by Rysa Walker
“Sorry I’m late,” Tucker says, walking toward the house, where Neil has something cooking. Bacon, judging from the smell. Tucker’s stomach growls. Aside from a couple of cookies, he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. “It’s been one hell of a morning. You want to do the statement here or inside?”
“Statement? What the hell you talkin’ about?”
Tucker frowns. “You’re kidding, right?”
Neil just stares at him.
“The murder. The body you found last night.” Tucker takes another step forward, mostly to see if he can smell alcohol over the pervasive scent of bacon. It’s past noon, and Neil has been known to knock back a few.
“I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about. But come on in. My damn bacon is burning.”
He follows Neil inside. The man shuffles through the sparsely furnished living room and kitchen combo, takes the pan of bacon off the burner, then cuts the gas. Tucker shudders, again thinking of Martha. But that’s not the body he’s here to discuss.
“So, you don’t remember a murder last night?”
Neil chuckles. “You sound like a broken record, son. There was no murder. No guests, even. Calm as a cucumber all night. Spent most of it finishing off that new John Sandford book.”
“You called the station, Neil. A woman was dead in the bathroom of cabin number one. So much blood that you puked your guts out in the parking lot.”
Neil laughs, glancing up at the bandage on Tucker’s forehead. “Damn. You must have hit your head hard.”
“A dead woman in cabin one,” Tucker repeats. “Stabbed at least a dozen times.”
Tucker fights the urge to pull out his phone, to show the man the actual pictures that he, by God, took last night, but he knows the photographs currently on his phone aren’t going to help him make his case.
After everything he has seen today, he probably should have been prepared for the possibility that Neil wouldn’t remember. Hell, he should have expected it.
But he hadn’t allowed himself to expect it. He was still hoping for a rational explanation. Still is hoping for it. LSD in the water supply. Terrorism. Something that will explain all of this, and preferably something that doesn’t involve multiple people conspiring to gaslight him.
He has a brief flash from a few hours earlier, when he and Julie had found Chase Rey sitting on Martha’s lawn, mumbling it’s not real, over and over. Denial wasn’t an unusual reaction, given that the kid had witnessed not one, but two, tragedies in a single day. But now Tucker’s kind of wondering if maybe it wasn’t more than just denial. Maybe the boy had also seen something that he knew couldn’t be real.
“A body in cabin number one. Sounds like you been watching that Bates Motel show a little too much,” Neil says. “That thing’s messed up. Incest and murder and all sorts of crazy shit. Makes you wonder what the world’s comin’ to when they show that kind of—”
Tucker cuts him off. “You’re seriously telling me you don’t remember calling me last night?”
Neil narrows his eyes. “I am. And to tell the truth, I’m gettin pissed about this little prank of yours. I’ve got a good mind to call Chief Craven and—”
“Yeah, well, good luck with that,” Tucker says on his way to the door. “I’ve been trying all damn day.”
As soon as Tucker steps outside, he spots the crows. Three of them, perched on top of his cruiser. His windshield is splattered with white bird bombs, far more than he’d have imagined three birds could carry and still actually fly.
Tucker draws his gun on instinct. If the birds are at all alarmed at the sight of him raising the pistol and taking aim, they hide it well. The crow in the middle, the one from the library, with its odd white eyes, flexes a wing and—he would swear this on his parents’ graves—actually winks at him.
Tucker aims carefully, itching to pull the trigger.
“I don’t know,” Neil says conversationally from behind him. “Looks kinda risky to me. Unless you’re a damn good shot, you’re likely to hit your own car. Don’t think Craven would be too happy about that.”
Neil reaches back and slams the door behind him, hard. Two of the pests head for the sky. The third crow, the one with the weird eyes, takes wing as well, but just circles overhead. Tucker keeps the gun out and walks to his car, watching the bird warily. As he’s turning the car around, the ringleader of the flock lands on Neil’s battered roof and is quickly joined by half a dozen more.
Neil gives Tucker a sarcastic little wave as he pulls away, but he can barely see it through the spattered windows. It takes several minutes and exhausts most of his wiper fluid, but by the time he reaches the main road, he’s managed to clear away the worst of the mess. The windshield is still horribly streaked, but at least he can drive without ducking his head to peer between globs of grayish-white.
Before he turns onto the main road, Tucker reaches for his phone, hoping to try Craven’s number one more time. But apparently his phone is as tired of this game as he is, because the screen is now black. He pushes the button on top to try and reset it, but it doesn’t respond. Glancing down at the useless piece of tech, he laughs out loud. It’s a shaky laugh, though, and it deeply worries the part of his brain that is still trying to be objective about this literal shitstorm of a day.
The squawk from the radio is so loud that he jumps. Marty’s voice comes over the air, saying he’s managed to contact the sheriff’s office, but they told him that Hoyt went home sick a few hours ago.
“Are they having the same communications issues we are? Phones and internet down?”
“I don’t know,” Marty says. “Didn’t ask. You just said get in touch with Hoyt.”
Tucker cuts the call without signing off, reflecting yet again on the man’s utter inability to take the next logical step. Whatever you told him to do would generally get done, but he was incapable of taking even the slightest initiative.
Tucker has every intention of returning to the station to get started on paperwork, but his brain seems to have other ideas. When his car reaches the edge of town, he finds himself turning instead toward Haddonwood High. Daisy might have caught a ride with her sister, but the Hart is less than a mile from the high school. It’s a beautiful day, crazy occurrences notwithstanding. Tucker thinks the odds are good that she’ll choose to walk.
By the time he spots her, she’s barely a block from the Hart, so he can’t really offer a ride. But he needs to talk to her. While his reasons are partly selfish, he also doesn’t want her to find out about Martha Yarn from anyone else. She’s going to feel awful. Like she didn’t do enough to keep it from happening, since she was almost certainly the last person to see Martha alive. It will be upsetting no matter who tells her, but maybe he can soften the blow.
He pulls up to the curb in front of her and watches in the side-view mirror. A horrible thought hits him—she’ll walk right past. Not only will Daisy have forgotten their conversation this morning, she’ll have forgotten him.
Then she smiles and picks up her pace. He rolls down the window, but she’s already opening the door and sliding into the passenger seat.
“What happened to your car?” She laughs. “It looks like—”
It rips Tucker’s heart to see her smile fade when she reads his face.
“What’s wrong? Is it Dad?”
“No!” he says quickly. “No. Not your dad, and not Dani. It’s just…” He pauses for a breath, then asks the only question that really matters right now. “Do you remember our conversation this morning? After you patched up my head?”
She gives him a perplexed look and for a moment, he’s scared she’s going to say no.
“Of course. Even leaving aside the insane bits, I wouldn’t be likely to forget you scarfing down half a plate of cookies. Why do you ask?”
He sighs in relief. “I’ll explain later. I just wanted to let you know…Miss Martha’s dead. Suicide. Also Barb Starrett, the librarian.”
“Martha killed Ms. Starrett?”
&nbs
p; “No! Maybe I should start at the beginning.”
Daisy is in tears by the time Tucker reaches the part where he followed Julie Kennedy into Martha’s house and found the old woman’s body. He wants to pull her into his arms, to at least try to comfort her, but there are people—mostly schoolkids—walking past.
“I should have called 911 immediately,” she says. “Maybe someone could have gotten to her in time.”
“Don’t, Daisy. Don’t do that. You couldn’t have gotten through anyway.” He nods at his phone on the console. “Mine’s not working at all, but we tried landlines, cell phones—no response. Internet is down, too. I’m about to go to the station and see if I can find out what the hell is up, but…I didn’t want you to hear about Martha from anyone else.”
“Thank you,” she says, wiping away a tear with her sleeve as she reaches for the door.
“Daisy.” He takes her arm. “Seriously. You did absolutely everything you could have done. If anyone is at fault here, it’s me. I could have gone straight to her house instead of trying to find Julie Kennedy. If I’d done that, they might both be alive. Barb Starrett…” He exhales shakily. “I can’t believe she grabbed my gun. There will be an investigation once Craven gets back, and—”
“Hey. You couldn’t have known.” She stops and takes a deep breath. “Let’s make a deal. We both stop blaming ourselves and try to figure out what the hell is going on here. Because something is most definitely going on.”
“Yeah. Leaving aside the whole thing at the Pinewood, two women who live in the same small town kill themselves within hours of each other. That’s a very odd coincidence, but it could still be coincidence. Two who live on the same street in that town, though? Unless there’s some sort of suicide pact we don’t know about, it seems really, really unlikely. Plus we have communications down at the same time. People having hallucinations—not just you and me, but also Barb. Even the birds are acting bizarre.”
Daisy wrinkles her nose. “They certainly seem to have a grudge against your car. Do you think maybe it’s a terrorist attack? Maybe they put some sort of drug in the water supply? Hit the communications grid to isolate people? And that flu you mentioned could be a biological agent. Maybe we should cancel the film festival tonight. Reschedule Halloween and the bonfire at Tower…Farm.”
She frowns as she says the words, like something is scratching at her memory.
“You okay?” Tucker asks.
“Yeah. Just tired, I guess. My brain seems to be on the fritz. I keep having those moments where it’s trying to make a connection, but then it sort of slips away.”
“God, you and me both. I’m not sure how we’d put a quarantine in place, though…we just don’t have the manpower with the chief gone. As for canceling tonight, canceling anything at this late hour would probably be impossible, especially with communications down. And…I don’t know. Maybe we’ll learn something by having people together. There could be others who have questions about what’s been going on. Julie Kennedy told me Barb was acting weird…speaking in verse…even before the bird attacked her.”
“Could the bird be the problem? You said it looked sick. Maybe it has some sort of a bird flu that transmits to humans…making them…talk in verse.” Daisy shakes her head. “Never mind. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“None of this makes any sense,” Tucker says.
“True.” She glances down the street toward the Hart. “I need to get to work. Some volunteers from the band said they might stop by to lend a hand. I doubt Trent even has the doors open yet.”
“Sure. But…talk to Trent, okay? Talk to your sister, if you see her. Your friends. See if you can find out whether they’ve been experiencing anything odd without…you know…”
“Causing them to think I’ve lost my mind?”
“Exactly. I’ll check back with you in about an hour.”
Daisy gives him a little grin. “Does this mean I’ve been deputized?”
“Deputy Daisy. I kind of like the sound of that.”
“Yikes. That sounds like a character in a bad cartoon.” She laughs as she slides out of the passenger seat. “Deputy Gray works just fine.”
Tucker watches from the curb until Daisy is safe inside the theater, then turns around to head back to the station. When he arrives, he finds Marty snoozing, feet propped up on the dispatcher’s desk. Fair enough, since he’d been hauled out of bed earlier.
Tucker goes back to the small office that he shares with Marty, and for the next hour, he fills out paperwork. Three bodies. Three reports. The one about the woman at the Pinewood is probably an exercise in futility, but he fills it out anyway. It’s almost an act of defiance, as if failing to submit the report would be an admission that it never happened. And it fucking happened.
By the time he finishes at a little before five, he’s exhausted. Also hungry. It’s going to be a long night, and he needs fuel. He scratches out a note for Marty, props it on the desk next to the man’s boots, and heads back into town.
The fridge at his house is down to beer and mustard, so he doesn’t even bother going home. What he really wants is one of Sandra Lovett’s roast beef sandwiches and a giant coffee, but he’s resigned himself to a Chickwich and fries, since he’s pretty sure that Viola’s Best Bakery will be closed. The last time he saw Sandra, she was sobbing in Reverend Kennedy’s arms. Sandra and Barb have known each other forever, and it was a rare day that the two of them didn’t spend at least a half hour outside the bakery, sharing the latest gossip.
To his surprise, however, the bakery is open. It’s not one of the part-timers filling in, either. Sandra herself is behind the counter, talking to Principal Snyder—who Tucker still thinks of as “Old Man” Snyder five years after graduation. He doesn’t even know the guy’s first name, although he kind of feels like he should. Even though Tucker was pretty much a model student who was never once hauled into the office, being in the same room with Snyder puts him on edge. He half expects the principal to turn around and start yelling at him. Was the safety on, Tucker Vance? Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?
“…about poor Martha’s death,” Sandra is saying as she runs Snyder’s credit card. The charge goes through instantly, which seems strange to Tucker given that the internet was still down last time he checked.
“So sad, but what a peaceful way to die. No pain. No blood.” Snyder peeks inside the bag. “Did you forget the pie?”
“Oh, drat. I think I’ve lost my mind today.” She laughs, shaking her head. “I’ll have to run your card again, okay?”
Tucker pauses at the far end of the counter, looking down at the menu even though he knows it by heart. Something is very, very wrong with this scenario. Sure, people often throw themselves into their work when someone they love dies. He finished his last semester of high school with straight As because the only way he could forget about his mom and dad’s death was to lose himself in studying.
He definitely wasn’t laughing the very first day, though. Or even the first week. It was months before he could laugh without feeling guilty. Yes, losing your parents is a bit more traumatic than losing a best friend, but still. Barb Starrett’s body is barely even cold.
But it’s not just Sandra’s casual banter that catches his attention.
It’s the rhythm.
Da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum.
The rhyme.
Die, pie. Today, okay.
His stomach churns when he thinks of the scene in the library this morning. Roast beef is no longer appealing. A Chickwich—deep fried to the point where you can’t tell it was ever a living creature—seems much more likely to stick with him. He puts the menu down and begins to back away from the counter.
Sandra says, “Hold on. I’ll be with you in a second.”
Tucker is scared to speak, half convinced that whatever comes out of his mouth will be another verse in this bizarre skit. He just gives her a little wave and pushes the door open.
Barb Star
rett steps aside, narrowly avoiding a collision with Tucker as he spills onto the sidewalk. His hand moves down to his gun, holding it in place, but the very-much-alive librarian seems to have lost interest in suicide. She heads into the bakery, shaking her head in amusement. “Lordhelpme! He’s in a rush, I reckon.”
Four
DAISY
Daisy yanks the tape from the cardboard box, sending a cloud of dust into the air. Trent Jackson, the owner of the Hart, drops another box next to it and heads back to the storage closet for a third.
“I wish you’d mentioned these last week,” she says with a touch of annoyance. It’s probably not the best tone to take with your new boss, but Trent isn’t going to fire her. He spent the past few weeks teaching her how to use this ancient equipment. It’s too late to train someone else, and there’s no way that Trent is going to work it himself. She’s pretty sure he’s claustrophobic—he doesn’t come into the projection room unless he has to.
Unfortunately, that’s not his only quirk. His moods shift like the wind. Most of the time, he cheerfully goes about the task of renovating the place. But every now and then, she’ll catch him looking around the theater in abject horror, like he’s wondering why in hell he’s here. Daisy mentioned this to her dad when he asked how she was liking the job. He said Trent probably took out a big loan in order to fix the place up and is terrified it won’t make enough for the venture to pay off. And while her father quickly added that he didn’t know that for certain—it was just a guess—the man works at the bank. Which means he probably does know for certain, but there’s some sort of banker’s code, like attorney-client privilege or doctor-patient confidentiality, that means he’s not supposed to say.
Trent adds the new box to the stack. “I told you before that Jill had hundreds of them. Just stick with the stuff you picked earlier. Nobody’s going to know one way or the other.”
