Outcast In Gray

by M. Glenn Graves

She waved for him to follow and he did. Starnes looked at me with great exasperation.

  “We need to keep moving,” Starnes said after Rosey and Aunt Jo had left the room.

  “We also need to eat. You don’t trust Aunt Jo’s cooking?” I said.

  “On the contrary. She’s known for her … recipes. Far and wide. You’ll be delighted that I didn’t argue. But, we have to go by two o’clock. I want to visit with K.C. Higgins.”

  “Yeah. Can’t wait.”

  “It’s a lead,” Starnes said.

  “Not much of a lead, but a lead. Does this mean that we’re going to chase down everybody who played checkers with Hack Ponder?” I said.

  “If we have to,” Starnes said.

  The lunch that Rosey and Aunt Jo put together for us was beyond comparison. Aunt Jo made up some kind of chicken salad that contained enough fruits and berries to be considered a dessert by any measurement, except for the chicken. She also whipped together some apples for a pie. It rivaled anything my mother and Sarah, our cook and housekeeper as well as close friend, had conspired together from the days of my youth. As one might expect, Aunt Jo had a concoction of tea leaves that made most homemade tea-makers cringe in disbelief. The end result was that our little foursome faired pretty well for such an impromptu, last minute affair. I wish I could do as much with hours of preparation.

  We left Aunt Jo’s a few minutes after two. The dogs were tired out from their romp around Aunt Jo’s wilderness. They were both spread eagle in the back of the Jeep headed towards a deep sleep.

  We had learned little else about K.C. Higgins during our lunch except that K.C., short for Kewtie Cecilia, had in fact been a consistent visitor with Aunt Jo during her younger years. Many of our questions were stealthily avoided and generally unanswered by the wily Josephine Starling. The lady was a master at not answering questions which she did not want to answer. A requisite for any budding politician.

  Aunt Jo also told us that K.C. Higgins lived back across the county in Gabriel’s Creek. It was located on the southern end of McAdams County not far from the Ivy River.

  “Any impressions of our Josephine Starling?” I said to Rosey.

  “You may have understated her cooking acumen.”

  “Besides that.”

  “She’s not much of a chatter box, although her stories are intriguing once she’s a mind to tell you something,” he said.

  “She never lies,” Starnes said. “She may avoid the whole truth like a dreaded skin disease, but she will never lie to you. She cleverly deceives people by telling them the truth. It’s an interesting technique which I have never mastered.”

  “It’s because her truth is often so far out there that most folks couldn’t conceive of it as being truth,” I said.

  “Maybe, but it’s also because of our perceptions as people. We perceive the world to be one way, when, in fact, it may not be according to our perceptions. We don’t allow for much diversity, at least as much as life may actually provide us,” Rosey added.

  “The Oxford scholar comes forth and extols a philosophy worthy of his academic achievements,” I said.

  “Mock me if you will, but I suspect I am correct about her,” he said.

  Despite my teasing, there was much in what he had espoused and I was a little envious in that he thought of it before I did, as if I could have conceived of such on my own. I might never admit it publicly, but Rosey had me in the academic world.

  We drove to the other side of Athens and then turned left heading towards yet another section of McAdams County which was new for me. We were driving into Gabriel’s Creek to have a talk with K.C. Higgins. Like most of the people we visit in these new places for me in this county, K.C. lived at the far end of this latest one. As the crow flies we were close to the Ivy River. We were further west along the Ivy than where we had found the first human remains.

  Starnes had checked in with Sheriff Murdock to keep him informed as to what we knew or didn’t know, and where we were going. He wasn’t altogether pleased, but since he was now convinced that something or somebody was killing his constituents, he was willing to give us a little more rope by which we might hang ourselves ultimately. Besides that, Starnes needed to ask directions to K.C.’s place. Buster Murdock had no idea where K.C. Higgins resided, but he had a deputy, Ben Bevel, who raised dogs and had known about K.C. Higgins as well as utilized her particular canine skills. Deputy Bevel had also tried to ask her out for a date according to Sheriff Murdock. Bevel had been unsuccessful in procuring said date with Miss Higgins and had stopped going by there to talk about dogs. Fortunately for us, Deputy Bevel still remembered the way to her place.

  We arrived well after 3 p.m. The sun had gone behind some clouds and it looked like rain was coming again. In fact, the cloud cover was fairly expansive and it was unusually dark for that time of the afternoon.

  Our dogs were still deep into sleep in the back of the Jeep so I let them stay that way. No sense rousing them if we were going to encounter other dogs on this visit to K.C. Higgins.

  Higgins’ place seemed to be well kept. The house was a wood-framed structure with dark brown shutters on the two front windows. The wood-framed front porch was screened and painted brown to match the shutters on the other windows of her house. The porch did not extend from side to side as most porches. It was perhaps twelve feet across and had been added to the house as an afterthought, or so it seemed to me. However, the oddity of her porch for me was that its length was far greater than its width. The end result was that she had about the same square footage of porch space as many people have except that the length of it ran from the front door toward the gate of her small front yard. It was more like a long corridor from the gate to her front door. This gave the rather interesting appearance to me that she had a long tunnel-like construction on the front of her house instead of a porch. But then, it could’ve been just me and where I grew up.

  On the right side of the house, the side by which we approached, there was a large kennel-like structure with heavy gauge wire used to fence in the area. There were several individual compartments with large dog houses in each section. The dog houses were big enough for me to crawl inside. The ground area of the entire kennel complex was covered with nearly five inches of cedar shavings. The caged area was well kept. Comfortable for the animals and clean. Her well-kept dog lot would rival any professional kennel that I had ever been around. It was obvious to me that this woman loved and cared for her animals.

  There was no barking coming from the kennel space. I rattled one of the heavy-gauged gates of the kennel to see if anybody was at home. Perhaps they were all enjoying an afternoon siesta. A dog’s life, so to speak. No one was aroused by the noise I made.

  “I count ten houses and compartments. You think one animal to a space?” Rosey said to me.

  “Depends on the size, doesn’t it?” I said.

  Starnes walked over to where we were standing in the yard.

  “I’d say one to a slot unless she is mating them,” Starnes said.

  “A breeder?” I said.

  “What I’ve been told,” Starnes said.

  “Anything else?” I said.

  “Only the obvious—she knows dogs.”

  “Well, apparently she’s not home and neither are the canines,” I said.

  “Time to go,” Starnes said and headed back to the Jeep.

  Rosey and I followed.

  Our dogs were awake by this point. Sam wanted to take a bathroom break. I could tell by the desperate look in his eyes. I opened the back end for them to escape. Sam jumped out and ran towards the kennel area. Dog remained in the Jeep looking around her strange environs cautiously. She seemed reticent to leave her safe haven.

  “You can go too,” I said to her.

  She sat down and watched Sam cautiously. Her eyes never left him for a moment. Something was up.

  “These two have a spat?” I said to Starnes.

  “Not that I know. Maybe something happened during
the night.”

  Dog began to whine a little. It wasn’t loud, just audible enough for me to hear her.

  “You okay?” I rubbed her head while she continued to watch Sam as he sniffed around the outside of the kennel fence.

  I watched him as he made his usual procedure in figuring out a space. Unlike most dogs, Sam was methodical with his sniffing and investigating. He seldom darted from scent to scent. He inhaled one small area at a time before moving to the next fragrance. I watched him turn the corner on the far side of the kennel. Sniffing and moving slowly.

  Dog whined louder.

  “Something’s amuck,” I said.

  Starnes walked back to where Rosey and I were standing behind the Jeep.

  “Dog refuses to leave the Jeep but she’s definitely concerned about Sam and his sniffing.”

  “Maybe she’s afraid because of the dog odors around this place,” Starnes said.

  “Rub her head while I go see what Sam is investigating.”

  Just as I turned the corner on the far side of the kennel where Sam was busy with his ongoing analysis, I heard the loud cry. It was coming from the woods directly behind the kennel. It wasn’t human, but I could not immediately discern the source.

  Sam bolted towards the woods.

  I called out to him, but he was gone in a breath.

  “Let’s go,” I yelled to Rosey and Starnes and they quickly followed.

  I ran some fifty to sixty yards into the woods following a path before I slowed. Starnes and Rosey quickly joined me. Sam was not to be seen. I was listening for some sounds, but our heavy breathing from the run made that difficult.

  “Was that a coyote?” I said.

  “Don’t think so,” Starnes answered.

  “Sounded like a wolf to me,” Rosey said.

  “There aren’t any wolves in the North Carolina mountains,” Starnes said.

  “I think there’s at least one,” he said.

  “That could be some other type critter,” Starnes said.

  “I’ve heard wolves cry before. That sound came from a large wolf. I would bet my life on it,” he said.

  I yelled for Sam. I paused to listen for an answer. Nothing but silence.

  I yelled again and again. Pause. Silence.

  “Should we keep going deeper into the woods?” Starnes said.

  I shook my head. “I have no idea which direction he ran, so it would be a waste of time. Let’s go back to the Jeep and wait.”

  We walked slowly in the direction of the Jeep. When we turned the corner of the kennel we could see the Jeep. Dog was still sitting in the back, but this time she was watching us.

  Sam was on the ground. Motionless.

  35

  “He’ll be okay in a few hours,” the voice from the house porch spoke when we reached Sam and the Jeep.

  I checked him for a pulse. His heart was thumping away.

  The person who had spoken to us approached. Tall with long black hair, she appeared to be in her early thirties. She was young looking, but had the look of experience about her. It was the same woman I had encountered a day or so ago when I was hiking behind Starnes’ place. She was the woman with the very large dogs.

  “He approached me at a full gallop in the woods and I couldn’t tell if he was going to attack. I shot him with a tranquilizer just to be safe. He’ll be drowsy for the rest of the day, but nothing you should worry over.”

  “Was he approaching you angrily?” I asked knowing the answer already.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact he did. He really left me no choice but to disarm him and protect us.”

  “Us?” I said.

  “I was with my dogs.”

  She nodded in the direction of her kennels. I turned to look. The two front cages each had a massive dog like the ones I had encountered with this same woman a couple of days ago. The dogs in the cages looked even larger than they looked when I first saw them on the trail.

  “The same dogs that were with you when we met the other day?” I said.

  “We’ve met?” she looked puzzled.

  “Yes, Sam, Dog, and I were hiking over in the Shelton-Laurel area when we first met you.”

  “I’m sorry. I have no recollection of any such meeting.”

  “Well, it was sort of a non-descript kind of running into someone over there on one of the trails. Perhaps you ran into more than one person with dogs that day,” I was trying to be polite.

  “Sorry. I have no memory of anything like that.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just glad Sam didn’t attack you and eat you alive,” I said.

  “I always carry my tranquilizer gun. One never knows who they will run into.”

  “Who, indeed,” I said.

  She turned and walked briskly back to her house without offering to help put Sam in the back of the Jeep. Rosey grabbed Sam’s back paws while I wielded his front ones. We laid him gently next to Dog who hadn’t moved from her earlier position. I checked Sam’s pulse once more. Steady. His eyes were glazed over but he was still with us.

  “Let’s go before I decide to shoot her with my tranquilizer gun,” I said.

  “You don’t have a tranquilizer gun,” Starnes said.

  “I don’t usually call it that, but it has a tranquilizing effect on my targets. I want to get Sam back to your place and be certain he’s okay.”

  “Not a problem. I don’t think our person of interest is overly excited about continuing any conversation with us at the moment,” Starnes said.

  A mile or so down the road towards Athens, we discussed our strange encounter with the tall woman.

  “Odd conversation,” Starnes said.

  “Weird,” I said.

  “Are you sure she’s the same woman you met earlier behind my house?”

  “Positive. I never forget a face.”

  “She never asked why we were on her property,” Rosey said.

  “Noticed that as well,” I said. “But I’m wondering how Sam got to that spot on the ground behind the Jeep. If she shot him in the woods, then he would immediately be limp. Someone had to carry him.”

  “She could’ve carried him,” Rosey said.

  “She’s tall, but that doesn’t mean she’s strong enough to carry a hundred-pound dog very far,” I said.

  “Her dogs are the size of small horses. Either one could have carried Sam to the spot,” Starnes said.

  “Well, for sure, someone or some animal transported him from wherever to the spot we found him.”

  “She may be stronger than she looks,” Rosey said.

  “Strange and strong,” I said, “intriguing combination.”

  “No matter what she is, we have to come back and talk with her. I’ll do some more checking on her,” Starnes said.

  “I doubt if Sam will want to return,” Rosey said.

  As soon as we reached Starnes’ house at the edge of Laurel Ridge in the beautiful and remote Shelton Laurel section of the county, Rosey and I carried Sam into the house and put him to bed. I figured he would sleep until morning. Starnes and Rosey went to the kitchen to fix supper while I sat on the porch. I called Rogers.

  “Hot dog, you remembered to check in,” she said with absolutely no enthusiasm.

  “Sarcasm does not become you,” I said.

  “Like it becomes you,” she countered.

  “Touché. I need some help.”

  “In so many ways.”

  “Research. Check on a woman named K.C. Higgins of McAdams County.”

  “It’s easier if you give me full names.”

  “Kewtie Cecilia Higgins.”

  “You jest.”

  “I jest not.”

  “Spell those names, especially the first. And if the first given is funky, then you will have to spell the second given name.”

  I spelled them for her without questioning her specific instructions.

  “If I had a leg, you would be pulling it about now, right?”

  “Not even if,” I said. “Those are the
names.”

  “Truth is stranger than fiction, they say.”

  “They do say that.”

  “I shall jump on this with lightning speed and get back to you forthwith.”

  “Forthwith,” I said.

  I went back into the house to check on Sam. He was deep into a comatose disposition, but his pulse was strong. While I was rubbing his neck and back—to soothe myself as much as to soothe him—I found the small dart that had carried the tranquilizing drug and had ushered him off to Never Land. I decided to bag it in case I might want to have the Asheville lab check it out later. A detective never knows whence a clue might show up. Even little pieces of a puzzle can sometimes tell me things important for a case.

  While I was waiting on Rogers to call back with whatever data report she might uncover on Kewtie Cecilia, I fell asleep on the front porch with Dog at my feet. When I awoke, it was nearly dark, I was famished, and a little chilled with the falling temperatures.

  “Let’s go find some grub,” I said to Dog who pounced to her feet and beat me easily to the front door at the mentioning of food. Apparently Dog was developing quite the vocabulary of synonyms for cuisine. I also wanted some warmth.

  We met Rosey who was standing near the door when we entered.

  “Supper’s ready,” he said.

  “For both of us?”

  “Don’t know about her, but it’s ready for you.”

  I looked at Dog and she looked at me, then at Rosey.

  “I think you might want to rephrase that or prepare to defend yourself.”

  “Then it’s ready for both,” he said with a smile for Dog.

  She trotted triumphantly into the kitchen ahead of us. I looked in on Sam before I joined my partners at the kitchen table for our evening meal. He was snoring away, dead to the world.

  “Sam still sleeping?” Starnes said as I sat down for the meal.

  “Deep,” I said.

  “He’ll likely come around tomorrow morning,” she said, probably more to reassure me than to offer any type of knowledgeable information from experience.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  There was silence for the first several minutes of our meal. I was about to ask a question when Starnes’ cell chimed loudly and abruptly. She swallowed her mouthful of food while the phone continued its disruptive tones.