Down trail, the forest canopy closes in. A comforting cover—should Landry come after me with a goddamn drone. The thought makes me laugh, and his screams seem to burn away like an old memory. Left behind is a vague sense I’ve overreacted, though the pain on my neck and blood-streaked shirt might suggest otherwise. I look back, but the hillside behind me is empty except for two bickering Steller’s jays in the trees.
I don’t want to go much farther, but I’m not eager to return quite yet—not until Landry has had time to give up on me. I don’t know what DHA is, but a half mile doesn’t seem too far to go to find out. Maybe the main trail connects there.
The path winds over tangled roots and rock extrusions, around the occasional fallen tree. Though the air feels overly warm and thick, my breathing calms and the stitch in my side eases. Still, a heaviness tugs at my legs. Just as I’m starting to regret coming this way, the forest opens up at a vertical cliff ahead. Relieved, I let gravity pull me down the trail and out of the trees.
It’s like walking into a hot retort. The white sun hangs above the tree line, a disc of molten light in a diluted sky. Insects hum as I blink to clear the sun’s purple afterimage. When my vision returns, the cliff resolves into an old stone wall.
Twice my height and built of lichen-encrusted basalt, the imposing barrier stretches twenty or thirty yards in both directions from where the path exits the forest. Clumps of grass and a few ambitious saplings break through a berm of gray, fist-sized rocks extending thirty feet out from the wall. A dilapidated water tower stands on the other side, the sun-bleached shadow of an “H” on its wooden tank. My curiosity aroused, I pick my way along the stony berm. The wall makes a right at the point where a river flows out the trees—a lot of water for these high dry hills, suggesting headwaters at or near Lost Brother’s snow line. From there, the wall parallels the river for forty or fifty yards to the next corner. Another fifty yards further, a narrow, dirt road crosses the river on a flat stone bridge, perhaps a Forest Service road. Past the bridge, the river falls precipitously through the largest lava field yet before disappearing into the forest. In the distance, the trees thin as the terrain descends, eventually giving way to a high hanging valley overlooking desert and rangeland, and the Palmer River far below. With a jolt, I recognize the hanging valley as the spot Uncle Rémy and I once hiked to view wildflowers. Somewhere to the east must be his cabin, though exactly where or how far I couldn’t guess.
From the bridge, the road curves up to a cast iron gate in the eastward wall of what seems to be a large, square compound. I find the gate secured with a chain and padlock. Through the rust-streaked bars, I look into a deep courtyard that may once have been as green and well kept as the Hensley School grounds. Now, only tangled thorns and patches of dry bunchgrass grow among crumbling benches and lampposts. A drive loops in front of a three-story building built of the same stone as the wall. The narrow windows are covered with weathered plywood. The steep, galvanized roof is topped with a cupola surrounded by stone crenellations like battlements on a medieval castle.
“Looks like a prison.”
Affixed to the lintel over the front doors is a corroded plaque.
The DHA from that sign in the forest, I realize. Short for Dn. Hensley Asylum.
“What’s a ‘needful girl,’ Mellie?”
“1921-ese for ‘teen mom,’ I think.”
Asylum, prison. You say potato …
I assume this was probably the original Hensley School, from a time when an unwed mother was a thing to conceal, warehoused away with doddering grandmothers. No doubt all ate from the same vat of gruel. I’m glad Celeste didn’t have to face this version of the Hensley School.
I tug the heavy, gleaming chain securing the gate. The padlock has a shank as thick as my thumb. I continue on along the outer wall of the compound. Past the next corner, the broad flat area extends into what I at first mistake for the upper reaches of the lava flow, though with oddly regular stones. But no. It’s a scene as familiar as the one outside my bedroom window at the Old Mortuary.
A cemetery.
If the Hensley Asylum is a curiosity to me, its cemetery is a magnet. I pass between a pair of weathered gateposts in a fence that’s now a memory. The ground is hard as stone, and the air smells of dust—as if I’ve entered a long-forgotten attic. The insect hum, quiet when I circled the asylum, returns, punctuated by the sharp cries of forest birds. Dead grass pushes up through drifts of gray oak leaves and pine needles. Unlike those at the Pioneer Cemetery, which still sees a few burials each year, the small, unadorned tombstones here are old and eroded. On most, the engravings are unreadable. Here and there I make out a name or a date. Girls and women. Died 1927, … died 1931. The most recent I see is from 1941. Toward the back, grave sites lie among the trees, as though the forest has begun to claim the cemetery. The place has a sad, forgotten air. These grounds haven’t received the attention of an Uncle Rémy, not for a long time.
Most of the grave markers are small, with little or no decoration. But one ornate column topped by a granite Virgin Mary draws me to the rear of the cemetery. The rising ground exaggerates the monument’s imperious height. Of higher quality stone than the other grave markers, I’m not surprised to see the name “HENSLEY” engraved in eight-inch letters. Beneath, surrounded by carved flowers, is an inscription.
Just forty when she passed unto heaven. Below Alice’s, a second name is partly obscured by a dead vine.
Sixteen years old. No flowery phrases describe Grace’s coming or going, no loving memory. Just the dates. The two might have been victims of the worldwide flu pandemic—Uncle Rémy once pointed out the disproportionate number of graves from 1918 through 1920 in the Pioneer Cemetery. But I have a feeling it was something else.
Alice and Grace, I’d guess, were wife and daughter of the eponymous Dn. Hensley of the Asylum for Infirm Ladies and Needful Girls. Given the dates and the prominence of the monument, their passings may have inspired the founding of the institution behind me.
I look back at the abandoned institution. From here, the roof and upper stories are visible above the wall. The plywood has fallen from one window on the third floor. The inmates had a view of the cemetery, though they may have felt differently about it than I do my own.
A memory springs to mind of Landry’s sidekick invoking “Molly Claire’s Girls.” There can’t be any connection between the actual Molly Claire Maguire and the Hensley Asylum—by 1921, Molly Claire was long dead. Still, I wonder if the tenuous thread of mythmaking somehow wove her story in with this old ruin. The Asylum—and its cemetery—must fuel no end of bonfire tales. Its isolation and lichen-veneered creepiness make it the perfect spot for a haunting.
As calming as this visit to a forgotten cemetery has been, I’ve lingered long enough. Landry has had more than enough time to hobble off, and I’m still no closer to finding Pride. I return the way I came, stopping at the iron gate to look into the asylum courtyard again. I half-expect to see spirit girls and haunted old women, but there’s only a crow poking the ground beneath one of the old benches.
A low rumble rises behind me, an oversized SUV with a light bar on top. It crosses the bridge and rolls to a stop about ten feet away. The passenger-side window slides down.
“Hey, Mellie!” Sheriff Turnbull’s jowls quake as he calls out. “Heard you had a little problem up the trail. Hop in and we can talk about it.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Skull Fragments
At least he lets me sit up front.
The sheriff drives a Ford Expedition. I saw one rigged as a first call vehicle at the National Funeral Directors Association Expo last fall. Uncle Rémy wasn’t impressed. He thinks an SUV is a poor choice for first call—overpowered yet cramped even in the long wheelbase models. “I don’t need zero-to-sixty or luxury trim, just a working van with elbow room,” he’d said.
The sheriff must prefer luxury. The Expedition’s interior is awash with cool, fresh air. Aside from his cell phone in a cr
adle on the gleaming dash, there’s no gear. No computer, no shotgun locked to the center console. When I shut the door, the sound of the idling engine fades to a whisper. The soft leather seat seems to draw the ache from my legs. I could almost nap—if anyone other than Turnbull was driving.
“I wondered when your turn would come,” I say.
“Dunno what you mean.”
“Right.” First Duniway, then Jeremy, now the lord of the manor himself. The question was never if, but when.
“I’m just making sure you’re okay, Mellie.”
The leather seems to harden against my back. I close my eyes and count back from ten. When I open them again, we’re moving up the rutted road. I hadn’t even felt the vehicle start.
“You want me to take you to the hospital?”
My hand jumps to my neck, gritty with dried blood. I lower the visor to check the mirror. The cut doesn’t look too bad, though a little deeper and Landry might have left my carotid exposed for Carrie when it came time to flush my remains with embalming fluid.
I flip the visor up. “I’ll live.”
He grunts. The sheriff is driving like he wants the trip to last. I look out at the passing trees, younger and more uniform the further we go. Soon, nothing but Ponderosa saplings grow among gray stumps.
“Would it help if I told you Landry is on his way to jail?”
A sudden void forms inside me. “Oh, great.”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
Like Turnbull could begin to understand what I want—or what I’ve faced since I pulled Landry off Paulette. He doesn’t have to deal with the whispers and the sidelong glances, with the veiled threats and being knocked around the Whistle Pig. If I go after Landry again, who knows what’ll happen. Once is an accident, a misunderstanding of the unwritten rules. Twice—three times if you count our encounter in Memorial Park—and I’ll be forever labeled an obsessed harpy out to get an All-American hero.
“I’m not pressing charges.”
“May not be up to you.” He scratches his meaty chin. “I have three witnesses who saw him attack you with a knife. We can charge him on the basis of their statements, but it’ll be a lot easier to convict if you play along.”
I laugh bitterly. “Oh, so now you want to take down Landry?”
The sheriff frowns. The funny thing is I truly don’t think Landry meant to hurt me. He’s cruel and self-absorbed, but today all he wanted was an audience for his performative act of self-pity. Poor me. My girlfriend dumped me, wah wah.
All my signature on a police report will do is ease the sheriff’s guilt and give the fine citizens of Barlow County yet another grievance against me.
“Do what you have to do, but keep me out of it.”
I expect the sheriff to go all paternalistic autocrat on me. He only sighs. “Something else I wanted to discuss with you anyway.”
“Pride?” I fold my arms over my chest. “Or the missing bodies?”
He seems to chew on the question as he stops the SUV. We’ve come to a road—Wayette Highway north of Crestview I’d guess, though I don’t spot any obvious landmarks. Between the village and the airport, there’s little except the rare house, a couple of bridges, and a lot of trees.
The sheriff twists to lean against the doorpost, fingers laced across his belly. “How about you decide.”
Some choice. I take a different path entirely. “You get a lot of calls to bust parties at that old place?”
If he’s annoyed by my deflection, he doesn’t show it. “Not as many as you’d think. Of course, the old grounds are still property of the Hensley Foundation. School security keeps a weather eye on things. How else do you think I knew where to find you? There’s a pair of security cameras on the front of the old building. Motion activated, sends a text when anything approaches the gate. Like a bear, or a Mellie.” He glances my way. “How’d you end up down there? Bit off the beaten path.”
“I was sightseeing.”
He chuckles.
“What’s the story behind that place anyway?”
“Product of the times. Dalton Hensley was an old-timey land baron who got religion late in life. He was born poor on the Oregon Trail but made a fortune in the county. Timber and mining mostly, along with selling shovels and beans. Back then, Crestview was called Mudbath and was bigger than Samuelton. The old ghost town behind the nursing home is all that’s left of it. Anyway, when Dalton built the house that’s now the Long Grass Bed and Breakfast, he decided the town needed a more respectable name. That was in 1910.”
“Did he get religion before or after his wife and daughter died?”
“You saw the graves.”
I nod.
“After. Tuberculosis took the wife, though it was believed the daughter’s death hastened her demise.” Sheriff Turnbull looks grave. “Supposedly the girl was ravished by a logger, but talk around town was the fellow was in fact her beau, whom she bedded freely and frequently.”
“She died in childbirth?”
“Officially, complications after a miscarriage.” He shakes his head. “But according to the gossips, she hemorrhaged during an abortion. Alice passed a week later.”
“And that inspired Hensley to build an asylum in the woods.”
“The man had money to burn and torches to carry. But he died in 1929, and though his will established a foundation to keep the work going, the place shut down during World War II. After the war, the trustees decided the two missions were incompatible in a single, isolated institution. The asylum itself never reopened. In the sixties, the Hensley Foundation licensed the ladies’ rest home to some East Coast health-care operation that changed the name to Crestview Assisted Living and opened the doors to gents. But the Hensley Foundation still runs the new school directly.”
It’s strange and a little disquieting to think Uncle Rémy’s current home was once part of an institution that started out as confinement for pregnant girls and their heartbroken mothers. The more I pull at the threads of recent events, the more entangled they all become. It can’t be coincidence I stumbled across a newborn baby so near a twenty-first-century asylum for needful girls.
I look at the sheriff. “How sure are you that baby didn’t come from Hensley?”
His eyebrows go up, then he smiles a little. “Pretty damn sure. And not just me either. Before we even finished our investigation, a case manager from state DHS showed up. Between us, that place got inspected up one side and down the other.”
“You couldn’t have missed something?”
“Mellie, you are one suspicious young woman.”
“I have my reasons, especially when it comes to the Barlow County Sheriff’s Department.”
He side-eyes me. “Are you ever not nettled about something?”
I squeeze my arms tight against my chest to keep from punching him. Outside, the lowering sun has fallen behind the trees. The cab feels cold. A semi-rig whips past, throwing a tremor through the vehicle.
“Are we done here?” I feel a sudden need to visit Uncle Rémy and Aunt Elodie. Maybe pick up grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup from the Mercantile. Pretend none of this is happening.
“It’s Omar, isn’t it?” When I don’t respond, the sheriff adds, “He’s pursuing all possible avenues of investigation. It’s nothing personal.”
“Feels pretty fucking personal to me.”
Disapproval rumbles deep in his chest. “You in jail?”
“You suspended me. And I had to find out he’d been rooting through my shit from the search warrant he left on the credenza.”
“Would you have given him permission to search if he’d asked?”
My silence is all the no he needs.
His hands unlace. “Chief Deputy Duniway has acted with the diligence of a responsible investigator.” He could be reading from a teleprompter. “The investigation is ongoing, but had he found evidence implicating you in the theft and destruction of those bodies, the district attorney would have acted quickly.”
<
br /> The sheriff himself ran my background check when I was listed as a removal specialist on Bouton’s county contract. He asked far too many personal questions—with a laser focus on those parts of my life that didn’t show up on a computer report. He was particularly interested in the circumstances surrounding my departure from Paris and what effect my medical history might have on my ability to do my job. I never felt like my answers were good enough. Nothing I say now will be good enough either.
“Whatever you think you know about me, I would never do anything to hurt Aunt Elodie or Uncle Rémy.”
He nods a fraction of an inch. “Glad to hear it, Mellie.”
“Jesus.” I run my hand over my face. “How many times have I asked you to stop calling me Mellie?”
“I might need to take my shoes off to count that high.”
“And yet you keep doing it.”
He’s quiet for a long time. “I thought it was a little game we were playing, but I see I was being obtuse. For that, I apologize. What would you like me to call you?”
I look for a clue in his eyes that this is another a joke. But his expression is contrite.
My legs are sore and my head aches. I’m too damn tired for this. “Mel is fine.”
“Mel it is.”
We’re both quiet. Finally, I draw a breath. “Are we done?”
“In fact, new information related to the missing bodies has come to light. I was hoping you could run down the day for me again.”
A couple of southbound cars pass, followed by a pickup towing a boat. Then the driver of a bright yellow convertible tosses out an empty coffee cup onto the shoulder near the Expedition. “You going to let that asshole get away with that?”
He folds his hands across his belly, a big old toad. “I left my citation pad at the office.”
I shake my head imperceptibly. “I’ve told you everything.”
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