Darker Than Night

by Goingback, Owl

  "Good evening, Sheriff," Mike said and stepped out onto the porch. "I didn't now you worked the graveyard shift."

  Sheriff Douglas grabbed his hat and a clipboard off the front seat and then closed the door. "I usually don't work this late," he said, walking around the front of the car, "but the wife of one of my deputies is having a baby so that leaves us kind of shorthanded. I agreed to come in a few hours early to take his place so he could be at the hospital with her."

  The sheriff saw Holly standing in the doorway and nodded toward her. "Morning, ma'am."

  Holly smiled. "Would you like some coffee, Sheriff? I can make a fresh pot." She stepped back out of the way as Mike and Sheriff Douglas entered the house.

  "Thank you anyway, but I just had a cup at the diner in town. If I drink any more, I'll get the jitters." Stepping through the doorway, he turned toward Mike. "The dispatcher said you called in a report of a possible prowler."

  "Yes, sir," Mike nodded. "At least I think we had a prowler. I didn't see anyone, but I have reason to believe someone was in the house tonight who wasn't supposed to be."

  Mike and Holly led the sheriff on a tour of the lower rooms, explaining what had happened earlier in the evening. They started in the library, pointing out the broken light bulb and the kachina dolls that had been turned around backward. They also pointed out the statues in the living room that were now facing the wrong way.

  As they moved from room to room, Jody checked the windows and doors, looking for evidence that someone might have broken in. Mike explained that he had already checked all of the windows and doors, and found them locked, but the sheriff went ahead and double-checked anyway. He also paused at several of the windows to shine his flashlight outside, looking for footprints or other evidence that an intruder had been present.

  The tour included the kitchen, with Holly and Mike pointing out the drawings of the faces that now adorned the tile floor. Sliding a kitchen chair back out of the way, Jody squatted down to better examine one of the faces. As Holly had done earlier, he ran the tips of his fingers over the drawing then sniffed them to see if there was any odor of paint. Straightening back up, he walked over to the door leading to the basement.

  "This door was locked when you came downstairs?" he asked Mike.

  "Yes, sir," Mike answered.

  "And you're sure it was locked before you went to bed?"

  "I checked it before I turned the lights off," Mike replied.

  The sheriff opened the door and worked the lock a couple of times, then tried to turn the knob. Shutting the door he tried the knob again. "There's no lock release on the other side, but this door might have been opened with a credit card. Did you have the chain on?"

  "I always use both the lock and the chain," Mike answered.

  Jody slipped the chain in place and then unlocked the door, opening it until the chain stopped the door. "It would be a tight squeeze, but someone might have jimmied the door open then slipped their hand through to remove the chain. "Did you check downstairs to make sure all of the basement windows were locked?"

  Mike admitted that he hadn't. "The door was locked, and the chain was still on, so I didn't see any reason to check the basement."

  Jody opened the door then removed the flashlight from his utility belt, switching it on. "I'd better go have a look."

  "Here's the switch for the basement lights," Holly said, pointing out the switches at the top of the stairs. The sheriff thanked her and then started down the stairs. He was only gone for a minute or two before returning to the kitchen.

  "All the windows down there are still locked from the inside, so there's no way someone could have gotten into the house through the basement — not unless you have some sort of secret tunnel down there." He closed the door to the basement and locked it.

  "No tunnel that we know of," Mike said.

  Jody turned toward him. "Those Indian statues down there, which way were they facing last you looked?"

  "They were facing out, their backs to the walls," Mike answered. "I turned them around myself when I was cleaning down there the other day."

  Jody Douglas smiled. "Well, they're not facing out now; they're all facing the wall."

  Mike felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up. "You're kidding."

  "I'm serious as a heart attack," Jody replied. "Whoever turned the other statues around must have also turned the ones in the basement."

  Slipping the chain on the basement door, the sheriff asked, "Do you mind if I have a look at the library again?"

  "Sure, by all means," Holly answered.

  Entering the library, the sheriff walked around the room for a moment, then walked back over to the lamp with the missing bulb.

  "Did you check the windows upstairs?"

  Mike nodded. "The windows on the kids' bedrooms and bathroom are locked. The one in our bedroom is open, but the screen has a locking latch on it."

  "And you say nothing was taken?" Jody asked. He bent over and picked up a piece of the broken light bulb to examine it."

  "Nothing is missing that we know of. But you know how it is with these things: you never realize that something had been taken until you look for it." Mike frowned. "Uh... shouldn't you be wearing gloves? I mean, you might be able to get fingerprints off of that."

  The sheriff dropped the piece of glass and straightened back up. "you watch too much television, Mr. Anthony. It would be rather hard to the fingerprints off of a fragment that small. Not that there is a reason to take fingerprints."

  "What do you mean?" Holly asked.

  "I mean, as far as I can determine, there was no crime committed here."

  "You don't call breaking and entering a crime?"

  He rubbed his chin and nodded. "Of course, breaking and entering is a crime. But so far I've seen no evidence that anyone has broken in here. You said yourself the doors and windows were all locked before you went to bed, and they were still locked when you came back downstairs."

  "Yes, but someone must have broken in," Mike argued. "And my daughter saw something moving in the hallway."

  "Something? You said your daughter saw a shadow." He looked around. "A big old house like this, late at night, probably has lots of shadows. I bet it creaks and groans a bit when the wind gets to blowing. I imagine it can be downright spooky to a child, especially to a child not familiar with her surroundings. I suggest you leave the hallway light on at night; that should get rid of any scary shadows."

  Mike was reluctant to accept the sheriff's explanation. "What about the kachina dolls? It wasn't a shadow that climbed up and turned those statues around backward."

  The sheriff looked at the shelf for a moment, then turned his attention back to Mike. "You sure those statues were facing this way when you went to bed?"

  Mike nodded. "I'm positive. I remember looking at them before I went upstairs."

  "Hmmm... but when your daughter woke you they were turned around the other way?"

  Holly didn't like the tone of Jody's voice. "What are you suggesting, Sheriff?"

  "Oh, nothing, ma'am. It just seems kind of funny to me that the dolls were turned around after she was in the library."

  "You're not saying that you think Megan had anything to do with this?"

  "The thought had crossed my mind. Maybe she was playing a practical joke on you. You know how kids are nowadays. Maybe she thought she would have a good laugh at your expense, but cut her foot and got scared. She might have made up the part about something in the hall following her just to stay out of trouble."

  "Megan wouldn't do something like that," Holly said, taking her daughter's defense.

  Again the sheriff shrugged. "Maybe. But you can never be too sure with teenagers."

  "What about the faces on the kitchen floor?" Holly asked. "You're not suggesting that she made those too."

  "No, ma'am. I'm not. Not unless the art supplies I saw in the room across the hall belong to her."

  "The are supplies are mine, but..." H
olly's face suddenly went red with anger. "Are you suggesting I drew the faces?"

  "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," Mike said, also becoming angry.

  "Is it?" the sheriff asked innocently. "Perhaps it is, but you have to look at things the way I see them."

  "And just how is that?" Mike asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

  Jody smiled, apparently amused by Mike's display of anger. "Well, I wasn't going to say this, you being a big-shot writer and all, but how do I know you're not making all of this up?"

  "Making it up?" Mike was shocked.

  The sheriff nodded. "Your grandmother claimed to see things all the time in this house that weren't there. She used to call the sheriff's office on a regular basis, at least three or four times a week. How do I know you're not doing the same thing? Maybe it runs in the family?"

  "I'm not making this stuff up."

  "So you say." Jody nodded thoughtfully. "I've also heard that the last book you wrote didn't do as well as expected."

  Mike was confused. "Just what are you saying?"

  "Maybe all of this is a way to drum up some free advertisement for your next novel. A newspaper article or two about a horror writer being besieged by an unknown prowler would be great press."

  Mike couldn't believe what he was hearing. "And you believe this?"

  Jody Douglas shrugged indifferently. "I'm just repeating what some of your contractors are saying."

  "Contractors? What contractors?" Holly asked, jumping back into the argument. "Which ones?"

  The sheriff turned to her. "The contractors who had to tear up a perfectly good floor because someone decided to draw a few spooky faces on it."

  "We did not draw those faces on it!" Holly exploded, her anger getting the best of her. "How dare they say such a thing."

  Jody just shrugged again. "They think you did, especially since they're the same kind of faces the old woman used to draw."

  Mike's heart skipped a beat. "What a minute. Hold on. You're saying my grandmother used to paint faces on the floor?"

  "Floors, walls, and on the ceiling too. Painted them everywhere, then claimed they were the faces of demon spirits trying to get through from the other side. She drove the previous sheriff nuts; that's why he hired a painter to paint the downstairs a dark green. The old woman couldn't bug him about the faces if she couldn’t see them." He stared hard at Mike. "Painting the walls and floor put a stop to the nonsense. At least it did up until now."

  Holly started to say something else, but Mike stopped her. "Sheriff, I assure you we aren't the ones who painted those faces —if they were painted. I can also assure you we won't be calling you again; Holly and I will get to the bottom of this ourselves. And we will get to the bottom of it."

  "See that you do, because I don't want to keep coming out here for nothing." With that, Jody Douglas bid them a good night and left, leaving Holly and Mike standing in the hallway.

  19

  Even though Mike went back to bed after the sheriff's visit, he didn't get much sleep. What the sheriff had said upset him. It also got him thinking. He lay in the bed, looking up at the ceiling, wondering who had drawn the faces on the floors and walls that had so badly frightened his grandmother, and why?

  He lay there, his mind filled with all kinds of possible answers, some as wild as the Hardy Boys mysteries he had read as a teenager. Were criminals behind the faces. Was an international ring of diamond thieves trying to frighten his grandmother, and now his family, away for the house so they could recover a stash of precious jewels hidden beneath the flagstones in the basement? Had gold been discovered on the property? Did the house sit overtop of a lost mine? Maybe oil had been struck when the deep well was drilled, the discovery a secret known only to the men who dug the well.

  Mike smiled. Diamonds. Gold. Oil. Now all he needed was a ragtag band of pirates and he'd have the perfect plot for a young adult adventure novel. With these thoughts dancing through his mind, he finally drifted off to sleep, awakening an hour later when the alarm clock rang.

  Megan's foot was still sore that morning, so they decided to let her stay home from school. Tommy, on the other hand, had no excuse to stay home. Despite his protests of unfair treatment, Holly and Mike made sure he got dressed on time, finished his breakfast, and was standing at the end of the driveway before the appearance of the big yellow school bus.

  Once Tommy was safely on his way to school, Mike and Holly sat down to a breakfast of French toast, lowfat turkey bacon, and several cups of coffee. Both of them found it rather difficult to enjoy breakfast in the kitchen, however, because of the faces that looked up at them from the tile floor.

  Although it was silly, Mike couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched, and their conversation listened to. It was all he could do to resist the urge to stomp on the face closest to him. For a brief moment he imagined stomping on the face and feeling flesh not tile, and the sensation of bone and cartilage breaking beneath the heel of his shoe, blood oozing bright red across the floor. That mental image did little to improve the taste of his food. In fact it made the syrup-laden French toast difficult to swallow.

  Nor would they have been more comfortable in the living room, for in that room the row of kachina statues lining all four walls were now turned around backwards. That was another mystery to be pondered, another sign that someone had been in their home last night while they slept. Whoever it was had been careful about turning the statues, for each and every one of them was turned around perfectly. None of the kachinas were half-turned, or only turned a quarter of the way. Nor had any been toppled over or knocked askew. They were exactly as they had been earlier in the day yesterday, only now they were facing the opposite direction.

  Trying not to look at the kitchen floor, they finished their breakfast and then cleared the dishes. Anxious to research some of the things Sheriff Douglas had said about Vivian Martin, Mike decided to make a trip to the Braddock Public Library. He invited Holly to go along with him, but she wanted to remain at home in case Megan needed anything.

  The drive into town was rather pleasant. It was a beautiful day out, the sky so blue it almost hurt his eyes to look at it. As he drove along State Road

  #315, Mike tried to imagine what the area had looked like before being settled by the white man.

  Here was the place the Osage Indians had once called home, living close to the land, taking only what they needed and no more. From what he had read, the Osages were supposed to be rather statuesque in height, with most of the men well over six feet tall. They had hunted the land long before the white man, their moccasin trails now the highways and service roads that cut across the state of Missouri. Where their villages had once stood were now cities and towns, communities filled with people.

  The Osage people were long gone, forced from their land by the encroaching white settlers. Only the names they had used for the land remained to mark their passing; only an occasional arrowhead or spear point found along the creeks and rivers spoke of their once proud nation.

  Cut down all of the trees and then name a street after them. Slaughter all of the Indians and then give their names to the towns, cities, and states. Put their images on currency, tobacco products, and automobiles to make a dollar off the things that are lost forever. It was the American way.

  As Mike drove along State Road

  #315, he wondered about the neighbors living closest to him. Could one of them be responsible for what was happening at his house? Had the same thing happened to any of them?

  Passing a farm on his right, he spotted an old man on a tractor plowing a field near the road. On impulse Mike slowed the van and turned into a graveled lane running parallel to the field. Parking the van, he climbed out and watched as the tractor slowed to a stop not ten feet from where he stood. The farmer switched off the engine and then turned to look at Mike.

  "Good morning," Mike called. "My name is Mike Anthony. I'm your new neighbor. I live in the old Martin house, on
Sawmill Road

  ."

  The farmer nodded. "You that writer fellow they wrote about in the newspaper?"

  Mike smiled. "That would be me, only don't believe everything they say about me. Newspapers have a tendency to exaggerate."

  The farmer climbed down off of the tractor and walked over to the barbed wire fence that enclosed the field. "I usually take what they print in newspapers with a grain of salt, especially if they're talking about politicians, celebrities or cutting our taxes." He reached across the fence, offering his hand. "I'm Otto Strumberg."

  Mike shook the man's hand. "Strumberg? Sounds like a German name."

  "It is," Otto said. "My great-grandfather was from Germany. He was one of the first famers to settle this area. One of many it seems. All of this area was originally settle by Germans. Some of the old people still speak the language. Don't speak a word of it myself, but my father could talk it like a native. He could also drink most men under the table when it came to good German beer. There used to be a brewery not too far from here, but it closed down a long time ago. My father used to work at the brewery, after he lost his job at the sawmill."

  "Wasn't there a sawmill around here once?" Mike asked.

  Otto nodded. "That's the one. Used to be located on that property you now own, pretty much near where your house is now standing."

  "What happened to it? Why did it shut down?"

  "It didn't shut down," Otto corrected. "It burned down."

  "Oh?" Mike said. "What caused the fire?"

  Otto scratched his chin. "I guess that all depends on who you talk to. Some say the fire was started by a spark landing in a pile of sawdust. Others say it was deliberately set."

  "What did your father say about it?"

  Otto shrugged. "He would never talk about the fire, and he flat refused to ever set foot on that property again. I guess coming so close to being burned up must have spooked him. It must have upset the other workers too, because none of them I knew would ever talk about the sawmill or what happened the night of the fire. And you couldn’t pay them to go back out on that property. Even today."