her boarders, but looked it. She kept her eyeglasses on a chain around her neck and owned almost as many wigs as Dolly Parton. Today her hair had a reddish hue. It almost looked real. She waved when the squad car pulled up. But none of them spoke when George Bailey climbed out and, without even a thank you or a nod, started up the walk. Bean grimaced. What a charming guy.

  The frail old man stopped as he reached the porch and turned to the woman. “Viney,” he said, looking at the darkening sky as if fearing rain. “Come in the house.”

  She looked up questioningly. “Did you say something, George?”

  “I said you should come in now. And you too, Jessie. And Hubert. It’s getting dark.”

  The woman looked from him to the black man and back again. “Since when were you so concerned with us?”

  “Yeah, George,” Jessie Shively said, coming onto the porch. “Besides, you don’t have to worry. We’re all grown up now. We aren’t afraid of the dark anymore.” She and the landlady broke up laughing. Bailey stiffened and hobbled on into the house.

  Charlie Bean eased the car along the road until he was just across the little plank fence from Hubert. The big man smiled broadly and tipped an imaginary hat but did not take his attention away from his struggle with the bogged down push-mower. “Looks like hard work,” Bean cal
led.

  “Ain’t easy,” Ranall laughed back. “But a little hard work never hurt nobody, right?”

  The deputy nodded. “Wouldn’t the power mower be a lot easier?”

  The big man looked at him quizzically. “It certainly would,” he said, “if we had one.” Shaking his head, he untangled the blades of the ancient mower and continued his work, hurrying to beat the nighttime.

  “What about the gas can . . .” Charlie started, but then he just shrugged it off, chalking it up to Old Man Bailey’s senility. He drove back down the hill toward town as the sky darkened further, and didn’t notice the figure standing in an upper floor window behind him.

  Not that George Bailey was spying on the deputy; he was far too busy using his new tools from the hardware store. A few more whacks of the hammer and the window was nailed completely shut.

  Stiles snapped alert. It was even darker out now, fully night. He checked his watch—8:30 p.m.—as he reached for the scope and leaned it across the steering wheel.

  No change at the culvert. Larry Hovi still waved from his hiding place. Then what had alerted him?

  His eyes were drawn to the right, along the edge of the road. A shadow splashed across the shoulder and then it was gone. But a branch still swayed there.

  The adrenaline began to pump, as suddenly as if he’d flipped a switch. He worked by rote: securing his combat vest, flipping the Uzi’s safety, making sure the Dome-Lite button was still taped down as he opened the door. He slid quietly into the night and glided through the trees toward the road.

  Another veil of clouds was pulled across the moon. The countryside went almost pitch black.

  Stiles crouched beside a tree and pressed his back to it and gave his eyes time to adjust. He was only a few feet from Sykes Road—the culvert was to his left, fifteen to twenty feet at the most. Hovi’s hand was beyond his view. He watched instead the other shoulder where the bushes had moved. It was still now.

  Easy. Danner could be anywhere. Take it slow. Remember, he’s blind. You have the advantage.