Shay O'Hanlon Caper 04 - Chip Off the Ice Block Murder (21 page)

With a frustrated sigh I signaled and took the ramp onto 169 north toward Elk River. Walmart, Target, fast food joints. I hadn’t realized that stores from the ’burbs had made their way this far out. There was even a Sonic drive-in. If we were on a different mission, we might have had time to swing by for a shake.

From this point we were about nineteen miles from our destination. Signs of civilization fell away, the darkness almost complete save streetlights that were far and few between.

Vast fields interspersed with forest so dense it was black enough to give me the creeps. I had no idea why anyone would want to live in this kind of desolation. Coop was even more city-centric than I was and I wondered how he was feeling. But then, he probably wasn’t paying much attention to the scenery. He and JT had gotten on the subject of video games, kids, and violence. If things got any more tense between them, I was going to have to stop and play musical chairs.

We passed the first exit for Princeton and, per our directions, headed west on a two-lane highway that frankly scared the crap out of me. This stretch didn’t even have lines dividing the road, and was even darker than 169 had been. Here, trees—both pines and those of the currently nonleafy variety—pressed up on both sides.

The few lights that dotted the road were practically drowned by the vast, neverending blackness of night. The only saving grace was that the snow on the ground brightened things up enough to be just this side of pitch black. After the ever-present city glow, I felt totally out of my league.

“Child, slow down.” Eddy doused the interior light she’d been using to read her paper map and jutted her head forward, straining to see out the windshield. “We should be coming up on that lumberyard any time. Damn, it’s dark as the devil out here.”

I was only doing about forty, but even so, I blew past the tiny sign that read
Hixton Lumber
sitting atop two posts in front of a long, low building.

“Shit,” I swore under my breath. I slowed and found a place where I could make a U-turn without running off the road.

The chatter in the car ceased when Coop and JT realized we were almost to our destination.

There was the lumberyard sign, in its minute glory. It wasn’t more than two feet by three, and white to boot. A neatly plowed parking lot devoid of cars sprawled in front of the vast, single-story building.

Without bothering to signal, I pulled into the lot. A tire-rutted path wound around the side, presumably to the back of the business, and that was where I headed.

We rolled past the end of the building, and the lane opened into a yard maybe half the size of a Home Depot’s. Lumber, rock, bricks, and pavers in all shapes and sizes were stored under big metal sheds that were no better than lean-tos. I stopped behind a gigantic stack of pallets and killed the engine.

A four-foot chain-link fence ran around the yard, but it looked like it’d seen enough years of shitty weather and little maintenance that it would be easy enough to breach. Out past the fence, past a vast field of snow, a forest of trees loomed tall and menacing, beckoning us with their leafless limbs, daring us to tempt the fates and enter the netherworld beyond.

“Are we really gonna do this?” My mouth was dry and my voice hoarse. I tightened my fingers on the steering wheel.

“Damn right we are, child.” Eddy gave me a pat. “Since when has a little dark and forbidding ever stopped us?”

Dark and forbidding should have stopped us a long time ago. However, now wasn’t the time to succumb to a lily-livered heart.

“Coop,” I said, “which way?”

He pointed over my shoulder in the general direction of the woods. “Thatta way.”

That cleared things up ever so nicely.

We piled out of the car and schlepped in the direction Coop had indicated over lumpy, refrozen snowpack and stopped in front of the fence. At the moment, the moon was hidden under a thick layer of clouds, its light nothing but a dim circular glow in the indigo sky.

I pressed my elbow against the four-inch flashlight tucked in my jacket pocket, the solidity of it somehow reassuring. We’d all armed ourselves with mini flashlights normally used for nighttime Dawg and Bogey poop-scooping. JT had the bonus plan in the form of her Glock. And of course, Eddy had her Whacker to ward off whatever beasts, living or dead, we might encounter.

At home, when Coop mapped things out, he reckoned we were about half a mile, as the crow flies, from the mostly abandoned hospital. Somewhere on the other side of the snow-covered field, through that intimidating forest, sat my father. It was time to find his ass and get some answers.

“Let’s go.” My fingers were cold inside my gloves. I grabbed onto a fencepost for balance and squeezed through a gap.

It didn’t take long to trek what was probably only a quarter mile to the tree line. The hardest part was navigating the uneven ground under the snow without breaking an ankle. Aside from Coop nearly taking a header when his foot caught a ridge, though, we traversed the distance safely.

“All right,” Eddy said, her breath foggy in the cold air. “Who goes first?”

We looked at each other in silence.

JT was the first to break. “I will,” she said with a hint of exasperation. Standing with her gloved hands on her hips, she considered our next move. She pulled her flashlight out and shined it toward the ominous thicket.

“Way to step up, child. You are the law, after all. I’ll cover the rear,” Eddy said. “Don’t worry, I’ll whack anything that creeps up behind us.” She shuddered. “I think I just scared myself.”

I said, “Come on. Let’s do this.”

JT headed into the abyss, the beam of her light dimmed by the unending blackness. I fell in behind her with Coop behind me. As advertised, Eddy brought up the rear, her Whacker in one fist and her flashlight in the other with its beam bouncing around wildly as she walked.

No one said anything as we maneuvered through the maze of trees, stumps, and forest deadwood. A machete would have helped us get through a few patches of brush that sprouted from the snow like upside-down spiders.

After three or four minutes of shuffling along, Eddy said, “How much farther?” She sounded like a whiny kid, and I couldn’t help but crack a smile.

“Well,” Coop said, “if we haven’t gotten off track, it was only about another quarter mile past the corn, or whatever it was, field back there.”

“I sure hope we’re going the right way,” I said. “I’m only good in woods I’m familiar with, like over at Limpy Dick’s place. But here, I don’t know where the hell I am.”

“Language,” Eddy said. “My long johns are chafing.”

No one knew what was going to come out of that woman’s mouth.

We moved on, single file. The inky black we’d been wading through was slowly replaced with darkness of a less-dense variety. The trees ended in another snow-covered expanse. In the distance, a group three buildings loomed dark and forbidding. Maybe three-quarters of a mile distant was another set of three buildings. From the farthest set of structures, dim light shone through various windows. They were obviously the occupied section of the defunct hospital.

“Right on the money, Coop,” I said as we cleared the trees. “Good job.”

He grunted in response and wagged a leg in a futile attempt to shake the snow loose. “My feet are fricking frozen.”

“Cut the yapping,” Eddy said. “Let’s get this over with. You think it’s the biggest one over there?”

“Probably,” Coop said. “Shay, your dad said the front building, right?”

“Yup.”

We cautiously negotiated what I figured was an expansive lawn (or would have been in the summertime) toward the largest of the three structures. They mostly looked like black silhouettes except along the edges, where the craftsmanship of 1920s architecture stood out in relief.

“Shay,” JT called over her shoulder, “where did your dad say we should go in again?”

“Main building, west side, rear window.”

“How’s a body supposed to know their easts and wests out here in no man’s land?” Eddy grumbled.

“Ah, ye of little faith.” Coop walked around JT and steamed purposefully forward through the snow. We followed, although he quickly outdistanced us, his long legs churning up the snow. Before long he disappeared around the side of the biggest structure. At least he plowed a path for us to follow.

When we made it around the building, Coop was crouched next to the window closest to the corner. Thankfully this side was out of sight of the occupied buildings in the distance.

“That it?” I asked. Snow squeaked underfoot as we huddled around Coop.

“I think so.” He grunted and struggled to fit his fingers between the window frame and the window itself. He pulled, but the window stayed put. He gave it another yank, and suddenly the window swung upward so fast that Coop flew back, burying his ass in the snow.

Stress does funny things to me and tends to make me laugh at inopportune times. This was one of them. I held out a hand and tried to stifle a hysterical giggle. With a dirty look, he grabbed my hand and allowed me to haul him to his feet.

JT said in a low voice, her hand on the butt of her gun, “You guys might want to keep it down.” She scanned the area for potential trouble. The last thing we needed was to draw attention to ourselves because one of us was howling like a raving banshee. Although we were in the perfect place for the sort of thing.

I glanced over at the open window again, and for a second I couldn’t register what I was seeing. Then I realized Eddy’s legs were sticking out of the opening. Someone had decided to go spelunking before we were ready.

“Oh boy,” I muttered and scampered over to the window, JT and Coop hot on my heels.

“Eddy, what in the hell are you doing?” I wasn’t exactly polite in my query.

Eddy’s voice was almost lost in the void. She viciously whispered, “Stuck.”

I grabbed one of her wriggling legs, and JT managed a grip on the other. Coop tried to snag Eddy’s ankles, but she was thrashing too much.

I successfully repressed a new peal of mirth. “Do you want us to pull or push?”

“Pull.” Eddy’s tone was harsh. “I’ll never get back out of here if you manage to shove me in. No way do I want to be stuck in here with lunatic boogeymen. ’Sides, it stinks.”

Coop eventually managed to secure one ankle, and we all heaved. Eddy popped out of the window like a cork from a bottle of cheap wine, landed on her belly, and skidded a few feet backward.

“Okay,” she choked out after she expelled a bunch of the white stuff from various facial orifices. “Leggo.”

We dropped Eddy’s legs, and they plopped heavily into the snow.

JT helped her up.

“Dang,” Eddy grumbled as she wiped her face with her sleeve, “need to lose a little weight in the old maxillous gluteus.” She rubbed her butt with both hands. I almost corrected her, and then thought better of it. With her nose scrunched, she said, “Guess I’ll be the lookout. Again.”

JT said, “I’ll stay out here with you, Eddy. We can both keep watch.” I loved my diplomatic girlfriend. She had an innate ability to choose the right words that would calm the situation and move it forward. I knew she’d rather be inside with Coop and me, but someone needed to keep a clear head outside and also make sure Eddy didn’t do anything else rash. I was going to owe JT big time after this.

“Okay.” I started toward the window when JT caught my arm and pulled me to her and kissed me hard. She pressed her cheek against mine and whispered in my ear, “I love you,” then stepped back. Her midnight eyes bored into me, and I was powerless to look away. “Be careful. One yell and I’ll be in there so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

The heat of love suffused my chest, scalding deep into my heart.
How JT managed to put up with the cockamamie situations I
somehow (and all too often) found myself in was beyond my scope of comprehension. For a second it was just us in the blustery cold.

“Come on.” Coop interrupted my hazy love cloud and gingerly slithered through the window. A second later his voice floated out, “Come on, Shay.”

As I thrust my upper body through the window, it dawned on me to wonder why Dad wasn’t there on the other side to greet us. We were pretty much on time for once. The thought slid from my mind as Coop grabbed me under the armpits and dragged me all of the way inside. My feet hit the floor with a soft thud, and Coop didn’t let go until he was sure I had my balance.

I took a second to acclimate to the new surroundings. Eddy was right. The place reeked. It smelled of mold and cold and I didn’t want to know what else. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

“Shay.” JT’s voice floated through the window, and she stuck her head through the opening. “You guys okay?”

“Yeah. Just … a little freaked, I think.”

“Well, I have your back. Mind what’s in front of you, okay?”

“ ’Kay, babe.”

Coop switched on his flashlight. It dimly illuminated a room that looked like it had once been used for laundry. There were hookups for four machines along one wall, and a big old gray concrete washbasin was affixed precariously to another. The walls were an institutional off-white and mint green, the paint flakes littering the floor like oversized chunks of dandruff. Rusty-looking stains streaked under the spigots and down the walls, looking much like blood spatter in one of Dexter’s kill rooms. At least I hoped they were rust.

Plaster also peeled off the walls in chunks, and the corners of the room were piled with trash. Probably the refuse of sweet, innocent cherubs who dared each other to sneak into the insane asylum to party.

I pulled out my own flashlight and added its entirely inadequate beam to Coop’s. The black hole on the other side of the only doorway in the room beckoned. It was now or never. I felt a drip of nervous fear trickle down the back of my neck and shuddered. Between the cold stillness and the sweat-inducing fear that curled insidiously around my insides, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to force myself to move if we didn’t get the lead out now.

“Come on,” Coop whispered in answer to my unspoken need. “Let’s go find your crazy father.”