infinities (34 page)

Littlefield nodded, then realized the old man couldn't see his face. "Yeah. What did you hear, or think you heard?"

Littlefield glanced at his watch, about to chalk up his time spent talking to Lester as a waste. The luminous dial showed that it was nearly nine o'clock.

"Bells," the old man said in a near-whisper.

"Bells?" Littlefield repeated, though he'd plainly heard the man.

"Real soft and faint, but a bell's a bell. Ain't no mistaking that sound."

"I hate to tell you this, Lester, but we both know that the red church has the only bell around here. And even if some kids were messing around there last night, there's no bell rope."

"And we both know
why
there ain't no bell rope. But I'm just telling you what I heard, that's all. I don't expect you to put much stock in an old man's words."

The ghost stories. Some families had passed them down until they'd acquired a mythic truth that had even more power than fact. Littlefield wasn't ready to write
Death by supernatural
causes on Boonie's incident report. Since Samuel had died, the sheriff had spent most of his life trying to convince himself that supernatural occurrences didn't occur.

Just the facts, ma'am
, Littlefield told himself, hearing the words in Jack Webb's voice from the old
Dragnet
television show.

"There were no recent footprints around the church. No sign of disturbances inside the church, either," Littlefield said, piling up the evidence as if to convince himself along with Lester.

"I bet there wasn't no mountain lion paw-prints, either, was there?"

This time, Littlefield initiated the ten-second silence. "Not that we've found yet."

Lester gave his liquid laugh.

Littlefield's head filled with warm anger. "If you believe so much in the stories, why did you buy the red church in the first place?"

"Because I got it for a song. But it won't be my problem no more."

"Why not?"

"Selling it. One of the McFall boys came by the other day. You know, the one that everybody said didn't act like regular folks? The one that got beat near to a pulp behind the football bleachers one night?"

"Yeah. Archer McFall." Littlefield had been a young deputy then, on foot patrol at the football game. Archer ended up in the hospital for a week. No arrests were made, even though Littlefield had seen two or three punks rubbing their hands as if their knuckles were sore. Of course, nobody pressed the case too much. Archer was a McFall, after all, and the oddest of the bunch.

"Well, he says he went off to California and made good, working in religion and such. And now he's moving back to the area and wants to settle here."

"I'll be damned."

"Me, too. And when he offered me two hundred thousand dollars for the red church and a dozen acres of mostly scrub pine and graveyard, I had to bite my lip to keep from grinning like a possum. Supposed to go in tomorrow and sign the papers at the lawyer's office."

"Why the red church, if he's got that kind of money?" Littlefield asked, even though he was pretty sure he already knew.

"That property started off in the McFall family. They're the ones who donated the land for the church in the first place. Remember Wendell McFall?"

Coincidences. Littlefield didn't like coincidences. He liked cause-and-effect. That's what solved cases. "That's a lot of money."

"Couldn't say no to it. But I had a funny feeling that he would have offered more if I had asked. But he knew I wouldn't. It was like that time with the mountain lion, like he was staring me down, like he knew what I was thinking."

"I guess if he's a successful businessman, then he's had a lot of practice at negotiating."

"Reckon so," Lester said, unconvinced. He stood with a creaking that might have been either his joints or the rocker's wooden slats. "It's time to be putting up the cows."

"And I'd best finish my rounds. I appreciate your time, Lester."

"Sure. Come on back anytime. And next time, plan on staying for a piece of pie."

"I'll do that."

As Littlefield started the Trooper, he couldn't help thinking about the part of Lester's story that had gone untold. The part about why a bell rope no longer hung in the red church, and why Archer McFall would want to buy back the old family birthright.

He shook his head and went down the driveway, gravel crackling under his wheels.

Copyright information
© Scott Nicholson, 2002, 2011
The Red Church
was first published in 2002, and is reprinted by Haunted Computer Books (2009):
Learn more about
The Red Church
and the real Appalachian church that inspired the novel, and buy now:
The Red Church

New York Times
bestselling author Orson Scott Card calls the Retrieval Artist series "some of the best science fiction ever written."
Io9
says Miles Flint is one of "the top ten greatest science fiction detectives of all time."
The Disappeared
is Flint's very first adventure, the story that turns him from a police detective in the Armstrong Dome on the Moon into a Retrieval Artist.

In a universe where humans and aliens have formed a loose government called the Earth Alliance, treaties guarantee that humans are subject to alien laws when on alien soil. But alien laws often make no sense, and the punishments vary from loss of life to loss of a first-born child.

Now three cases have collided: a stolen spaceyacht filled with dead bodies, two kidnapped human children, and a human woman on the run, trying to Disappear to avoid alien prosecution. Flint must enforce the law—giving the children to aliens, solving the murders, and arresting the woman for trying to save her own life. But how is a man supposed to enforce laws that are unjust? How can he sacrifice innocents to a system he's not sure he believes in? How can Miles Flint do the right thing in a universe where the right thing is very, very wrong?

"Rusch does a superb job of making the Retrieval Artist books work as fully satisfying standalone mysteries and as installments in a gripping saga full of love, loss, grief, hope, adventure, and discovery. It is also some of the best science fiction ever written." 
—
New York Times
bestselling author Orson Scott Card

Buy now:
The Disappeared by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

One

She had to leave everything behind.

Ekaterina Maakestad stood in the bedroom of her Queen Anne home, the ancient Victorian houses of San Francisco's oldest section visible through her vintage windows, and clutched her hands together. She had made the bed that morning as if nothing were wrong. The quilt, folded at the bottom, waiting for someone to pull it up for warmth, had been made by her great-great-grandmother, a woman she dimly remembered. The rocking chair in the corner had rocked generations of Maakestads. Her mother had called it the nursing chair because so many women had sat in it, nursing their babies.

Ekaterina would never get the chance to do that. She had no idea what would happen to it, or to all the heirloom jewelry in the downstairs safe, or to the photographs, taken so long ago they were collectors' items to most people but to her represented family, people she was connected to through blood, common features, and passionate dreams.

She was the last of the Maakestad line. No siblings or cousins to take all of this. Her parents were long gone, and so were her grandparents. When she set up this house, after she had gotten back from Revnata, the human colony in Rev territory, she had planned to raise her own children here.

Downstairs, a door opened and she froze, waiting for House to announce the presence of a guest. But House wouldn't. She had shut off the security system, just as she had been instructed to do.

She twisted the engagement ring on her left hand, the antique diamond winking in the artificial light. She was supposed to take the ring off, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. She would wait until the very last minute, then hand the ring over. If she left it behind, everyone would know she had left voluntarily.

"Kat?" Simon. He wasn't supposed to be here.

She swallowed hard, feeling a lump in her throat.

"Kat, you okay? The system's off."

"I know." Her voice sounded normal. Amazing she could do that, given the way her heart pounded and her breath came in shallow gasps.

She had to get him out of here and quickly. He couldn't be here when they arrived, or he would lose everything too.

The stairs creaked. He was coming up to see her.

"I'll be right down!" she called. She didn't want him to come upstairs, didn't want to see him here one last time.

With her right hand, she smoothed her blond hair. Then she squared her shoulders and put on her courtroom face. She'd been distracted and busy in front of Simon before. He might think that was what was happening now.

She left the bedroom and started down the stairs, making herself breathe evenly. For the last week, she hadn't seen him—pleading work, then making up travel, and a difficult court case. She had been trying to avoid this moment all along.

As she reached the first landing, the stairs curved, and she could see him, standing in the entry. Simon wasn't a handsome man. He didn't use enhancements—didn't like them on himself or anyone. As a result, his hair was thinning on top, and he was pudgy despite the exercise he got.

But his face had laugh lines. Instead of cosmetic good looks, Simon had an appealing rumpled quality, like an old favorite old shirt or a quilt that had rested on the edge of the bed for more than a hundred years.

He smiled at her, his dark eyes twinkling. "I've missed you."

Her breath caught, but she made herself smile back. "I've missed you too."

He was holding flowers, a large bouquet of purple lilacs, their scent rising up to greet her.

"I was just going to leave this," he said. "I figured as busy as you were, you might appreciate something pretty to come home to."

He had House's security combination, just like she had his. They had exchanged the codes three months ago, the same night they got engaged. She could still remember the feelings she had that night. The hope, the possibility. The sense that she actually had a future.

"They're wonderful," she said.

He waited for her to get to the bottom of the stairs, then he handed her the bouquet. Beneath the greenery, her hands found a cool vase, a bubble chip embedded in the glass keeping the water's temperature constant.

She buried her face in the flowers, glad for the momentary camouflage. She had no idea when she would see flowers again.

"Thank you," she said, her voice trembling. She turned away, made herself put the flowers on the table she kept beneath the gilt-edged mirror in her entry.

Simon slipped his hands around her waist. "You all right?"

She wanted to lean against him, to tell him the truth, to let him share all of this—the fears, the uncertainty. But she didn't dare. He couldn't know anything.

"I'm tired," she said, and she wasn't lying. She hadn't slept in the past eight days.

"Big case?"

She nodded. "Difficult one."

"Let me know when you're able to talk about it."

She could see his familiar face in the mirror beside her strained one. Even when she tried to look normal, she couldn't. The bags beneath her eyes hadn't been there a month ago. Neither had the worry lines beside her mouth.

He watched her watch herself, and she could tell from the set of his jaw, the slight crease on his forehead, that he was seeing more than he should have been.

"This case is tearing you apart," he said softly.

"Some cases do that."

"I don't like it."

She nodded and turned in his arms, trying to memorize the feel of him, the comfort he gave her, comfort that would soon be gone. "I have to meet a client," she said.

"I'll take you."

"No." She made herself smile again, wondering if the expression looked as fake as it felt. "I need a little time alone before I go, to regroup."

He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, then kissed her. She lingered a moment too long, caught between the urge to cling and the necessity of pushing him away.

"I love you," she said as she ended the kiss.

"I love you too." He smiled. "There's a spa down in the L.A. basin. It's supposed to be the absolute best. I'll take you there when this is all over."

"Sounds good," she said, making no promises. She couldn't bear to make another false promise.

He still didn't move away. She resisted the urge to look at the two-hundred-year-old clock that sat on the living room mantel.

"Kat," he said. "You need time away. Maybe we could meet after you see your client and—"

"No," she said. "Early court date."