by David Haynes
“Everyone gather round please!” Ronayne shouted. He stood at the rear of the Ford. “Thank you all for your assistance last night and again for coming out this morning. I know this is an unpleasant task, but working together we can complete it quickly and effectively, and find the girls.”
“Thought we were getting some divers?” Paul called out.
Ronayne looked at him. “They will be here in the morning but we can start by working our way through the woods on this side of the lake.”
He pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket. It was a map. “I’ve divided the area up into quadrants, and into each of these squares I will assign a group. They will be accompanied by two police officers, under whose instruction they will search. Methodical and thorough.”
He scanned the group, checking the numbers. He paused at Paul Weaver and Brad Simmons.
“Are you planning on hunting while you’re here, gentlemen?”
“No, sir,” Brad replied. “But there’s talk of coyotes and mountain lions up here and we wouldn’t want anyone getting caught out.”
It had been a very long time since there was anything but squirrels in the woods around Silver Lake, but Ronayne just shook his head. “That your boy?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I said, no minors today.”
“He came of his own accord. He’s as able as anyone here.” Brad paused before adding, “He’s the starting quarterback for the high school.” As if that last remark made all the difference.
“I want to help,” Ryan said.
Ronayne sighed and glanced at Brad. “He’s your responsibility,” he said finally. “Keep him with you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dan heard faint whispers exchanged between Brad and Paul, and then the sound of the flask lid being unscrewed. They were probably just topping up last night’s booze.
Because of where he was standing, Dan was assigned to a group which included both Brad and Ryan Simmons, Paul Weaver and Lori. The two state troopers were also assigned to their group. Ronayne produced a copy of the map and handed it to one of the officers, talking him through the search pattern and area. When he’d finished, he looked at Dan and nodded before walking to one of the other groups.
19
They entered the woods, forming a straight line. Dan was at one end and Lori, at Paul’s direction, at the other. They walked slowly forward, keeping their eyes on the ground, looking for anything out of the ordinary. A shred of clothing, a discarded keepsake, a mound of fresh earth, anything that could help them.
After only ten minutes, the state troopers’ radios broke the silence. The officer walking next to Dan stopped and held up his hand for the others to stop too. Only Brad Simmons walked on a few more paces before realizing.
They were only a foot or so apart and Dan heard the radio operator calling for backup to attend an incident over in the next county. “All available units to attend,” she called out.
The two troopers looked at each other. “We need to go,” one of them said, handing the map to Dan. “Take this. Straight forward to this point.” He tapped the map. “Stay on this side of the bank over there and on that side of…” He pointed into the distance. There was a small rectangular structure on the brow of the hill. “…whatever that is.”
He was walking away before Dan had the opportunity to ask him anything else, speaking into his radio. “Detective Ronayne, this is Trooper Callaghan, we just got an assistance call over in Rainworth. We’re heading over there right now.”
Dan couldn’t hear the reply. The trooper was running back toward the lake.
“Guess you’re in charge then!” Brad shouted over. Paul had joined him. They were sipping from the flask again.
“We need to fill in the gaps,” Dan said. “Everyone will need to cover more ground. We don’t want to miss anything.”
“You think we’re going to find those girls out here?” Paul replied. “They’re in the goddamn lake, Law! Thought a man of your intelligence would’ve worked that out!”
“We need to stick to the plan,” Dan said. “Do what the cops told us.”
“Yeah, that’s about right.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Always sticking to the rules, never daring to do anything that might get you in trouble, eh?”
“This isn’t high school, Paul. We’re looking for missing kids, kids from our town.”
“He’s right,” said Lori.
Paul turned on his heels, almost falling over. “What? What did you say?”
“I mean, the quicker we get this done, the sooner we can get home and I can cook you that steak.”
“You mean that steak you’ve been promising me for the last six months?”
Dan hated the way he spoke to her, although he shouldn’t really be surprised. Paul had always talked to everyone like they were shit on his shoe.
“We should keep looking,” Ryan said. “We need to keep looking.”
Paul took another sip and then passed it to Brad. “We’ll need more of this if we have to stay out here much longer,” Brad said. “And it’s a long walk back to the truck.”
It was enough of a reason to go on. They formed a line again, this time spaced farther apart, and walked up the gradual incline. Ronayne joined them for a short time. Several of the police officers had gone off to join the troopers. There was some kind of collision involving a tanker carrying gasoline over in Rainworth. They were short of officers now, but Ronayne was doing his best to keep the search as orderly as possible. Both Paul and Simmons were on their best behavior wherever Ronayne showed up. In between times they laughed, fell over and generally fooled around like kids. It was actually a testament to Ryan Simmons’s character that he didn’t join in. He seemed as focused on the search as Dan and Lori were.
After thirty minutes spent staring at the patch of ground two feet in front and to the side of him, Dan stopped and rotated his neck. He looked around, the slope below showing just how far they had come. To the side of him, Brad Simmons was breathing heavily, his face bright red.
“What’re you looking at?” he asked, catching Dan staring.
Dan just smiled. “Still playing football, Brad?”
“Fuck you.”
“What’s that?” Paul shouted, pointing.
Dan looked. The rectangle the trooper had used as a waypoint was in front of them. Only now he could see it was a shack, a small wooden shack. It was perched at the top of the incline, set in among the pine trees.
Dan looked at the map. “That’s as far as we go.”
“Then what?” Paul asked.
“We wait, I guess. Wait for Ronayne to come to us, tell us where to go next.”
“Next?” Brad shouted. “Only place I’m going next is someplace that serves cold beer.”
They trudged the rest of the way up the slope and stopped. The shack was more of a cabin, with a padlock on the door. The wood wasn’t rotten or warped and the roof was shingle. It looked used but in good condition. A path led away from it, along a gentler slope back down toward the lake. It was a probably a ten minute walk from there.
Brad slumped against it, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He offered one to his son and to Paul. Both took one and lit up. Dan was going to say something to Ryan but stopped himself. There was little point in getting into an argument with Brad about his son smoking.
“You know whose place this is, don’t you?” Ryan asked.
“Nope,” his dad replied. “And unless there’s cold beer in there, I don’t want to know.”
“Megan Palmer’s uncle owns it.”
“How the hell do you know?” Brad snapped.
“She brought me up here once,” he replied. “When we were hanging out down at the lake.”
“Yeah?” Paul replied. “Gary Palmer owns this? What for?” He waved his hands at a swarm of flies gathered about his head.
Ryan shrugged. “Fishing I guess.” He walked over to the door. “There was a
stove in there, coffee too.”
Paul walked toward him. “Maybe we should take a look then.” He turned to Brad. “Who knows what else he’s got in there.”
“You can’t just go breaking in,” said Lori, stepping forward.
“Why not?” Brad asked.
“It belongs to someone else,” said Dan. There were a lot of flies hanging about. He batted them away. “And it’s locked.” He pointed at the padlock on the door.
“Hey, how come I never see you with that Megan girl, anymore?” Brad asked his son. “She was a fine-looking girl.” He winked at Paul. The gesture made Dan feel like throwing up.
“I dumped her,” Ryan replied. “She was getting too serious.” He cast a quick glance Dan’s way.
Dan had heard all the rumors about the split. There were numerous. Among them were that Ryan couldn’t perform, or he’d tried to beat Megan, or one suggestion even mentioned that he’d tried to rape her. None of them had been corroborated by Megan but none of them painted Ryan in a good light. And not one of them mentioned him dumping her. The truth was probably mixed up in among the rumor somewhere; trampled beneath thousands of feet in the school hallways.
“What the hell is that stink, anyway?” Paul said, holding his nose.
He was right. There was a smell. It was hard to identify but it wasn’t pleasant.
“We should just walk on a little farther,” Dan said.
“And just forget about the whiskey old Gary Palmer’s left us?” Brad said, finally hauling his bulky frame upright again.
Dan looked about. To his left he could see one of the other groups moving up the slope toward them. He had a feeling Gary Palmer was with that group. He was about to call over when Ryan pushed over a rock with his foot and reached down. He produced a key.
“Megan showed me where he kept it.” He handed it to his dad. “Pretty sure I didn’t see any whiskey in there though, just coffee.”
Brad snatched it from his son’s hand and worked it into the padlock. He peered past Dan, watching the outline of someone’s blue jacket in the trees. They kept moving.
Paul put his arm around Lori. “It’s not even breaking and entering now,” he said. “We’ve got a key.”
“You can’t go in there,” Dan said, stepping forward. “It’s private property.”
Brad ignored him, turning the key. There was a faint click and then the padlock fell to the ground. The door swung slowly outward, allowing a miasma of foul air to escape.
“Jesus Christ!” Brad covered his face with both hands.
The reek was powerful, strong enough to turn Dan’s stomach and he was three feet away from the door.
“What the fuck!” Paul shouted. He was behind Brad, peering over his shoulder. “What is that?” He retreated, something Dan had never seen Paul Weaver do.
Brad also stepped away, catching his heel on Paul’s foot. The two of them fell backward, crashing onto the ground. Paul emitted a loud grunt as Brad landed on top of him.
Ryan laughed hard, doubling up with his hands on his knees. Brad glanced up at him but instead of yelling, he tried to scramble farther away from the cabin door, Paul trapped beneath him.
“Will you two stop all this fooling around!” Dan said. He walked toward the cabin, stopping at the door. The reality of the scene was incomprehensible. Not even in the darkest books he’d read had he ever imagined this.
It was an abattoir, a slaughterhouse. There were no animals, no butchered cows or pigs, just tattered lumps of flesh, entrails, corded and slick, hanging from hooks in the roof, dangling down. The floor was a pool of congealing blood. In the middle of it was a pink sweater. The same sweater Nicole Stewart had been wearing in the photo her family provided for the search party. He turned away, swallowing the rising bile in his throat.
“What is it?” Lori asked.
Before he could put an arm out to stop her, she was beside him, looking through the door. She covered her mouth, stifling a scream, then looked up at Dan. Her eyes asked Is it real? Is it really there?
He pulled her away, putting distance between them and the cabin.
“Is that a pair of panties?” Ryan asked.
He’d forgotten about Ryan. He shouldn’t be seeing this. His dad should be pulling him away. Dan turned around. “Get away from there!” he shouted.
But Ryan didn’t move. “There’s definitely panties in there, looks like a bra too.” He turned to Dan. Instead of the horrified expression he’d expected to see, he saw the blank look of someone used to seeing spilled blood. A cop, a butcher, an ER doctor maybe, not a sixteen year old schoolboy.
“Get the hell off me!” Paul shouted. He was scrambling around in the dirt, trying to free himself from under his friend’s weight. Dan still had his arm around Lori. Paul gave him a hard stare as he got to his feet.
“You okay, honey?” he said, walking over. “I was about to pull you away when that fat lump fell on me.” He aimed a kick at Brad’s leg. “Tell you not to go in there.”
Dan let go of Lori but she didn’t move. Paul almost dragged her toward him, pulling her to his chest and kissing the top of her head. He kept his eyes fixed on Dan the whole time.
“You think Palmer did this?” Ryan asked.
Brad finally got to his feet, gathered his rifle and brushed himself down. He took a swipe at Ryan but he avoided it easily. “Who d’you think did it, you dumb fuck? This is his cabin!”
Ryan shrugged, stepping away from the swarm of flies that had moved to the door. The smell coming out of it was almost sweet; a metallic sweetness that was intense and nauseating.
“We need to find the bastard,” Paul said, releasing Lori.
“And do what?” Dan replied. “The cops need to take a look at this before…”
Paul ignored him. He pulled back the bolt on his rifle before pushing it forward again, sending a cartridge into the chamber. Dan heard Brad do the same.
“Hey, now hold on a minute!” he shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”
“He with that group?” Paul pointed his rifle’s muzzle away from the cabin toward the group on the other side.
Brad nodded. “I reckon so.”
“Let’s go,” Paul said, marching off.
“Paul!” Lori shouted. “Don’t be stupid! This is for the cops to deal with!”
They ignored her too but Ryan tagged on behind.
“We need to stop them,” Lori said, turning to Dan, “before they do something stupid.”
Dan wanted say that both Paul and the Simmons family were only capable of doing something stupid, but he held his tongue. He looked to the sky, took a deep breath and set off after them. Lori followed.
20
Neither Brad nor Paul had shown much aptitude for climbing through the woods when they were searching. But now they almost ran to reach the party to the left of their own. They made it without once falling or slipping, and that was with a bellyful of whiskey each.
“Hey!” Dan shouted but they didn’t stop. Their minds were set on a course of action that had nothing to do with justice, nothing to do with catching a killer. It was all about satisfying a lust for violence that both men had in abundance. Dan had no interest in protecting someone who had abducted and killed three kids, but he wasn’t about to allow two drunken knuckleheads to mete out their version of justice. They had been doing that unchecked their whole miserable lives.
Paul paused as he almost ran into someone from the other party. It was Grady Boyce. He had to be seventy-five years old but he looked about double that. “You guys seen Gary Palmer?”
“Over there,” he replied, pointing. A stogie hung from his lip. It didn’t move when he spoke, like it was stuck there.
Paul marched on without saying anything else. Gary Palmer was a little way up the track, higher up than the cabin, but Paul covered the ground like a mountain goat.
“Hey, Paul, how’s it…”
Gary didn’t get the opportunity to finish his question. Paul jammed the butt of hi
s rifle into his mouth. Teeth and blood sprayed around him in a gory aerosol.
“Motherfucker!” Paul yelled.
As soon as he hit the floor, Brad brought his own rifle stock down into Gary’s ribs. The sound was like a twig snapping underfoot. The man howled and curled in the fetal position.
Dan reached them just as Paul was raising his rifle again. He caught his arm before he could bring it down on Gary’s head.
“Stop it!” he yelled.
Paul spun, wrenching his arm free. He brought the stock around, catching Dan on the cheek. Pain exploded all along his jaw. Fortunately, there wasn’t much room and the arc was small, but the blow was enough to force him backward.
He had enough sense to grab the muzzle before Paul could bring it around fully. He pushed it up toward the sky. Blood was running from the cut on his cheek, the skin tightening around the swelling.
He could feel Paul’s strength working against him, but Dan wasn’t the puny sixth-grade kid he had bullied. He wasn’t as big but he hadn’t spent the last two decades sitting on a bar stool drinking beer either. The gun was going nowhere.
“Paul! Just stop. Just stop this! You’ll get yourself locked up!”
Paul ignored Lori. His eyes were locked on Dan. “Not for killing that bastard I won’t,” he said. “Let go of the gun, Law.”
By now a crowd was gathering. The remaining members of Gary Palmer’s group were standing around in a circle, watching.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Grady Boyce shouted, the stogie still fastened to his lip.
“We found his cabin,” Brad shouted back. “Palmer’s fishing cabin, just over there.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“You wouldn’t be asking that if you’d seen inside, seen what we saw.”
“The girls,” Ryan joined in. “They were in there.”
“Hacked to pieces!” Paul said through gritted teeth.
“What? What’s that?” asked someone else from the group. It was a female voice. One Dan vaguely recognized.
“He said Palmer’s got your girl in his cabin.” Another voice this time.