Music of Ghosts (30 page)

Forty-four

For what seemed like
hours, Artie Slade pushed Mary Crow along a hidden path that went from the bird barn deep into the woods. As she limped onward, thorns tore at her jeans as Artie's belt buckle dug into her throat. She kept searching for a way to escape, or even a dead limb to hit him with, but the trees were thick and dark, and if there were fallen branches, she did not see them. Finally, she retreated to her default plan—keep him talking until she could think of something else to do.

“I need to catch my breath,” she gasped after they'd crested a steep rise.

He looked at her with disgust. “I thought you were supposed to be some big, bad Cherokee.”

“Yeah, well I thought you died in the gas chamber.”

He laughed. “I guess we're both full of surprises.”

As he loosened the belt around her neck, she looked up and caught a glimpse of the moon, a hard white pearl peeking through the black lace of the trees. “Why did you frame Nick?”

“I learned at Central that somebody has to take the blame.” He snorted through his swollen nose. “Lisa was a regular bitch in heat over Nick. I figured if I linked the two of them, nobody would take much of a look at an old, one-handed feller like me.”

“So you put her ring in Nick's bedroom?”

He nodded. “While he was at that sports park thing. I figured she'd have no more need of it, and it might come in handy for me.”

“But why carve a shape note tune all over her?”

“That was Bett's tune … I wrote it for her in prison. Them shape notes are the only way I can write music.”

“But how did you fake out Cochran? He's pretty smart.”

“I got an old buddy who lives in Hell's Acre, at the end of Slade Holler. We got a deal worked out for alibis. Cochran's deputy was in and out of there in about five minutes. You don't live in Slade Holler, you ain't exactly made to feel welcome.”

He looked up at the sky, noted the ascendant moon. “Come on. We've got to get going.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Just out of curiosity … how many other people have you killed up here?”

He shrugged. “I don't know—I lose count. You'd have to go down in that old mica mine and do a skull count.”

He pulled her to her feet, then shoved her farther along the trail. Up they climbed, through trees so thick they hid the moon. Rhododendron grew shoulder-high, while unseen animals rustled through the underbrush ahead of them. She figured he was going to take her to the mine he'd pushed his other victims down. As she walked she fought a rising panic—she didn't want to die in some dark hole where no one would ever find her.

“You know Stratton's expecting me back at the jail tomorrow,” she told him, chatting him up again. “He knows I came up here. People are going to come looking for me pretty soon.”

“So? I'm gonna call Cochran up here myself, once I finish with you.”

“You're going to tell Cochran I fell down a mine?”

“Naw, honey. I got something different planned for you.”

They climbed up several steep switchbacks, then, abruptly, he stopped.

“Come on,” he said, turning right. “This way.”

Pushing her through more trees, they finally stepped onto a grassy mountain bald. The little field glowed in the moonlight, and Mary saw that at one end, six tall and white poles stretched high into the air, supporting a platform at the top.

“That's a hack box,” Artie answered her unvoiced question. “Where little eagles learn to fly.” He grabbed her arm. “You're about to have a bad accident up there. You went to watch me set your owl free. Only you slipped and fell.”

She faked a laugh. “You honestly think Cochran's going to buy that?”

“You won't be any more banged up than you are now. I'll tell him you snagged your arm on a nail, going over the edge. Cochran ain't that hard to fool.”

“Oh?”

Again Artie cackled. “He came up here the other day, all official, looking for the ghost with the big eyes. I showed it to him, too. He just never realized the ghost was me.”

She shook her head. “I don't get it, Artie. How can you trick all these people?”

He grinned. “You just figure out what they want and you give it to them.”

She realized then that he probably could convince Cochran that she'd fallen—he had a slimy sixth sense that had gotten him out of jams far greater than pushing one woman off a hack box. She struggled to twist away from his grasp, but he held his end of the belt too firmly. With the buckle pushed painfully into her flesh, he shoved her across the bald, over to where a long ladder stretched up to back of the platform.

At the base, he cut the strap that bound her hands. “Start climbing,” he said. “I'll be right behind you, at the end of this belt.”

She eyed the ladder, desperate for a plan. If she could stay just a little bit ahead of him, she might be able to kick him off.

“And don't get any ideas.” He twirled his razor, as if he'd read her mind. “With those little sandals you're wearing, I can lame you faster than I can cut hot butter.”

She knew he was right. Two swipes of his razor and her Achilles tendons would be useless, leaving her feet flopping at the ends of her legs. Again, she was tempted to kick and scratch and fight it out here, but he held the belt too firmly around her neck. If he tightened it at all, she'd pass out, just like Lisa Wilson.

She grabbed the ladder. The thick rungs were rough and splintery. Desperate for a plan, she started to climb. As she made her way upward she realized she had one advantage over Artie. She could grasp the ladder with both hands and go faster. He had to hang on to the razor, the belt around her neck, and the ladder itself. If she could manage to jerk the belt out of his grip and scamper up to the platform first, she might have a chance.

Forty-five

Ginger's story sounded like
something his mother might dream up—Central Prison screwing up executions; death row inmates switching identities. But she remained adamant that her facts were correct. “Remember when I was in the bathroom this morning, talking to Mary?”

He nodded, disgusted at his own gullibility. He'd thought they were talking about Mary's custody suit.

“She'd spent the night researching all this. I spent today double-checking her theory, and it's true.”

“That Smith was never executed?” he cried.

Ginger nodded. “He was transferred to a mental hospital, then an Iredell County nursing home that burned down a few years after he got there.”

“And?”

“And nothing,” she replied. “Not a single death record on any index in the country. Smith could be up in those woods, killing women as we speak.”

“And now you think he's at Stratton's place?”

She shrugged. “I've just got a hunch, Jerry. I don't think Mary Crow would rush up there just to let an owl loose. She must have figured something out on her trip home.”

He didn't know what to think. To go on a wild goose chase at his girlfriend's insistence made him feel like a fool. Yet on a deeper level, he had to admit that Ginger's hunch was resonating with something that felt a lot like an awful truth. “Okay,” he said, unlocking Angel's doors. “Just to ease your mind, I'll drop you off at your car, then I'll go up to Stratton's.”

“But can't I come with?”

“Absolutely not. You go straight home.” He looked at her without smiling. “If you come up there, I'll have you arrested.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice strangely small. “Will you call me when you find out something?”

“I'll come by your house when I'm done.”

He drove Ginger to her car, waiting until she pulled out of the police lot, then he raced out of town, driving the Angel like a black shadow through the night. Up the mountain they climbed, Ginger's words ringing in his head.
Robert Thomas Smith was never executed … he could be killing women even as we speak.

“It's not possible,” he told himself. “The guy would be a fossil. He couldn't have survived forty years up here in these mountains.”

But that odd feeling still remained. Artie Slade said an old man with wide eyes had stared at him from the trees. Thirty years ago someone with wide eyes had scared him and Messer shitless.

“It's not possible,” he repeated. He made the turn to Stratton's place on two wheels, then punched Angel up a series of switchbacks, his headlights flickering through the thick woods. Finally, he reached Stratton's totem pole. His mouth went dry as he saw Mary Crow's black Miata, parked to the side of the thing.

He treated it like a regular traffic stop, leaving Angel running, his radio on, shining a bright flashlight inside the little convertible. He saw that a red suitcase took up most of the passenger seat; Mary's purse and keys were gone.

“Okay,” he said. “She's up here releasing a bird. Where would that take place?”

He looked up the left prong of the gravel path that led to Stratton's cabin. “Probably not there,” he said. “Try the bird barn.”

He turned off Angel's engine and reached for his shotgun. Shouldering the weapon, he grabbed his flashlight and started walking up the path. He listened for any wisps of laughter or conversation, but all he could hear was the crunch of his own footsteps in the thick gravel.

Up he went, the shotgun tight against his back, his flashlight making a wide sweep of the path in front of him. Once he thought he heard a bird-like scream, but the sound died on the damp night air and did not come again. He wondered, as he trudged up the hill, what he was going to tell Mary when he found her. That Ginger had a hunch and made him come? That the twelve-year-old boy inside him was terrified that Fiddlesticks was still alive?
Just find her
, he told himself.
Make sure she's okay and you can have a laugh about this over a beer at Bigmeat's.

He walked on, his breath coming harder. Up the trail, to his left, he could see lights twinkling through the trees. He quickened his pace, anxious to get all this behind him. Cresting the hill, he saw the bird barn. He'd almost reached the structure when the beam of his flashlight caught something shiny beside the gravel path. He hurried over to it—there, on the ground, lay the same kind of brass-buckled purse that Ginger carried, a digital recorder with the power still on. He picked up the purse and found a wallet inside—empty of cash, but full of identification. As he read the driver's license by the glare of his flashlight, his heart began to sink. The owner of the purse was a thirty-five-year-old black-haired, hazel-eyed female named Mary Crow.

Forty-six

Halfway up the ladder
she thought of a plan. It seemed ridiculous, but at least it was something. She started to cough, and then began sucking great gulps of air. Below her, Artie jerked the belt tighter around her neck. “Go on, girl. Get up there.”

She looked down at him, pretending to sway. “This is so high … I think I might throw up … ”

“Don't you puke on me again!” he cried. He popped her lower back with one end of his belt as he shifted to one side of the ladder. That was exactly what she hoped he'd do. Just as he moved, she pulled hard on the belt loop around her neck. It slithered out of his hand, one end flicking him hard across the nose.

“You bitch!” he cried, tearing up from the sharp blow. As he clung to the ladder with one hand and wiped his eyes with the other, she made her move.

Up she climbed, reaching for the next rung. The leather sandals that had been such a breeze at airport security were useless on the steps—their soles were too slick to gain any traction. So she pulled with her arms and scrambled for purchase with her legs. Higher she climbed, driving a splinter deep into the palm of her hand. With her breath burning in her throat, she looked up. Only ten more feet to the platform. Already she could hear Artie scrambling up behind her.

Ignoring the throbbing in her hand, she struggled on. She had to get to the platform before he could cut her legs with that razor. She grasped the next rung. It was crusty with dried bird shit, but she grabbed it without hesitation, pulling herself upward. Risking a glance over her shoulder, she saw that Artie was now climbing with both hands, holding his razor pirate-like, between his teeth. His face was purple with rage, his eyes embers from hell.

“Come on,” she told herself. “You're almost there.”

She grasped the next rung and willed herself upward. As she did she suddenly felt something warm and slick on her right foot. She looked down. Artie had swiped her heel with his razor. He'd missed the tendon, but a hot pain was zinging up her leg as blood dripped down into Artie's face.

“You ain't get away!” he screamed. “Nobody gets away from me!”

She lifted her right foot and shook it, hoping more blood would drip on him. Her arms on fire, she gripped the last rung of the ladder hard and flung herself forward, skidding on the dew-slick surface of the platform.

She knew she had only seconds before Artie would be there. Crawling on her hands and knees, she raced for what looked like a tall cage and looked for something she could use as a weapon. She found nothing inside the nesting box except perches and a pile of twigs.

She looked toward the ladder. Already she could see the top of his baseball cap, lumbering up over the edge of the platform. She turned back to the cage, frantic, wondering if she could somehow confuse him with a shower of twigs and push him off the ladder. She was making a dash for the twigs when suddenly, she noticed that one of the perches was sagging away from the cage wall. It was a thick oak branch, drooping at an angle, as if the nails supporting it had worked loose. As Artie gave a mad cackle, she rushed forward and pulled on the thing with all her weight. Two of the three long nails popped out immediately; the third had been driven into a knot in the wood and wasn't giving way.

“Damn it!” she whispered, desperately trying to wrestle the thing away from the wall.

“Okay, girlie,” called Smith, now halfway on the platform. “Time to find out how you crows fly.”

Her mouth chalky with fear, she pulled the branch once, twice. The thing moved, but still did not pull free of the wall. As Smith clambered to his feet, she focused all the strength she had left and gave a mighty wrench. The heavy branch came loose all at once, twisting, practically throwing her out the cage door. She made a grab for the thing just as Smith was coming around the corner.

“What are you doing?”

She didn't bother to answer. She swung the board as hard as she could, catching him just below his ear. His knees buckled but he didn't go down. She hit him again, driving the end of the perch into his chest. He stumbled backward on the slick platform. She was about to hit him a third time when he stepped on one of the long nails she'd just dislodged. His right leg flew out from under him. Arms pinwheeling, he scrambled backward, trying to regain his balance. She watched in horror as his legs pumped frantically, then he fell backward into the darkness, a death angel falling, screaming like one of the raptors he'd once helped to fly.