South of Hell (Louis Kincaid Mysteries)

by P J Parrish

  He was glad her eyes were closed, at least. Death never bothered him, but he really didn’t want to look into his sister’s eyes when she was starting to rot.

  Geneva…poor old Gen.

  He hadn’t seen her in nine years. What a reunion.

  They had never been close. Even though it was just her and him in the house most of the time. Even though she had tried to keep Pa from beating on him, even snuck him some food those times Pa had locked him in the barn. And after Ma died…

  Died, shit. Ma had always been strange, but after that winter, when she ran all the way to Lethe Creek and tried to drown herself, things got really weird. “Crazy Verna,” the folks in Hell called her after that, and Pa had to keep her locked up in the attic until that day she finally did off herself.

  Gen tried to take Ma’s place for a while. But the first chance she got, what did she do? She ran off at sixteen with that truck driver guy she met at the Texaco and never looked back. Left him there alone on that farm with that old bastard.

  “Fuck you, too, Gen,” Brandt muttered.

  He wiped his nose. The stench was getting to him, and he didn’t want to stay long in case smells like this got into his clothes. He didn’t have too many shirts and only one pair of jeans, and he didn’t want them all stunk up by some rotted corpse.

  He nodded a goodbye to his sister and went back through the house, looking for her purse. He found an old leather thing sitting on a table in the living room. Nothing in it but an empty wallet and some pennies. He tossed it aside and looked around.

  The sofa was stained with what smelled like urine and had towels draped over the back. He moved to the kitchen, remembering that Geneva used to keep money in coffee cans. The room was cleaner than he expected, all the dishes washed and stacked neatly in the sink. On the shelf above the stove was a Maxwell House coffee can. He opened it. There was fifteen cents in the bottom.

  He set it back and scanned the room.

  Where was the girl?

  Not that it mattered. She was old enough now to be out on her own. Hell, after Pa died, he went out on his own, making his own money, spending most of his time on the street, and hustling cash. A girl could do even better if she knew how.

  Brandt rifled through the kitchen drawers, gave the other rooms a quick search, and left the house. The green Gremlin was sitting in the driveway, puffing thick clouds of exhaust into the icy morning air. Brandt slid into the passenger seat.

  “Did she give you any money?”

  He glanced at the woman behind the wheel. Margi wasn’t so bad in the dark, but she looked like hell in the daylight.

  “She’s dead,” Brandt said. “Let’s go.”

  “But where we gonna get money?” Margi asked. “I only have twenty bucks. Where we gonna go on twenty bucks?”

  “We can go to Hell,” Brandt said.

  “Come on, Owen,” she said. “Where are we going for real? I’m tired. Where are we going to stay tonight?”

  “I try to make a joke, and you’re too fucking dumb to even get it,” Brandt said. “Drive. Go back to the freeway, and head north.”

  “I’m tired of driving. I’ve been doing all the driving ever since we left Ohio. How come you can’t drive?”

  “’Cause I ain’t got no fucking license, and I’m on parole,” Brandt said. “Now drive.”

  Margi set her lips and slapped the gearshift into park. “You promised me a nice hotel.”

  Brandt backhanded her, catching her hard in the mouth. She covered her face, a small trickle of blood on her fingers.

  “You bastard,” she whispered.

  “Drive, or I’ll smack you again.”

  Brandt looked out his window, fighting the urge just to toss the bitch from the car and leave her on the curb. But he had to remember—he was free but not completely free. Parolees weren’t ever completely free. He couldn’t break any laws, like driving this shit car. He couldn’t drink, and he couldn’t go see any of his prison buds. And he couldn’t throw a woman from a car. Not again.

  Plus Margi had something else that was going to keep her around for a while longer. A workers comp settlement from when she slid on some corn syrup and broke her leg at the Spangler Candy Factory down in Ohio. Seventeen thousand dollars, compliments of the Dum Dum Suckers folks. Damn lawyer didn’t know when they’d get it, though.

  “Look,” he said, making his voice sound a little nicer. “Just shut your mouth and drive, okay?”

  “Where we going?”

  Brandt sighed. “I told you, we’re going to Hell. It’s a real place. I got property up there. A real farm. We’ll stay there for a while.”

  “A farm?” Margi asked. “I never been to a farm. Do you have animals there, like cows?”

  “The only cow that will be there is you, Margi,” Brandt said. “Now drive.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Louis left Joe at the gate again. As he walked toward the side door of the house, he looked back at her. He had been telling himself all morning that his sour mood was just the hangover and that tomorrow, when he felt better, things would be back to normal.

  But in the fifteen miles of stiff silence as they drove to the Brandt farm, he had come to a different conclusion. It wasn’t just the constant pounding in his head. It was something he could not have imagined feeling a few days ago.

  He didn’t want Joe here with him.

  He jumped the fence and went up onto the side porch. The boards he had pounded back across the door on his first visit were still in place. So was the rusty hammer he had set on the railing. As he reached for it, his ears picked up a small tinkling sound.

  He turned quickly, scanning the yard for something that could have made the noise—a hook banging softly against a metal structure, a dangling chain, or maybe even old wind chimes. Nothing.

  The sound came again.

  A piano. From inside the house.

  He quickly but quietly pried the nails from the wood and tried to ease open the door. The screech of the door against the linoleum floor sounded loud in the still, cold air.

  The tinkle of the piano stopped.

  Louis hurried through the kitchen and down the hall to the parlor. The room was latticed with sunlight coming through the old lace curtains, but nothing seemed disturbed. Except the piano stool. It was pushed back slightly from the piano, the wood seat wiped clean of dust.

  “Hello?” he called.

  For a second, he heard only the echo of his own voice. Then he caught the sound of footsteps, soft and quick across the planked floor, moving toward the back of the house.

  He followed the sound, opening doors to empty rooms and small closets. He paused at the base of the stairs to the second floor, holding his breath and trying to pick up a creak of wood or a door closing.

  “Hello!” he hollered. “Hello!”

  He heard a furious rattling above his head, like someone desperately trying to open a locked door. He darted up the stairs, drawn by instinct to a small rear bedroom that overlooked the barn and the fields. Before he reached the doorway, the rattling of the doorknob stopped, replaced by fast footfalls that seemed to drift without direction through the house.

  “Please stop running!” Louis called. “I won’t hurt you.”

  From below came the scrape of a door. He hurried down the stairs, out of breath by the time he reached the kitchen. The outside door was wide open, the room icy with cold air.

  Damn it.

  He went to the porch and looked first toward the Bronco. Joe was standing against the passenger door, arms crossed. If someone had run in that direction, she would have seen the person and already been in pursuit.

  Louis spun toward the backyard, his hope waning as he scanned the other buildings. Nothing. He went back inside the house and stood in the center of the kitchen, his head tripping with questions beyond who had been in here. Whoever it was knew this place. Knew it well enough to move stealthily and quickly through the maze of rooms.

  Some neighbor kid who l
iked exploring? Or some bum using the abandoned place as a refuge? No. Neither would stop to play a piano.

  Had the intruder been a woman? Had it been Jean?

  He started back out to the porch, thinking he could at least search the buildings. But there was something strange right here, in this kitchen. He turned a circle, stopping as he came to face the west wall. The first time he had been here, all the cupboards had been thrown open. Now, the door of the middle lower cupboard was closed.

  He moved closer.

  The exterior was slatted wood, painted a dull, dark brown. A few of the narrow boards in the front were missing, giving it the look of a makeshift wooden crate.

  He bent and listened for a noise from inside. When he heard nothing, he braced himself for the possibility that someone might bolt at him, then jerked the door open.

  A child was huddled inside.

  No, not a child. A young girl.

  Thin arms clutching her knees, tangled brown hair the same color as the cupboard doors. And her brown eyes beneath the shaggy bangs—terrified, almost feral.

  “She’s dead,” the girl whispered.

  Joe wandered along the edge of the road, kicking at rocks to vent her irritation. At Louis, for coming back so drunk last night he couldn’t talk and then this morning because he wouldn’t talk. And at herself for taking it from him.

  You could always go home.

  Why hadn’t she?

  “Joe!”

  She turned at the sound of his voice. He was leaning out the side door of the house, waving at her.

  “Joe!” he hollered. “Come in here!”

  She walked to the fence and stopped. He knew she couldn’t come onto the property.

  “I need your help!” he called again. “Please.”

  He suddenly looked back inside the house and disappeared. Joe gave him a few seconds to come back to the porch. When he didn’t, she stuck a boot toe in the fence and climbed over. Halfway across the yellowed grass, a bad feeling in her gut, she broke into a trot.

  Louis was standing in the center of the kitchen when she walked in. The kitchen registered only as a brown blur, the moldy smell pricking her nose.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Louis pointed to the bottom row of cupboards. An open door blocked her view, and she stepped around it to look inside. A young girl stared back at her.

  “Oh, my God,” Joe said softly. “Who is she?”

  “I don’t know,” Louis said. “She won’t say anything except ‘She’s dead.’”

  “Who’s dead?”

  “I don’t know. That’s all she said.”

  Joe dropped to her knees. The girl’s brown eyes sharpened with an unexpected alertness—assessing Joe and her ability to hurt her.

  “Who are you?” Joe asked.

  The girl took a slow peek up at Louis, then her gaze came back to Joe, studying her as if she were trying to make a connection that kept getting interrupted.

  “My name is Joe. Tell me yours.”

  The girl’s eyes brightened. “That’s my name, too,” she whispered. “Amy Jo Brandt.”

  Joe looked quickly at Louis, then back at the girl.

  “Will you come out of the cupboard for me?” Joe asked.

  Amy looked again at Louis and gave an almost indiscernible shake of her head. Joe motioned to Louis to back away. He did, taking a position against the far wall.

  Joe extended a hand, and Amy took it, allowing herself to be drawn from the cupboard. When she rose to her feet, she pulled away from Joe, pressing herself against the cupboard, a small hand raised to keep Joe from touching her. Her dirty fingers were trembling.

  Joe took a long look at her.

  Amy was small, barely reaching Joe’s chest. A T-shirt, faded blue and a size too small, pulled tight across her small, budding breasts. She wore ragged jeans on narrow hips. Her face was smudged with dirt, her hair a long tangle.

  “Who are your parents, Amy?” Joe asked.

  “My mother’s name is Jean,” Amy said. “My father…” She dropped her head, and her face disappeared behind her hair.

  “Is your father’s name Owen?” Louis asked.

  Amy’s eyes shot up to Louis, and she took a step back.

  “Joe,” he said, “you’d better ask the questions. She doesn’t seem to want to talk to me.”

  Joe went closer to Amy. The girl didn’t shrink away, but she was watching Joe’s every move, her wariness not easing until she was sure Joe was coming no closer.

  This was a familiar scene, Joe thought. For most of the years she had worn a police uniform, this had been her territory: quieting the crying child, taking the statement from the rape victim, or comforting the woman whose boyfriend had knocked out her front teeth. At one time, she had resented it, this assumption by the men that she had some magic connection by virtue of her sex. But the feeling had lessened when she made detective at Miami Dade Police Department as her understanding had grown that her empathy was her greatest tool.

  “Is Owen your father, Amy?” Joe asked.

  Amy hesitated, then nodded.

  Joe wasn’t sure where to go next. “How old are you?” she asked.

  Amy looked up at Louis, as if this question were too personal to answer in front of a man.

  “It’s okay,” Joe said. “He won’t hurt you.”

  “I’m thirteen.”

  Amy shivered and glanced down to the cupboard, wanting something from there but afraid to reach for it. Joe bent down and grabbed a jacket, also taking note of the other items inside. A small, filthy blanket, a blue backpack with a cartoon animal on it, and a plastic milk bottle filled with water.

  Amy’s jacket resembled something an older woman would wear, clean but ripped in the sleeve. Joe checked it for any weapons or ID but didn’t find either. She draped it over Amy’s shoulders. Amy chose to slip her arms into the sleeves and held it closed over her chest.

  “Where do you live, Amy?” Joe asked.

  “I live here now,” Amy said. “I have kin here.”

  Suddenly, Amy pushed away from the wall and rushed to the closed door that led to the hall. The knob was loose, and she couldn’t get it to turn.

  “Amy,” Joe said. “Stop.”

  “I need to hide.”

  Joe grabbed her gently by the shoulders. Amy spun around and smacked Joe in the face. Then she froze, hands in the air, eyes clouded with confusion.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Amy said. “Please don’t put me in the hole. Please.”

  Joe rubbed her cheek, her mind already conjuring up images of what “the hole” could be. “It’s okay, Amy,” she said. “No one is going to hurt you.”

  “Joe, she said someone was dead,” Louis said. “Ask her about that.”

  Joe looked over her shoulder at Louis. “We don’t know what this girl has been through, Louis,” she said in a low voice. “We don’t even know where she came from. She might have run away—”

  “I didn’t run away,” Amy whispered, slumping against the door. “I came home. I’m so tired. Can I sleep now?”

  Louis took a step forward. Amy either heard the creak of the floorboard or sensed his movement, and her eyes snapped up, wary and wide.

  Joe motioned Louis back again.

  “You have to ask her,” Louis said.

  Joe turned back to the girl. “Amy, you said that someone was dead. Do you remember that?”

  Amy’s eyes jumped around the kitchen. “I don’t want to be here. Something bad happened here.” Her eyes came back to Joe. “Can we go to the parlor?”

  “Why the parlor?” Joe asked.

  “I’m supposed to wait. I think I’m supposed to wait there. Can we go to the parlor, please?”

  Joe nodded. Amy seemed to know exactly where she was going, walking a direct but unsteady path down the hall.

  There was only one place to sit—the piano stool. Joe thought Amy would take that seat as hers, but she didn’t. She sat down on the floor near the front wind
ow, back against the wall, knees up. Here, away from the kitchen, at least she seemed calmer. Joe stood by the piano. Louis stayed back by the door.

  “Can you tell me now, Amy?” Joe asked. “Who is dead?”

  “Aunt Geneva.”

  “Do you know how she died?” Joe asked gently.

  “No,” Amy whispered. “She got sick. She was sick for a long time. I had to cook noodles and wash her with the blue cloth. She only liked the blue cloth, not the yellow ones. She smelled bad sometimes.”

  “So you lived with Aunt Geneva,” Joe said.

  Amy nodded.

  “How old were you when she got sick?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think. How big were you?”

  “I had to use a step stool to do the dishes.”

  Joe let out a soft sigh. “Do you remember where Aunt Geneva lived?”

  “One-seven-three-oh-four Locust. Like the bug. One-seven-three-oh-four Locust in Hudson, Michigan. From the school, take Bagley Avenue to Elm Street, go three more blocks, and turn right on Locust. Last house on the left.”

  Joe glanced at Louis. He had a notebook out and was writing things down. At least they had an address now. But Joe wasn’t sure where to go next with her questions. She looked around the parlor. Amy had said she had to wait in here. For what? Or for whom?

  Joe crouched down so she was even with Amy. “Why do you have to wait here, Amy?”

  “I’m waiting for Momma,” Amy said. She put her head down on her knees.

  Joe looked up at Louis. He had stopped writing, and she knew what he was thinking: Was it possible Jean Brandt was still alive? Had she told her daughter to meet her here?

  Joe touched Amy’s arm. The girl’s eyes came up. The wariness was gone. She just looked exhausted now.

  “Did your mother tell you she was coming here?”

  Amy nodded. “She said she’d be here in the morning.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “The other night.”

  “Where did you see her?” Joe asked.

  “In my dream.”