Did Gary do this? Did he kill Jeff too? Logan made a mental note to himself to go through the phone records to see if Jeff called Gary before driving to Gray Hollow. He knew the sheriff would. Given enough time, Jezebel Woods would find the connection between the two men. It might lead all the way back to him. That was why it was critical to slow her down for as long as he could.
Otherwise . . .
Still, why would Gary have killed Jeff? It was in many ways unlikely. When the two spoke in the yard, he seemed sincerely shocked to hear of the murder. Whatever his faults, Gary loved his family.
People snap all the time, Logan thought, grimacing. Things were moving too quickly. There was another possibility he didn’t want to consider.
In many ways, it would be easier if Gary had killed everyone. Both of them were in the cornfield that October night. If someone else learned their secret and then committed the killings, that would be a real reason for worry.
***
“When I saw the body upstairs, I threw up,” Brinkley finished. He gave Jezebel another feeble look. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help myself.”
Is it that bad? Jezebel wondered. This was ugly, which was one thing it had in common with the death of Jeffrey Daniels. Murder was bad enough. The savage nature of these crimes crossed the line in an even bigger way. “Mr. Brinkley, I’m sorry to have to ask you to do this, but I need you to go inside with me to help point out what you did when you went into the house.”
“Do I have to?” The color went out of his cheeks. A fat crow landed on the barn light and looked down at the scene below.
“Please. Your help will bring us that much closer to catching whoever did this to these poor people. Otherwise, the killings might spread.”
The static on her radio roared to life.
“Sheriff Woods?” It was Heavy.
“Yes,” she replied, pressing the call button. “Tell me you’ve got something for me.”
“I have the results for 321 Pale Cross Road. The house at that address is belongs to Gary Davis. It matches the G. and Mary Davis found in the phonebook.”
The words struck a distant cord in her memory.
“That name,” Jezebel whispered.
“What’s that?”
“I know him—Gary Davis.” Jezebel turned away from Mike Brinkley, who was looking at her with unabashed curiosity.
When Jezebel was growing up, Gary Davis attended her high school. It was a long time since they last crossed paths, even though she knew he still lived in Gray Hollow.
It means something, she thought, though she could not figure out what. The horror of the scene stopped her from yawning, but her head was spinning. Only the adrenaline was keeping her going. She needed rest, needed to be thinking straight. This case demanded her at her best.
“Do you have anything else for me?” Jezebel asked.
“Not at the moment.”
“Oh, wait. There are two cars registered in his name.” Heavy gave her the model and license numbers of the van and truck that belonged to the Davis family.
“Excuse me one moment,” she said to Brinkley, who looked relieved simply to not enter the house. Jezebel walked over to Logan Randall, who was still standing over the boy’s body.
“Did you see any sign of a bullet wound?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I think his neck is broken.”
Jezebel looked up at the open window.
“That’s the room where Mr. Brinkley found the woman’s body. It looks like the boy might have fallen from the roof trying to get out. This house belongs to Gary Davis, Logan. Didn’t you two know each other at some point?”
“No,” he replied a little too quickly. “I think we went to the same school. So did you, if I recall. Most of us in the county did.”
“Right,” Jezebel said. Logan was three years older than the sheriff. She couldn’t help feeling that something about his expression seemed suspicious.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, staring deep into her eyes.
“It’s too early to know. I haven’t even been inside the house yet.”
“Seems pretty straightforward to me. Looks like Davis went crazy and killed his family. They’re dead and he’s gone.”
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that these murders happened so close together with the death of Jeffrey Daniels?”
“It happens.” Logan shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe. I think there’s more to the story. Brinkley said he heard gunshots, yet according to him, neither body has a bullet wound.”
Jezebel stopped and radioed in.
“Heavy, this is Sheriff Woods again. This means Al Pittman is in the clear, since he was tucked safely away in a jail cell. Thomas Brooks was right.”
Thomas Brooks. In all the confusion, she had forgotten about him. He would probably expect her to share something like this with him, but his lukewarm apology for his behavior inside the station had not gone over well with her. As far as she was concerned, Thomas was lucky she hadn’t kept him in jail overnight anyway.
Even if he hadn’t shown his true colors, Jezebel likely would have kept the news from him. She couldn’t take the risk he would spin the town into a panic with a story portraying Gary Davis as some kind of serial killer. The truth was, there weren’t enough facts yet to know what exactly happened to Gary and his family. Jezebel was determined to find the truth, and that most certainly did not involve Thomas Brooks.
I can’t keep three murders under wraps forever, she thought. The situation was unraveling beyond her ability to control.
“You’re letting Pittman go?” Logan asked. “That’s a mistake.” He grabbed her shoulder. “These could be two separate killings. You don’t have any evidence linking the two.”
Jezebel pulled free of his grip. “Deputy, the only reason I kept Pittman in custody in the first place was to make absolutely sure no one would get hurt. I didn’t think he was a killer for one second. Now we’ve had two more bodies turn up anyway. Al Pittman may be a person of interest, but I’m not holding him any longer. It’s not like he has the means to leave the county anyway.”
“I disagree—”
“Sorry, that’s the way it’s going to be.”
He shot her a scathing look. Jezebel noticed that Logan seemed to grow increasingly angry as of late when he didn’t get his way.
“Now, I need you to go check the barn and the garage for the two vehicles registered to Davis. If he’s on the run, we need to be able to find him.” As Deputy Randall stalked away in the direction of the barn, Jezebel returned to Mike Brinkley.
“Do you think that man—Gary—did this?” Brinkley asked while leading her into the house.
“Anything is possible,” she replied cryptically. The circumstances did look bad for Gary Davis. Still, there were other considerations to take into account, like motive. Jezebel wasn’t about to waste time explaining police procedure to the pale man in front of her. The natural light coming into the house wasn’t enough, so she used her flashlight to search for signs of a struggle.
“That looks like a bullet hole,” she said, pointing to the wall in the hallway. Paint and wood were shattered.
“I missed that when I was in here,” he said. Jezebel removed the shell from the wall and placed it in a sealed bag. Then she bent down and inspected a clump of material below the damaged wall.
Straw, Jezebel thought. She picked up the matted hay with her glove. The sheriff wondered if it was part of the Halloween decorations outside. Jezebel tried flipping on the light switch.
“The power’s off,” she said. If Gary Davis killed his family on the spur of the moment, why would he go through the trouble to shut the power off?
“Up here,” Brinkley said. He walked slowly up the stairs. “I checked all the other rooms before this one.” He hesitated, then turned to the door on the right.
“My God,” Jezebel whispered when she saw the woman in the room. Forcing herself to dust the pitchfork for p
rints, she watched Mike Brinkley face the door, unable to look. “There’s another bullet hole,” Jezebel said, pointing to the wall. “You can go back outside, Mr. Brinkley. I can handle it from here.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he replied weakly. The old man quickly made his way down the stairs.
“Sheriff Woods,” came Deputy Randall’s voice over the radio. “I found the vehicles. Both of them.”
“Then he’s likely on foot. I’ll call Heavy and have him put out an APB for Gary Davis. We might be able to get some police officers from Thistlewood to help us with the search.” Jezebel put her hands on the windowpane to steady herself. The cool, fresh air relaxed her as it washed over her face. Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten.
The sheriff turned back to the dim bedroom and switched her flashlight off. There was still a lot of work ahead, but then it would be time to start connecting some of the dots. First, she needed Gary Davis in handcuffs.
In the pale light of morning, Jezebel saw something strange. The white sheets of the bed were pulled up over a pointy shape. She walked slowly to the bed and reached out to grab the sheets to reveal what was concealed underneath.
The sheets slid down, exposing a horrific face. Jezebel stifled a scream. The menacing visage of a withered scarecrow stared blankly back at her, a stitched smile frozen across its face.
Inert, the scarecrow fell forward when the sheets slid off, sprawling clumsily across the mattress.
It can’t be, Jezebel thought. “Salem,” she whispered.
***
His feet crushed the brown grass as he fled through the forest. Gary heard dry twigs snap loudly underneath his feet. He prayed nothing else could hear the sound.
In the distance, he thought he heard sirens briefly. When the bodies were discovered, Gary knew he would be blamed. No one would believe him.
I have to get to Logan, Gary thought. He raced down a steep hill. His injured ankle buckled, and he fell face first into the leaves. He crawled behind a massive tree trunk to catch his breath.
The wound from the pitchfork was deep, and the pain in his chest was intense. Grimacing, he pulled his fingers back from the injury. There was nowhere nearby he could find a bandage. Or stitches.
Where am I? Gary thought, disoriented. Dried sweat covered his shivering body. Nestled firmly in his hands, the rifle felt abnormally heavy.
He had run for hours in the darkness. Something hunted him, stalking him across the forest. Gary peeked out from behind the tree and checked to see if he was alone. He heard nothing aside from the regular sounds of the tranquil forest and the beating of his own heart.
A crow landed on an outstretched branch of a tree not far from him. Gary watched the bird, which seemed to be looking for something. He shook his head vigorously in an attempt to focus. Gary closed his eyes, wondering if he was going insane. It all seemed like a dream, like a vicious nightmare sprung forth to life to devour him.
Crunch.
Gary’s eyes snapped open. He listened carefully while trying to remain as quiet as possible.
Crunch. There it was again. Something was walking through the forest. Was it the thing that attacked him in the house?
Why is this happening to me? Gary thought. The answer came to him before he even finished asking the question.
The sound was louder. The thing stalking him was growing closer. Then he saw it. The scarecrow stepped out into a clearing below, surveying the hill Gary just came from.
The farmer realized something was wrong. Something was very wrong. As morning approached, he could see the stalker more clearly.
It wasn’t the same as the intruder that invaded his home. The design was similar but different.
Then Gary heard another crunch and looked up. Standing mere feet from him was a second figure. Gary tried not to breathe, unable to avert his gaze from the shadowy form. It stretched out its worn face as if smelling the air.
His heart pounded louder than ever. Surely it would hear him.
The creature stepped farther away and walked down to the creek below. The other figure had already disappeared over the next hill.
Gary shifted just an inch, and another twig snapped under him. The crow in the tree turned its head slowly until its eyes were looking directly into him.
He heard the sound of footsteps in the distance again. They were coming back. The farmer swore. Gary threw himself out from behind the tree and ran as hard as he could in the opposite direction.
The creatures watched Gary emerge from his hiding place. Sunlight began to spread through the forest, and they shrank back toward the dark.
Chapter Six
It didn’t take Thomas long to figure out something was wrong. The day started innocently enough: after allowing himself to sleep in a bit later than usual, he made a quick outline of his notes from the previous night before showering and heading to work. He spotted the latest edition of Hollow Happenings propped against the porch on his way outside. His article on property taxes was the front-page story. The innocuous headline gave no hint of things to come. Thomas dialed Max to give him a heads up.
“I’ll be at the office in about two hours or so,” he said after the editor picked up. “I’m going to spend time in town trying to get a fix on who knew Wilbur and Jeffrey Daniels.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best use of your time,” Max replied. “Didn’t you say Wilbur Daniels died over a decade ago? I doubt many people will remember his son.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about small towns, it’s that people have long memories. If that doesn’t pan out, I have another lead. A doctor named Paul Morris purchased the Daniels farm after Wilbur died.”
“You think Jeffrey might have visited his old farm the night he died?”
“There has to be a reason he came back. If he showed up at the farm, Morris could have spoken with him. Gotta go.” Ending the call, Thomas let his foot off the car’s gas pedal as he neared the outskirts of Gray Hollow. The refuel light came on suddenly, and he noticed that he was running low on gas.
“Perfect timing,” he muttered aloud. A Minute Mart gas station was only one right turn away. When living in the city, Thomas usually relied on public transportation and rarely went anywhere in his car. His residence in Gray Hollow seemed to require him to drive long distances regularly. Although the town’s population was under four thousand people, it spanned a surprising amount of land. Forgetting to pay attention to the level of fuel in his tank was a habit he needed to break.
Thomas turned on his signal before pulling into the gas station. In reality, as long as he was close to town he needn’t fear running out of fuel. Gray Hollow was covered in gas stations. The reporter found it almost comical. The town didn’t have many nice restaurants or clothing outlets yet possessed a multitude of gas stations.
“Good morning, Mr. Brooks,” a matronly woman said from the pump across from him when he began fueling his vehicle.
“Hi,” he replied, unable to identify the woman. That was another aspect of small town life that was hard to get used to. So many people he never met somehow knew him by sight.
“I read your article on the tax hikes,” the woman continued. “It’s a shame. I’m Paulina Gregson, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you. Honestly, I’m shocked the topic has gotten so much attention.”
“You’d be surprised,” the woman replied, removing the cap from her gas tank. “Most of the community’s wealth is in land.”
Thomas looked out at the town beyond the gas station, which was notably muted in activity. There were a few mechanics and auto repair places on both sides of the road. A small strip mall bordered the community park, which overlooked Town Hall. The other important buildings, such as the county school and local hospital, were out of sight.
“If it makes you feel any better, property taxes are a lot higher where I come from.” That’s weird, he thought, trying to slide his credit card into the pump machine. It isn’t working.
“I think the machine’s out of order,” Paulina said. “It breaks down from time to time.”
“Thanks,” Thomas said before turning to go inside the Minute Mart.
Paulina stopped him. “By the way, what’s the story on the truck accident out by the Alistair Farm? My friend, Beatrice, saw the caution tape on her way to bingo.”
Word spreads faster than lightning around here, Thomas thought. “Keep reading the paper,” he said. “That’s all I can say for now.” Thomas felt her gaze follow him into the store.
The way Paulina said the words ‘Alistair Farm’ stuck in his mind while he paid. As he returned to the car, Thomas remembered the name of the property from his research. It adjoined the farm where Jeffrey and Wilbur Daniels once lived.
The woman placed more emphasis on the farm than the accident itself. It almost sounded like she expected something wrong to be associated with that area. The crash occurred closer in proximity to the Daniels Farm than the Alistair property, but Thomas couldn’t deny the knowing curiosity in Paulina Gregson’s eyes.
He considered her expression as he drove farther into town. He eased the car into an empty parking space at the edge of the town square. Cold air gently brushed over him as he made his way across the street to the coffee shop.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said a man busy reading a newspaper on a bench. “For as small as this place is, the parking spots always seem to be filled.”
“You can say that again,” Thomas replied. “How are you this morning, Bob?”
Bob Lipton was a regular at Dina’s Coffee Diner, the aroma of which drew in most of Gray Hollow’s commuters at some point during the day. Even Thomas wasn’t immune to its charms.
“Same as always. Give me something to read and something to drink and I get by.”
Thomas laughed. He admired the man’s easygoing attitude, which was a far cry from his own fast-paced lifestyle. Since Hollow Happenings only came out twice a week, Thomas noticed that Lipton often supplemented his reading materials with random periodicals from inside the diner.
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