“Nothing, Ed.”
That confirmed what Rafferty already knew from the broken window. The perpetrator had smashed out the basement window, climbed in and waited for Rhonda Barbieri to come home. When she came down into the basement, it had attacked.
Clarence descended the stairs and entered the basement. He looked around, eyes wide. “God, this was a bad one.” He stopped at a moist pile that looked like fleshy coiled rope. It was the woman’s intestines, lying in front of the furnace. “Tore her guts right out. That’s vicious, Chief. Even for one of us.”
Rafferty secretly admired the savagery of the killing, even though it broke the rules of the Harvest. Whoever did this went about it the right way, caused maximum suffering. “Page Bolster and I’ll meet you in the backyard.”
“Right.”
Bolster and three other officers were in charge of cleaning up messes like this one. Rafferty didn’t want the county medical examiner, outside paramedics, the county sheriff or any other Outsiders messing in his business. Killings such as these had to be kept quiet. Which created a problem because the victim’s relatives always came around asking questions. He’d go through the motions, assure them the Lincoln Police were on the case. Hopefully he could hold any nosy family members off until Harvest. Then it wouldn’t matter.
Crossing the basement to the stairs, Rafferty slipped on the woman’s blood. He threw his arms out to gain balance and silently cursed the one who killed Rhonda Barbieri.
“I feel like a goddamned idiot,” Matt said, leaning forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees.
“There’s no need. I know what it’s like to lose a parent. That was hard enough, but you lost your whole family.”
She kneeled on the floor, her hand resting on his leg. She could feel the warmth of his skin through the jeans. He smelled of Polo cologne and soap. She wanted to kiss him on the forehead, hug him close, tell him things would be okay. But platitudes and shallow comforts wouldn’t bring his family back, would they? “What did you do when you left the park?”
“Went right to the police station. Actually, when I got to the police station, there weren’t any cops there. The secretary told me they were out on a call, so I waited. About an hour later Chief Rafferty and one of his officers came waltzing in.”
Jill took his hand. “Did you tell them what happened?”
Still holding her hand, he leaned back in the chair. “When I said I never told anyone this story, I really meant it. When Rafferty walked in, I was in the front reception area of the station. He asked me what he could help me with, and I knew right then that he was the murderer.”
“How could you know that?”
“The smell of him. It was the same smell as the thing in the park. I’ve never smelled anything like that anywhere else. I wanted to turn around and run from there as fast as I could, but Rafferty took me by the arm and told his secretary to refer all his calls to Clarence, the other officer with him.”
Matt knew Rafferty had recognized him from the incident at the park an hour earlier. Fear clenched his gut in an icy fist and he expected Rafferty to kill him, as well. The Chief escorted him through the office, out a back door and down three steps to the holding cell area.
They went down the hallway outside the cells to a small room. Rafferty clicked on the bulb overhead and told him to sit down in a chair.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“I’ll ask one more time. What’s your name?”
“Matt Crowe.”
“Well, Matt, I imagine you’ve seen some strange things today.”
“Well, Chief, I imagine you’ve done some strange things today. Especially for a cop.”
“Look, smart-ass. One more remark and you’ll wind up like your fucking family, got it?”
Matt shifted in his chair, wanting to burst into tears, trying not to break down in front of Rafferty.
“Now just shut up and listen to me. You didn’t see anything today, no bogeymen, no fairy-tale monsters, nothing. You went for a walk down one of the hiking trails, and when you came back, your family was gone, got it? Maybe they were shot, maybe aliens abducted them, but you never saw what you did.”
“I’ll go to the state police. You won’t get away with this.”
Rafferty puffed out his chest. “Oh, I think I will get away with it. Because I run this town and there’s hundreds here just like me. Me and my boys will do a little investigation, but the case will remain unsolved. Or maybe I’ll find someone I don’t like and pin the whole thing on the poor schmuck.”
“You can’t control everyone.” Matt hoped his voice didn’t crack too badly when he said that. He was scared shitless, but he didn’t want Rafferty to know that.
“No, I can’t. You’re right. But I can control you. I find out that you told anyone what happened at Emerling Park, I’ll come after you. Put money on it. And when I do, I’ll make sure you suffer. Maybe I’ll tie you up and slit you open, tear your guts out while you scream. How’s that sound?”
Matt didn’t answer.
“Do you understand me?”
Again, Matt didn’t respond and Rafferty threw the table out of the way, causing it to squeal on the floor and tip over with a thud. Rafferty grabbed a clump of Matt’s hair and pulled hard. Matt’s eyes watered.
“Understand now? Not a goddamn word to anyone.”
In a choked voice Matt said, “Yes.”
“Good.” Rafferty let go and shoved Matt’s head for good measure.
“Now get the hell out of here. Go out and wait for me near the front door.”
Jill said softly, “That son of a bitch.”
She believed that part of the story without hesitation; because of her run-in with Chief Rafferty she didn’t doubt his capacity for cruelty. Anybody would have trouble believing that monsters had come out of the woods and slaughtered a family on a picnic, and so did Jill at first. But Matt had told the story with a faraway look in his eyes, and she had seen how it affected him physically. His skin had gone pale.
She remembered her great-uncle Henry, who had been in a Japanese POW camp, telling her father the story of how the Japanese soldiers had killed a man by filling his stomach full of water and kicking him until it burst. Uncle Henry had that same stare in his eyes, haunted by a horror show that played in his mind again and again. Matt was either a hell of an actor or he was certifiably insane.
“Matt, look at me.”
When he did, she saw the pain in his eyes. He looked a little shell-shocked, blank and uncertain.
“I believe your story.”
“Maybe you’re the crazy one.”
“Let me finish, smart guy. I don’t think anyone could fake what you just told me, the reaction you had was too real. I believe your family was killed. One question, though. Why did you come back?”
“Revenge,” he said. “I came back for revenge.”
“That won’t erase what happened.”
“I don’t care. Rafferty has to pay for what he did. And his accomplices too. I don’t want what happened to my family to happen to anyone else.”
“So you’re planning something then?”
“You could say that.”
“Killing them?”
“You’ll find out at our dinner. If you still want to go with me.” He removed his hand from hers and stood up. He set the wineglass on the coffee table. “Maybe you shouldn’t. If things go according to plan, I’m going to have to make a quick getaway. And I don’t want to hurt you. Or see you get hurt.”
“I like you, Matt. But I don’t like this plan of yours. You know that these things exist, and you’re starting to convince me, but to everyone else it will look like you murdered cops. If that is what you’re planning,” Jill said.
“I’ll just have to live with it.”
What was it with men? She had never meet one who didn’t possess a few genes that made them to do a poor imitation of every Clint Eastwood character that ever graced the silver screen. He had just opened up to her, poured his guts out, and now he was trying to act tough. “Don’t go getting all stoic on me. I’d still like to go with you to that dinner. But can we talk some more about your plan?”
“How about we go out tomorrow? Is Morotto’s still around? You’d like some more Italian?” Matt said.
“Maybe I can talk some sense into you.”
“You can try. But I’m pretty set on this.” He had a determined look on his face, like a mountain climber eyeballing Mount Everest, prepared to conquer it regardless of the cost.
“We’ll see,” Jill said. “I can be pretty persuasive.”
“This has been eating at me for years. I think about it every day. I have nightmares about it. And I can’t rest knowing that Rafferty is still alive after what he did. You say I’ve convinced you that these things exist, but I don’t know if you’re a hundred percent sure yet. You haven’t really seen one. Maybe if you did, you’d know why I want him dead.”
“I told you I believed you.”
Matt stood up and took his glass into the kitchen, Jill following him, watching as he rinsed it out.
“Good manners. I like that,” she said, kiddingly, but glad that he had put the glass in the sink. Jerry had been a number-one slob.
“Looking forward to tomorrow night,” he said.
“Me too.”
She wanted to stand on her tiptoes and give him a quick kiss on the lips, but she held back. Instead, she hugged him. He held on tight, then let go.
She followed him downstairs and locked the door behind him, thinking that it would be nice when that kiss became a reality.
C
HAPTER
10
Donna Ricci dreaded her meeting with Chief Ed Rafferty.
Not that she was afraid of him, or anyone else for that matter, but she had heard stories about disappearances in Lincoln and investigations being covered up. She didn’t think that Rafferty would attempt to harm her, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She kept a Beretta Tomcat in a shoulder holster.
She pulled her Ford F150 into the parking lot at Lincoln’s Police Station and parked it next to a squad car. She stepped from the car and slipped a white cotton blazer over her sleeveless blouse.
Donna was the police chief in Marshall, a town that still had a general store and boasted the State of New York’s smallest post office. She had become a cop after trying a stint in the engineering program at the University of Buffalo and dropping out her sophomore year.
A friend of her dad’s who had been on the Buffalo force for twenty-six years had told Donna that a police exam was coming up. “You’d be a great cop, Donna—you’re whip smart and you don’t take any crap from anyone. Take the exam and see how you do,” he had told her.
So after talking it over with her parents, she studied for the exam and scored a ninety-eight. After passing the agility test with flying colors, she had gone on to the academy and become a Buffalo cop.
After ten years on the force, being shot once and decorated for bravery twice, she had reached the rank of sergeant. And had been passed up for lieutenant three times; each time a man got the promotion, a man who had been on the force less time than her and did not have her stellar record. So she left the big city and joined the Marshall police when she heard they needed an officer.
Within two years, she had been promoted to Deputy Chief, then appointed Chief when Hank Peterman retired. Small-town life was quiet and content. About the worst thing that ever happened was a kid busting a mailbox or breaking a window. But she liked it, because she was running the show and wouldn’t be shoved aside like she was in Buffalo.
Things had been uneventful until her brother Bob had called her after returning home from a business trip and discovering yellow police tape across his door. Bob said the cops weren’t telling him much, and when he tried to press them for information, the officer on the phone got nasty.
Although she suspected her brother was cheating on Rhonda (who’d kept her maiden name), Donna agreed to look into things because she had always liked Rhonda. Rhonda was a tough-minded, driven woman and, outside the courtroom, one of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet.
So she’d taken time off, the Lieutenant now acting as Chief, while she tended to Rhonda’s death.
Strolling across the parking lot, she reached the front of the station. There was a garden filled with yellow, crimson and orange blooms. A fat bumblebee buzzed from flower to flower. The flag on the metal pole in front of the station hung limp, as if it didn’t have the energy to stand at attention.
She walked down a small hallway lined with chairs to a desk where an elderly woman in a dark blue police shirt sat typing.
The woman turned her head. “May I help you?”
“I have an appointment with Chief Rafferty. Donna Ricci.”
“Have a seat, Ms. Ricci, and he’ll be right with you. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
She said no thank you and sat down, crossing her legs. About five minutes later, a bearish man stepped around the corner and introduced himself.
“Officer Ricci? Ed Rafferty.”
He offered his hand and she shook it, not liking the sweaty feel of his palm.
“Let’s have a seat at my desk,” Rafferty said.
Donna sat down, leaned back and stretched her legs out in front of her. She wanted to appear calm and relaxed in front of Rafferty, not giving him the intimidation edge. She had heard from some guys at the state police that he was a ballbuster, and if you were a woman he really showed no mercy.
Rafferty eased himself into his chair, leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head, elbows out. There were dark sweat stains under his arms. “So you’re here about the Barbieri woman.”
“Rhonda. That’s right.”
“What can I help you with?”
“Any suspects so far?”
“Nope. Not a one.”
“Evidence?”
“Not much.” Rafferty unclasped his hands and put them on the desk. He swiveled back and forth in the chair, as if bored by the conversation.
“You have no evidence at all. That’s what you’re telling me?”
“None. No prints, no motive, no weapon. Nothing.”
“I find that hard to believe.” She leaned forward, rested her arms on the desk and looked him in the eye. Now that she was closer to him, she noticed he stank.
“Well, you can believe it. It was a messy murder, but other than a lot of the victim’s blood and some entrails, we found nothing. Not even footprints.”
“Look, Chief. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I suggest you let me in on whatever secret it is you have. I don’t suppose there’s a report I could read.”
He picked up a pencil, twirled it around with his fingers. “It’s gotta be typed up. You’d never be able to read my officer’s writing. Of course, once it’s typed, I could fax you a copy.”
“I’ll expect a copy.” She pulled out a business card and handed it to him. “Will you tell me anything right now?”
“The woman is dead. That’s about all I can tell you.”
Rafferty set the pencil on the desk, leaned back, took a toothpick from his desk drawer and placed it between his lips. Donna liked this man less and less by the minute.
“I don’t suppose you give a shit, but I know quite a few state troopers. I’m sure they’d like to hear about this case. Or maybe the county sheriff.”
“You just bring in anyone you want, Donna. Anyone at all.”
Arrogant bastard.
“You know, Ed. You’re a piss-poor excuse for a cop. I’ll find out who killed my sister-in-law,” she said. “Bet on it.”
He worked the toothpick from side to side, poking it around with his tongue. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“I’ll be going.”
She stood up from the chair and shoved it so it banged off the desk. Turning on one heel, she stalked out of the office, telling the receptionist on the way out that she might be better off working somewhere else.
Out by her truck, she stripped off her blazer and put it on the passenger seat. She ran her hand through her short hair and exhaled in frustration.
Rafferty was being difficult, and she didn’t anticipate him cooperating any more than he had today. She doubted if he would fax her the police report (if there was one) or share any other evidence with her regarding the case. The weasel didn’t even flinch when she mentioned the state police, which was a threat she could carry out. Her father had poker buddies who were state cops and she could put some heat on Rafferty if she wanted. But that wasn’t her style. Hit it head-on, even if it left you bruised and bloody.
For now, she would take matters into her own hands. It was the way she always handled things.
She started the truck up and pulled out of the parking lot.
The Ford’s gas gauge hovered just above “E” so she decided to pull into a service station, get gas and ask directions. After driving six blocks down Elmwood, she spotted a gas station with a sign in blue script that read JIMBO’S.
There were two gas pumps that could have been pre–Korean War, with no canopy overhead like the modern gas stations. White paint flaked off the pumps, and the paint still on the pumps was dotted with rusty blisters. The station had two overhead doors, one with the glass smashed out of six of the panels. She was beginning to think she made a poor choice in gas stations.
After parking the truck next to the pumps, she went inside to the office area, which wasn’t much better than the exterior of the station. It smelled sweaty and oily, and the desk had a layer of dust on it an eighth of an inch thick. It was silent except for the ticking of a clock on the counter. She had never been in a garage where impact wrenches didn’t whiz and zoom constantly.
“Hello!” she called.
There was no response for a moment and then a grizzled old man in coveralls slipped through the door from the garage. His name patch read
JIMBO
in cursive letters.
“Help you?” He said in a tobacco-frayed voice.
“Fifty dollars of regular.”
“You gotta pump it yourself, you know. This ain’t no full serve.”
“That’s fine.”
“Fifty it is.”
She dug in her purse and pulled out a rumpled fifty. She held it out and he snatched it from her. His eyes never left her purse.
“You’re a cop, huh?”
“That’s right.”
He sniffled and ran his sleeve under his nose. “Saw the badge on your belt. You know Chief Rafferty?”
“I’m acquainted with him.”
“What?”
“I know him a little bit.”
“He don’t take too kindly to strangers. That’s why I asked.”
“Can you tell me where the library is?”
“Across from the middle school.”
Apparently Jimbo wasn’t in the habit of being helpful. “Where would that be?”
“You didn’t ask me how to get there.”
He sniffed again, drew snot back into his throat and spat on the floor.
“They make tissues, you know.”
“You want directions or you want to stand there and be a smart-ass?”
“I’ll take the directions.”
He told her how to get to the library, went over to the cash register and rang in her fifty dollars. The register drawer chimed open and he put the money in the till. After switching on the gas pump, he disappeared into the garage again, slamming the door behind him.
As Donna pumped gas, she thought that if the rest of the people in Lincoln were as friendly as the Chief and the gas station attendant, this would be one hell of a visit.
Telling Jill his story did nothing to alleviate the nightmares. Matt sat up, chest pumping up and down. His skin was slicked with sweat, and he stifled the scream that was building in his throat. He looked around the room.
I’m not in the park, I’m in Aunt Bernie’s loft
, he thought. The clock read two fifty
A.M.
He threw off the covers and swung his legs around the side of the bed.
In the dream, the creature had him pinned to the ground, all of its weight on his chest, squeezing the air out of his lungs. His limbs felt heavy, like they were made of steel, and he could not move an inch. The creature lowered its head until they were nose to nose and exhaled, forcing Matt to breathe in the foul breath. It raised its arm to swipe at him, and just as the claws reached his face, he awoke.
No, the talk with Jill had not ended the dreams. In fact, this one seemed more intense than the others. The feeling of paralysis and not being able to breathe under the thing’s weight stuck with him. He slept very little the rest of the night.
At five o’clock he rose, exercising, showering and having French toast with his Aunt Bernie all before eight. She had been animated, asking him how his date went, but he had been only half listening. His mind kept drifting to Jill Adams, the way she had held his hand. It felt good, right, somehow, like it belonged there, her hand in his.
He helped his aunt clear the table and the two of them took his rental car back to Avis, Aunt Bernie following him in the truck and bringing him back to the house.
As they walked up the steps into the kitchen, Matt saw Uncle Rex sitting at the table in a flannel bathrobe and blue slippers. His hair jutted in several directions and gray stubble covered his cheeks. Matt hoped for a quick getaway before his uncle had a chance to shoot off his mouth.
“What’d you have for breakfast, Bernadette?” Rex spoke low and slow, not yet fully awake.
“French toast.”
“You make him some but not your husband, is that right?”
“Rex, I’ll make you breakfast. You’re never up this early, though.”
“Well, I am today, and I want French toast.”
Matt tried to break the tension. “How have you been?”
“Just dandy now that you’re here.”
“How’s things at the plant?” Matt said.
“Too many niggers working there.”
His uncle’s ignorance never failed to amaze Matt.
“You gonna make my fucking toast or not?”
“Yes, Rex.”
Aunt Bernie scurried to the counter like a dog who feared abuse from a cruel master. Matt wished his aunt had the nerve to tell Rex where to put his French toast and then walk out on him, but he knew that would never happen. The bastard had intimidated her to the point where all he had to do was raise his voice and she jumped.