The Dead Past (24 page)

“My Christ,"
Broghin
groaned. He scowled at Lowell and holstered the gun, backing out of the room. "Get everybody over there now." Lowell was on the move after him down the hall. I sprinted with them and said, "I'm coming.”

“No," Lowell told me. He grabbed me by the collar and stopped me solid. "Meg's gone home." Roy and the other deputy were already out the front door. The phone receiver was lying up on Meg's desk. "You stay on the line with them.”

“But ...”

“Do as you're told, damn it." In one fluid motion he grabbed a rifle from the rack and ran out.

I picked up the phone.

"Mrs.
Broghin
?"

"Who is this?" she breathed. Her voice was strained and hushed. "Lowell?"

"Jonathan Kendrick."

She let out a brief moan, clipped and quiet. "Johnny, where is my husband?"

"He's on his way." I sounded as ineffectual as I felt. My heart hammered, sand and salt formed at the edges of my eyes, and the windows were steamed over.

"Thank God," she said.

"Are you all right? Is my grandmother okay?”

“Yes, yes, we're fine." The wheelchair squeaked loudly behind her whispers.

Clarice wasn't listening. I heard the phone crackle against her blouse as she clutched it to her and turned, distracted, and I could imagine her looking out the windows at the foliage out front, the partition of maples, and the dark road beyond. A century ago the
Broghin
house had been a farm with several hundred acres, but each succeeding generation had sold off more of the land until it was now surrounded by less than three or four square acres. It was laid back at the rim of western dale, not fifteen minutes from the station, but secluded from neighbors nonetheless.

"Is there a gun in the house?" I asked.

Her murmuring proved awful to hear, fright cutting her voice into a staccato of gasps. "Frank's got a dozen of them, but they're all locked up in his cabinet and I have no idea where the keys are."

"Look for them. Put Anna on."

"The lights are dead." There was a disturbing sound in the background I couldn't make out. "
Why is it saying that?
"

"What?" This was the worst, I thought, unable to help or move or do anything but listen.

"There's somebody out there," she whimpered.

"Put Anna on."

"No!" she cried. "Don't you understand? I've never held anything so tightly before as this phone. Don't leave us."

"The police are on their way. They'll be there in a couple of minutes. You'll be all right. Let me speak with my grandmother."

The noise grew louder and Anna was talking, tone smooth and endearing as if she were speaking to a child. Clarice said, "Why does it keep saying that?" She began crying, husky, desperate weeping that consumed her, to the point where I thought she'd hyperventilate. There was another rustling of the receiver pressed against her, distant rumblings of a crude ethereal voice, and complaints and sobs as Anna struggled to take the phone and comfort her.

"Hello, Jonathan," Anna said. "Excuse
my
presumptions, but I somehow expected you to lead the cavalry."

"I'm supposed to be keeping you rational. What the hell is happening there?"

"It is lovely to hear your voice," she said, "and I'm glad I have the chance to speak with you. We were talking when the lights went out. Strange that the phone is still working, since they had taken the time to tamper with the power lines."

Sweat poured down my neck, landing with patters, and my mouth went dry. She acted as if we were telephoning to exchange household hints on the best ways to remove lipstick stains; I think I'm the only one in the world who could hear the diffidence beneath her controlled exterior. "Who is it? What are they saying?"

As always, she focused on the situation at hand. "I cannot be certain if it is a man or a woman. I believe it is a modified tape recording. Weird intonations keep repeating, 'You deserve your death, you've earned it.' The wind has risen and makes it even more difficult to distinguish." She held the phone out so I could listen, but the sounds were too indistinct. "There is more, but the voice is garbled, keening, almost subhuman. Doubtlessly, it was intended to have just the effect it's had on Clarice." She paused and said something reassuring to
Broghin's
wife, and I could hear Clarice speaking. Anna relayed it to me. "Over the past several nights they have been vexed with other forms of harassment as well."

"Since Richie's death."

"Yes, and we were correct in our assumption that obscenities were painted on the house. It read Love Kills. Rather trite, I'd say. There were also distressing phone calls that Franklin insisted Clarice not mention to anyone."

"More of his secrets."

"Foolish man." The keening faded as she spoke. "Wait. The voice has stopped." I could hear the phone cord snapping and untangling as she wheeled herself along. "Although the outside lights are out, too, the moon on the snow provides adequate lighting. I don't see anyone. An engine is turning over in the distance, at the bottom of the drive, I think. They're leaving. We're fine, Jonathan, don't worry."

She was doing a better job of reassuring herself than I was. "I should be there."

She said, "You are here."

Clarice gargled out nervous laughter.

Anna laughed, too, quite solemnly and briefly. "The sirens are nearby." Another two minutes or so passed. "Yes, here are the police cruisers pulling up now." The play-by-play further ostracized me from the moment, alone and safe in the police station while my grandmother was being hounded and threatened by a killer I was still no closer to catching. Failure upon failure, piled one on the other to attest to my lack of insight. "Now Franklin, Deputy Tully, and several other deputies are outside, poised and ready. The direct approach. I do hope they don't start firing at shadows." She
tsked
them. She
tsked
them, but not me.

Broghin's
voice was high and scared as he came through the front door. Clarice's cries of relief and
slurpy
kisses for her husband filled the line.

"Quite an exuberant reunion," Anna said. She lowered her voice. "Such a silly woman, really, one would think a sheriff's wife would have a bit more self-control. Hmmm, how odd. It appears that willow swatches have been left lying against the door. What a strange perpetrator."

Then
Broghin
, Lowell, and Anna were talking, and Clarice kept laughing and weeping. Roy said, "All clear around back," and somebody hung up the phone.

~ * ~

I ran a light and lost control on a slick patch, jumped the curb and took out a mailbox on Wisteria Way. The Jeep's bumper hooked a fire hydrant and broke off without argument, left skittering down the road. I nearly overturned before I got to the cemetery.

Winds blew the new snowfall in intricate layers strung across the tombstones. Moonlight reflected off the entire yard. Ice and stone sculptures rose against the backdrop of reaching trees, standing out in the night's brightness, blue-black and silver. Felicity Grave had taken on an almost pagan atmosphere, as if praying
madonnas
and reverent angels now worshipped Diana, goddess of the moon. Low-hanging branches scooped channels in the snow, and wood clacked solidly against wood.
Crummler's
shack was dark and lifeless. I banged on the door. There was no movement inside. I banged again.

From directly behind the doorknob, near the floor as if he had dropped to his knees,
Crummler
said, "Leave me alone!"

"It's Jonathan Kendrick."

"Oh."

Zebediah
Crummler
opened the door an inch and peered out; his eyes were as wild as ever, but the happy, manic energy had vanished. He clutched a tattered Bible to his chest, rocking it the way a child hugs a doll. His beard was threaded with barbs and splashes of sap. When he saw me he smiled and dropped the Bible, began snapping his fingers, shivering, fidgeting. "I am here, Jon!"

"I need to talk to you."

"My shoes have some mud on them now, but not too much." He ducked back inside, turned on a light, and brought me his shoes. "Do you see?"

"That's good," I said.

"Yes, I don't want you to get mad."

"I wouldn't be mad," I said. The wind blew hard against my back where my sweaty shirt was now freezing. I stepped around him and he shut the door and picked up the worn Bible. "I understand how hard it is to keep them clean when you work so hard to keep this place nice."

He shuddered, gyrated his hips, tapped his foot rapidly. "I like doing it."

"Did I scare you?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, grinning.

"I need you to take me to Potter's Field."

The smile stayed nailed to his face but his eyes dimmed. "I don't like it there."

"I know you don't," I said, "but I need your help.”

“You need
Crummler's
help?" he asked.

"To fight the forces of darkness," I said.

"From a
interdimensional
cosmos where the wraiths of gigantic demons seek possession of our very astral plane?"

"Yes."

"I will help you!"

"Tell me about the ghost," I said.

He wrapped his arms more tightly around his shoes and the Bible. "I don't want to."

Terror and ignorance walked hand-in-hand around this town unchecked, taking turns frightening elderly ladies and haunting the dim-witted innocent. Crew cut and his partner
were
playing games: teasing, heckling, badgering. I grabbed
Crummler's
shoulders and gaped at him in awe. "You?" I said. "Frightened? But you are
Crummler
! Hero of the unfortunate, saver of worlds. There is no one else I can turn to at this desperate time." It perked him up, and he started jitterbugging. "You have returned from battles with the dark corridors of far-off dimensions."

"Yes, yes," he said. "A war that has raged for eons in each of the infinite macrocosms; the deaths of fragile stars shine down on us. The forces of evil are forever being marshaled, chaos seeks to firmly establish a toe-hold on the Earth, but I will not fail in my efforts for I am
Crummler
!"

"Tell me about the ghost," I said, "who chases you with the willow swatches."

"My foe." He edged sideways to a wooden chair and sat heavily. "It was here tonight. I thought you were it, coming to chase and hit and yell bad things at me. It bangs on the windows sometimes."

"What does it look like?" I asked.

"It comes when it is cold."

"But what does it look like?"

"When it is cold, its face is covered. Bundled. Black and red. Scarves."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I kid you not, Jon."

"A man or a woman?"

"A demon."

Crap: I'd pressed him too far into his own mythos. He happily stared at me, put his hands up to his face and waved. You have to take everything in order, deal with exactly what you have at the moment. Somehow, you must control your impatience and take each separate event and coax them until they fit.