Nothing Good Happens After Midnight: A Suspense Magazine Anthology

by Jeffery Deaver

  “Interesting group of folks,” Dugan said.

  “That’d be my assessment.”

  Dugan slowed, turned up the drive. “Maybe we should go have ourselves a chat.”

  He parked near the left front of the house, out of any sightline from the barn, and stepped out. He opened up the back door, grabbed his twelve-gauge LC Smith double-barreled shotgun. He cracked it open, saw the two 4-0 buckshot shells inside, and snapped it closed.

  “You think you’ll need that?” Travis asked.

  “Can’t hurt to have it.”

  * * *

  With the stranger’s body stretched out on the table, Dr. Bell cut away the clothing and began his examination. Head to foot. Eddie watched, wondering just what the hell he was doing. Bell seemed to focus on the dead guy’s neck. Finally, he straightened and looked at the cousins.

  “This man didn’t choke. He was strangled.”

  “So?” Eddie asked.

  “So? That’s all you have to say?” Bell’s face reddened, his jaw pulsed.

  “You wanted fresh ones. We got you one. And it ain’t even been embalmed or nothing.”

  Eddie felt the heat from Bell’s glare.

  “It’s one thing to dig up dead bodies, even steal them from funeral homes, but this? Are you two mentally defective?”

  Antoine’s gun appeared, leveled at the cousins. Eddie took a step back, raising his hands.

  “I was you, I’d put that gun down.”

  The voice came from behind him. Eddie whirled around. Sheriff Dugan and his sidekick Travis Sutton stood in the doorway, Dugan’s double-barrel aimed at the group.

  “Set it on the floor, Antoine,” Dugan said. “And give it a kick over this way.”

  Antoine did, the gun skittering across the floor. Travis picked it up.

  Dugan’s gaze swept the room, the four men, the corpse, the stacked cases of Dr. Bell’s Tonic. He gave a slow nod. “Looks like we all’re gonna need to engage in some sort of discussion.”

  “I can explain,” Bell said.

  “Got my ears on,” Dugan said.

  Bell stood there, silently. Seemed to Eddie that he was figuring what to say. Probably running through his options but not finding a good one. Neither could Eddie. Not one that would explain away the dead guy on the table and all the bones and jars of tissue and organs waiting to be dealt with.

  “What’s the matter?” Travis asked. “Cat got your tongue?”

  Bell sighed, then spelled it out. The corpse, the tonics, the entire operation.

  Dugan’s gaze hardened, but as Bell went on his face seemed to relax. When Bell finished his story, Dugan gave a slight nod, did a spin around the table, along the shelves, examining everything.

  “And this is how you make all your money?” Dugan asked.

  Bell nodded.

  “How much we talking here?”

  Bell shrugged. “You’ve seen my home.” He waved a hand. “And the Caddy I drive.”

  Dugan propped the shotgun over one arm, the muzzle angled at the floor. “Why don’t we go inside, grab some coffee, and you tell me more about how all this works?”

  * * *

  TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT

  SHANNON KIRK

  George Talent is going to do it tonight. He’s sick of waiting, fretting for the right moment. The right words. Tonight is the night, dammit! Indeed, he says those words, “Tonight is the night, is the night, is the night,” in his native New England accent, to his own ruby face and Santa-round nose and salt-n-pepper beard, right out-loud to himself in the rearview mirror of his Richard’s Mountain company truck—the white one with the double cab, the one with chains on great snow tires. Well, the whole fleet has chains in this kind of blizzard.

  Settled in his intentions, George turns off the crackly news, coming in on wonky radio waves tonight, given the weather. After the dread peddlers were done with their blizzard forecasts and dire warnings, as if a typical blizzard isn’t just another groundhog’s night in Vermont, a hyper-boy newscaster pitched high on another trauma going on in the mountain region: some weird-ass brutal murders. The newscaster even named what all presumed was a serial killer, “The Spine Ripper,” based on the common style of the kills.

  Flippin’ psychos, more of ’em as time goes on and growing sicker, George thinks. It’s the damn internet giving crazy ideas. But who cares, got nothing to do with me. Tonight is the night, no matter what.

  George cranks off the ignition, pushes open the driver’s door, and slides out. Standing in the open door, given the fast snow infiltrating his cab, he works quick to shove his keys with the Strand Bookstore keychain deep in his cavernous man-jean’s pocket. He next grabs his camo-print Duck Hunters’ Guild wallet from the center cubby and shoves it in an even-deeper butt pocket. He nods deference to an important book of brown leather he leaves in the center cubby, adjacent to his sheathed hunting knife.

  “I do love you, Lady, but time’s moving on. It has to be tonight. You’ll always, always be my girl. Tonight is the night,” he says to the book.

  Before back-stepping in the snow to shut his door, he checks the mini clock embedded in the dashboard. Noting it’s 12:05 a.m., he resolves that his work day has near begun, shuts the door, and presses “lock” on the universal fob that works on all vehicles in the Richard’s Mountain fleet of trucks. As he walks to tonight’s first destination, he, like a carefree child, rakes four fingers through the snow-plastered decal on the side of his truck. Four thick lines now etch the decal’s snow-capped peaks and evergreen base and Richard’s Mountain in luscious red script on the top curve, and 99 trails, 99 dreams, 99 ways to fall in love on the bottom curve.

  It’s true midnight now, meaning it’s time for breakfast or a mid-drinking snack in the townie/mountain staff bar: Malforson’s Bar & Grill. “Grill” being quite a euphemism, since there is no grill and only two items are on the flippin’ menu.

  But whatever, whatever, it’ll do. Always has.

  George makes his way towards the bar, which most passersby fail to see from this curvy mountain road. Set in a depression of land, only one story, and near-surrounded by snowy pines, it could be, on dark nights—especially stormy nights like tonight—just a roadside shadow. Up close, it appears as a cozy troll cottage baked of gingerbread, with its brown shingles, smoking chimney, and low-hung windows with drifts of snow in each pane. Amber battery candles sit on the sill of each window, firmly cementing the joint as one Santa’s more jaded elves might frequent after a long night of making tinker toys and bobsleds.

  Another mountain staffer ambles behind George, having locked his own company truck. George hears the beep of this worker’s universal fob and twists to nod a hello. The co-worker, Kyle something or other, he’s new, brand new, nods back.

  Where’d Kyle whatshisface come in from? Colorado? Marquette? Who cares. Not tonight. Don’t care.

  “Hey there, George,” Kyle New Boy says.

  “Hey,” says George, scrunching his eyes to avoid a deluge of snow from the sky.

  George doesn’t wait for Kyle, and this isn’t George being rude. This is him teaching new boy the ropes. There are rules, laws, amongst staff and townies in the hidden cocoon of Malforson’s Bar and Grill. And one law is no talking outside. Another is no monopolizing a single-solitary person’s short-time inside, before a mountain shift. One can talk to the whole bar, if the whole bar is listening, but one-on-one ear beatings are strictly banned. Kyle doesn’t rush to catch up to George, so hopefully new boy gets it.

  And so, the regular night routine clicks in to begin.

  But this is no regular night. No! I won’t let another night pass. Tonight is the night.

  It is the beginning of the work day for the skeleton crew that grooms the slopes in the middle of profit-promising blizzards, such as tonight; and it’s the middle of a drinking night for the Cliffs and Norms of the village. This is their Cheers. The binary menu fits both sides of the divide: eggs-n-bacon sandwiches in tinfoil, kept under a humming he
at lamp is one choice; and palm-shaped sliders cooked in a toaster oven is the other. Mostly the sliders are meant to soak up the townies’ constant rum and cokes and dozens of draws from the tap, and the egg-n-bacon hockey pucks are for mountain staff. Sometimes the staff and townies mix up the menu between themselves; a grease-dripping slider from the toaster before an all-nighter in a snowcat is a great way to start one’s work-night. But no matter what, no matter what, there’s not a damn fool townie who would take even a drop of drip coffee meant for the mountain’s night staff. That would be sacrilege. Also sacrilege would be mountain staff taking a townie’s designated seat at the bar. Coffee and stools are sacrosanct, the détente formed to accommodate the demilitarized zone of Malforson’s.

  These are the intricate, unstated but firm, laws of Malforson’s: no ear-beatings, only communal talking if the community as a whole is listening, no coffee for townies, no designated bar stools for mountain staff. Laws.

  Breaking any could lead to violence. Possibly justified homicide.

  There are other laws, too.

  Such as, one law, seems to George, is that not a mugger in here is permitted to believe any of George’s amazing, and true dammit, tales. Nor do any of these fools believe he’ll ever actually profess his love to Karen’s face.

  But dammit. Tonight is the night to profess his love. Screw these muggers at the bar. Who cares what they believe.

  George, at six-foot-five and straight-up turned fifty this year, doesn’t flinch under the sheets of snow layering him like fancy-pants buttercream on a normal-old cupcake. He doesn’t sway a fraction from the frigid, whipping wind. Doesn’t slip even a second on the black ice hidden under accumulating powder on the walkway from parking lot to black bar door. A long-term employee of Richard’s Mountain, he’s wearing his strap-on cleats over steel-toe boots. His internal temperature is a furnace anyway, so he’s not cold, especially since he’s in a Richard’s Mountain, arctic-tundra, gortex, smoretex, whatever newfangled fabric coat. Fine.

  Whatever, he thinks, while spiking into the black ice and pulling the black handle on the black door. Big deal we got a storm. It doesn’t matter. It’s tonight. Tonight is the night. I’m talking to Karen if she’s willing to listen. I hope I haven’t waited too long.

  In a short mudroom of sorts, George takes off his coat in a way that shimmies any snow to the metal grate floor, meant to capture snow and send it to a well beneath. In hanging his coat on a wood peg, he slides out a thin empty thermos from an inner pocket. Next, he bends to remove the strap-on cleats from his boots and sets them in his regular cubby, one amongst a total of fifty, lining both sides of the bar’s foyer. In behind him bustles new boy Kyle, who, breaking a Malforson’s law, speaks.

  “George, right? It’s George?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We have to take our spikes off here?”

  “Yeah,” George says, nods, and walks off.

  Again, George isn’t being rude, he just has to get this new kid to get it. He can’t be seen being cornered into talking with some wolf pup. George is barely accepted, even after twenty years on the mountain, in this townie-dominant bar. He can’t allow himself to be one of the staff the townies ask the owner to bounce. A terrible fate, for there’s no other joint in Richard’s Village open past ten p.m. for food, and eating in the resort bar at midnight means mingling with well-heeled skiers from New York City.

  George doesn’t like being reminded of New York City.

  Ugh, he cringes, setting a hand to his heart to think of New York City.

  But no! No more! No more wallowing on heartbreak of the past! Tonight is the night.

  He’s going to tell Karen during their night shift on the mountain. Even in this fog-out, blinding blizzard, which at the crack of dawn will bring all the gosh-damn city skiers. Yep, tonight’s the night for love in Vermont, no matter how much snow-catting and limb trimming and lift clearing they need to do on every one of the 99 trails of dreams and ways to fall in love.

  Tonight!

  George makes his way to a non-designated middle stool at the bar. New boy Kyle sits two stools over, and the entire bar gasps. A woman at a table by a window with an amber candle says, “Oh shit, here we go.”

  George closes his eyes. Now he’ll have to talk to Kyle. It’s incumbent upon him to correct Kyle’s gaffe, given that staff instructs staff and townie instructs townie. No other mountain staffers are present yet; George swivels to confirm. Not his beloved Karen, thank goodness. But she never comes to Malforson’s anyway. And no annoying Bob yet. Not even ever-present Old Eli. So, dammit, George has got to do it.

  “Look, kid. You can’t sit there, right. That’s Pete’s chair. You best move before he…”

  The bartender, named Kemper, with white rag in beer mug steps up and helps, “Before Pete gets back from his piss, yeah.”

  “Boy, you better hurry up,” George says, trading an eyebrow-twitch with Kemper the bartender. This Kyle is in his thirties, George guesses, but George calls all of the newbies, “Boy,” until they prove themselves worthy to have an actual name.

  Kyle doesn’t, as he should, immediately stand. He continues sitting, his lips pursed, looking at George as if evaluating.

  “Right,” Kyle says.

  George squints an eye, wondering if he’s going to have to bulk up and fight. Wouldn’t take much. George is a lumberjack of redwoods compared to Kyle’s kindling-gathering frame. But George doesn’t like violence. He especially doesn’t want to fight tonight, tonight is a night for blizzard love.

  Kyle breaks the gaze, stands, and says, “Well then. I’ll move,” not apologizing or noting any concession to established laws and norms as the new kid on the block.

  As Kyle moves away from the stool, Pete rushes from the bathroom to reclaim his spot and shoots a glare at Kyle. Kyle raises his arms and says, “Settle old boy, no problem.” To this shocking affront, Pete flares his nostrils at George and says, “You best get your boy in control.”

  George low-rumble groans. He can’t disclaim Kyle just yet, for an unstated rule is that mountain staff must cover mountain staff. Never know if you get caught in a drift in a blizzard, on the cold side of Richard’s, and need someone to race a tread patch to a shredded one on your snowcat before you freeze to death at 2:00 a.m.

  “He’ll get the hang of it. Won’t you, Kyle?” George says.

  “Sure, George, sure,” Kyle says, eyes narrowed on him. “Hey, Bartender, how about the news instead of the game?”

  George hangs his head between his shoulders, as if an exhausted parent to a never-ending shit stream of bad behavior from a toddler. It’s like a rapid fire series of law breaking from this insolent Kyle. Nobody calls Kemper “Bartender.” And nobody, absolutely nobody—not even the oldest townie—asks Kemper to change the channel.

  “Look, Kyle,” George intervenes before a townie steps up to face off with Kyle. That’s how quick the violence rises over such infractions in Malforson’s. The détente is actually a tinder box. “I’ll spell it out. You’re going to have to sit on over at that dark table by the bathrooms and keep your thoughts to yourself. See where nobody’s sitting? That’s for the new guys. You got some time there before you can get on up over here. K?”

  “You know what?” Kemper the bartender says. “I’m in a good fuckin’ mood, guy. How ’bout I welcome you with this one-time prize, yeah? Here ya’ go.” Kemper clicks away from a re-run of a famous Patriots’ game over to the news. Immediately a weatherwoman with giant blonde hair is being tossed around on screen at the lakefront in Burlington. Wind, snow, typical blizzard words of hysteria and dire warnings to stay in and keep those generators ready. Hopes that people stocked up on milk and water and bread. Typical. None of the bar occupants, except maybe Kyle, listen to a word of it.

  Kyle doesn’t say thanks for the channel change. Doesn’t smile. He walks backwards, nodding in turn at Pete and George and Kemper. He plucks at a phantom toothpick in his teeth with his tongue. George thinks he sees Kyle
mouth the words “rude boy” to him, but George won’t allow himself to think that’s what Kyle said. A shiver runs down George’s spine, thinking on a violent day in his past when those same words were said by a stranger. No, no, he didn’t. He couldn’t have. I’m imagining things. Besides, don’t escalate this.

  “Gotcha, cowboys. I’ll sit here at the table in the dark then,” Kyle says.

  Kyle, tucked away at the least favorite table, sits tight. He accepts a black coffee from a waitress and catches an eggs-n-bacon hot disc tossed to him by Kemper. Otherwise, he disappears into the worst table’s shadows. He glares at the TV news, or he could be glaring at George or Pete, given that they sit directly under it. Or maybe Kemper, who moves behind the bar, under the television.

  George proceeds to order and dine on both a greasy slider and a bacon-n-cheese, partly to show his solidarity with both factions in the bar. And partly to abide his hungry nerves.

  He’s back to thinking on his plan with Karen.

  “Tonight’s the night,” he says to Kemper.

  “No shit,” Kemper says.

  “Hell yeah. I’m going to rip off the Band-Aid and declare my love. I got to.”

  “Big man like you, no way. Too chicken. Will never happen,” Kemper says, in good cheer.

  “Yeah, well,” George says. “You’re wrong. Throw me in another slider. Extra cheese. And more coffee.”

  Kemper goes about his work.

  A number of townies and a couple more mountain staff have filtered in in the meantime. The entire while, Kyle has remained in shadow and silent. Now that the bar is more filled, people sitting at tables by the windows with candles, a few more at the bar, and a smattering few within the two green booths on a side wall, a bees’ hum of voices is rising. As with most major weather events, especially a blizzard, the outside has pushed the dark matter between barflies tighter. So this will be a communal conversation night.

  Townie Pete, next to George, kicks it off with his loud booming voice.

  “Well, now, George. Ain’t it was a night like this, what…seven, eight years ago? After you lost your Blessed Martha, bless her heart, may that good woman rest in peace.” Pete pauses to make a sign of the cross. As if in rote-practice in a Catholic mass, the entire bar, but for new boy Kyle, says, in clunky unison, “Bless that Blessed Martha. May she rest in peace.” George nods thanks to their deference for Martha.