by Ronald Kelly
“What was the cause of death, John?” the chief asked him. He looked at Jamie’s still, white face. Her mouth was open and so were her eyes. They looked glazed, like the glass eyes of a doll.
“Just hold your horses, Stan, and I’ll tell you,” said the coroner. He started at the top of the head and moved downward. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. “Here it is,” he said, pulling back the collar of the letterman jacket.
Stan grimaced. A hole about four inches long and two inches wide was in the left side of Jamie’s neck, just above the collarbone. The wound was deep, but the tissue inside was blue and utterly bloodless. “What the hell happened to her?”
The coroner looked up at him, disturbed. “I’d say someone took a big bite out of her neck, for one thing.” He poked a rubber-encased finger into the wound and probed around. When he withdrew it, the tip was clean. “Hmmm,” he murmured to himself. “That’s odd. Let me try something.”
He took a scalpel from his bag and took the girl’s hand. He placed the blade against the bulb of her thumb, then sliced it open.
“Shitfire, John!” groaned Officer King. “Did you have to do that?”
“I’m trying to find out something important,” said Prichard. He laid the scalpel aside and squeezed the girl’s thumb hard. No blood appeared in the wound.
“So what’s going on?” asked Chief Watts.
John stood up, bewildered. “Well, Stan, it’s like this. The girl’s bloodstream…” He trailed off, staring at the body like he had never seen one before.
“Yeah, go on,” urged Stan.
“The bloodstream has been drained. Every last drop of blood has been suctioned from her body.”
“Good Lord! Are you sure?”
Prichard nodded. “Look at that wound on her neck. See how the tissue around the opening is extended, like the skin has been stretched? It took a hell of a lot of force, but something sucked the blood right out of her, through that one hole.”
“You mean to tell me that somebody did this to her?” asked Stan, feeling his breakfast jump around in his stomach. “Is that physically possible?”
“I doubt anyone would have the strength or stamina to suck six quarts of blood through a single opening in the human body,” said Prichard. “There are machines that could have done it, but not out here in the woods, and even then, not as thoroughly as this. Even the smallest capillaries are empty, and that’s damned strange.”
An unsettling thought crossed Chief Watts’ mind. “Was she sexually assaulted, John?”
The coroner scratched his head. “I won’t know that for sure until I do the autopsy, but I’d say no. When a rape occurs, the clothing is usually left opened or discarded. I see no evidence of that here.” Prichard looked down at the girl, a painful look in his eyes. “She was a pretty one, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Stan. “And she was nice, too. A real nice girl.”
The coroner nodded, then began to unfold a black vinyl bag. “Give me a hand here, Bill?” he asked.
Officer King hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
“Could you fax me a copy of the autopsy as soon as you finish, John?” Stan asked him.
“You got it,” agreed Prichard. Then he went to the grisly task of readying the body for transport.
Stan and Jay walked back toward the concession stand. “Have her parents been notified yet?” asked the chief.
Mathers looked over at the big man with the gray flattop. “The Bells are out of town on a second honeymoon. They’re in Orlando, Florida, but we haven’t found out which hotel yet.”
Stan thought of Jim and Nancy Bell. They were good folks. They didn’t deserve something like this. And neither had poor Jamie. “Have you traced Jamie’s whereabouts last night? If she was with someone?”
“I called her boyfriend,” Jay told him. “You know, Tommy Phillips. He said he and Jamie were here last night. He got kind of frisky and she got pissed off. Left the truck to cool off and never came back. He figured she met some friends here and caught a ride home with them.”
Stan turned and looked back toward the woods. Through the early morning shadows, he could see the yellow border tape and the shiny black material of the body bag. “Well, whoever she met, it wasn’t a friend, that’s for sure.”
Jay nodded solemnly. Together they went out to the trunk of Stan’s car to fetch the equipment they would need for their investigation. They had a hell of a lot to do that day and neither one of them was looking forward to doing it.
But they knew they had to. For the sake of Green Hollow, they had to do the best they could and, in the process, try to prevent it from happening again.
Chapter Eleven
Dudley Craven sat at the table, waiting.
He stared at his supper of white beans and pan-fried cornbread. The food was cold; he’d scarcely taken more than a couple of bites. He reckoned his mind was on other things and for good reason. It was almost sundown.
His hands trembled as he fished out his pocket watch and popped open the engraved lid. His heart began to beat a little faster. It was twenty minutes past five in the evening. It wouldn’t be long, that was for sure.
Dud left his chair and walked to the front window of the house. He could see off the mountainside from there. Through the trees, he spotted the sun peeking over the flat horizon of the valley below, as if it were pulling the earth up over it like a bedcover. The sky was brilliant with broad streaks of color: lavender, gold, and crimson.
The farmer walked back to the table and stood there for an uncertain moment. A sudden impulse to climb into his truck and leave the mountain as fast as possible flashed into his thoughts. But he dismissed it quickly. To do so would be worse than what he faced now. If Grandpappy awoke to find him gone, he’d see it as an act of disrespect and disobedience. He recalled what the old man had said about it being a sin to deny one’s kin, as well as the thinly veiled threat that had accompanied his words.
He paced the floor for a while, then looked toward the pantry next to the iron stove. Dud licked his lips and went over to the wooden doors. He paused for a second, then opened the doors. He found what he was looking for behind a sack of cornmeal.
He took the quart jar of moonshine back to the table with him. He unscrewed the brass lid and took a long swallow. The liquor went down like creek water, then turned into fire when it reached his belly. He glanced toward the window again. Long shadows fell over the glass. The sunset was growing darker, slowly changing into twilight.
Dud sat there for a while. As he sipped on the sour mash, he thought of what happened last night. His mind played like a movie he didn’t really want to see again. The pretty blonde in the letterman jacket stepping out of the restroom, hearing something, curiously looking around the corner of the concession stand. Then the shadow surrounding her, cutting off her scream, cutting off her life. After that, the rancid stench of blood and the rapping on the truck’s back window. But for some reason, the thing that stuck in his mind the most was that kid sitting in the ticket booth, waving at him as he left before the vampire movie was even over.
The farmer sat and brooded over that and other matters, thinking of things he could have done differently, perhaps more discreetly. Then, around six-thirty, he heard a thump echo from the crawlspace beneath the house.
Dud sat perfectly still in his chair. He listened carefully. Soon, he heard the creak of footsteps on the steps of the porch, coming slow, in no hurry at all. Then a knocking at the door.
Dud felt his muscles seize up for a second, as if they refused to budge from the chair. Then he sighed and got up. He walked to the door, hesitated for a moment, and opened it.
“Good evening, Dudley,” said Josiah Craven.
He stared at the preacherman. The old man looked well rested, a hell of a lot more than Dud. The farmer had gotten precious little sleep since he had made the mistake of pulling that stake loose.
“Evening, Grandpappy,” he said
.
“Well?” asked the tall man in the black suit.
“Oh, I forgot.” Dud stepped aside. “Come on in.”
Grandpappy walked into the cabin. He looked around at the crude furnishings and the lax way Dud kept house, shaking his gray head in disapproval. “Cleanliness is next to—” He caught himself before he could say the rest, smiling thinly. “Well, you know what I mean.”
“Sorry it’s such a mess,” apologized Dud. “I ain’t used to company.”
Grandpappy walked toward the long, oak table, then stopped. He looked at the jar of clear liquid, then back at Dud. “Liquor?” he asked.
“Uh, that’s right,” said Dud. He considered offering the man some, then sensed it would be a mistake.
“Put it away,” Grandpappy told him. “I’ll need you to be clear of mind tonight.”
“Yes, sir,” Dud said humbly. He screwed the cap back on the Mason jar and returned it to its place in the pantry. He turned around to find that the preacher had already sat down at the head of the table. Funny, he hadn’t heard the faintest sound of the chair scooting against the hardwood floor. “Can I get you anything?” he asked.
“All I need is information, Dudley,” said Grandpappy.
Dud sat down at the far end of the table. His hands fidgeted nervously on the stained top. “What sort of information?”
“I’ve been away a long time, Dudley,” said Grandpappy. “I want you to tell me about what I’ve missed. Tell me about my family.”
“The Cravens?” asked Dud.
“Yes,” said Josiah. He grinned with those strong white teeth of his. His eyes burned within the shadows beneath his thick brows. Dud didn’t like those eyes at all. They reminded him of the eyes of a rabid dog. “Take your time and leave out nothing.”
Dud swallowed dryly. He glanced over his shoulder at the pantry. He sure could have used one more drink, just to steady his nerves. Then he looked back at Grandpappy and sensed an impatience in the preacher’s stern expression. Abruptly, he forgot about the jar of white lightning.
“Well, here goes,” he said. He thought to himself for a second, then began to talk.
Chapter Twelve
Wendell Craven sat in the office at the rear of the church building, counting the offering for the morning and evening services. When he had finished, the total came to a thousand and seventy-two dollars. Wendell was a little disappointed and more than a little angry. His church was small; the congregation numbered four hundred and fifty, although that many never showed up on a regular basis. That morning the attendance had been four hundred and thirty-eight, and the collection plates had been a little lighter than he preferred them to be.
The preacher frowned as he stuck the bundle of wrinkled bills and personal checks into the deposit bag, along with the loose change the children usually contributed. After he had zipped the bag, he took a pen from his shirt pocket and jotted something down on a legal pad he kept on his desk, mostly for ideas for next Sunday’s sermon. Greed, he wrote. Money is only an earthly possession. It is valueless once one enters the Kingdom of Heaven.
When he was finished, he smiled to himself. He would have to lean on them a little harder.
Wendell took a ledger out of his desk and wrote down that Sunday’s total. The weekly offering was divided into quarters: a fourth for the support of Baptist missionaries, a fourth for maintenance of the church and its grounds, a fourth for adult and teen activities, including trips to religious retreats and conventions, and a fourth for miscellaneous. This included his own salary of twelve hundred dollars a month. Sometimes the fourth of a month’s total offerings failed to do the trick, so he subtracted from the missionary fund and added a little to his own to compensate for the loss. Wendell didn’t see the transfer as being dishonest in any way. No, it was more out of necessity than anything else.
The young minister returned the ledger and deposit bag to the desk drawer, then locked it with a key. He ran his tongue over his back molars, trying to dislodge a string of roast beef. And it was burnt roast beef, at that. The aftertaste of his supper still lingered, even several hours afterward. The roast had been dry and slightly scorched, the mashed potatoes lumpy, and the squash undercooked and underseasoned. And he couldn’t forget Tammy’s rolls, harder than a brick and almost as heavy on the stomach. Wendell supposed he should overlook her inability to cook a decent meal. He knew that she did her best, but sometimes it just wasn’t enough. Tammy had a lot of shortcomings, mostly due to laziness or naive ignorance, and it was usually up to him to set her on the right track, like with those sinful horror books. But despite all her weaknesses, he loved her. He just wished she would pay better attention to his needs. Was that asking too much?
Wendell got up from his chair and walked to a bookcase crammed full of biblical texts and sermon manuals. Greed, that’s what he was looking for. He smiled to himself. Yes, just wait until next Sunday. He’d have them lined up at the ATM at the Green Hollow Bank and Trust before it was over with.
He was pulling a leather-bound volume from a shelf when he heard a noise echo from the auditorium. Wendell laid the book on his desk. He walked down the hallway lined with classroom doors, then stepped out into the main chamber. The lights were on, illuminating the pulpit, the Yamaha organ, and the baptismal just beyond the choir pit. The hardwood pews, which had just recently been furnished with seat cushions, stretched the length of the auditorium. Beyond that lay the foyer with its coat racks and bulletin board.
The sound came again, louder this time. Someone was knocking at the front door.
Wendell pulled up the cuff of his white shirt and looked at his watch. It was eight o’clock. “I wonder who that could be?” he muttered.
When the preacher finally reached the foyer, the knocking had increased in force and urgency. “I’m coming!” he called. He unfastened the deadbolt. He hated locking the church doors at all, but he considered it necessary when he was counting the Sunday offerings.
He opened the door. “Yes?”
On the concrete stoop of the church stood an unshaven man dressed in dingy overalls and a baseball cap. Wendell flinched inwardly. He had an uneducated look to him and smelled as if he hadn’t taken a bath in several days. “Yes?” he asked again. “May I help you?”
The farmer respectfully removed his cap, revealing a pale, almost bald pate that was a shade or two lighter than his sunburned face. “Don’t you remember me, Wendell? I’m your cousin, Dudley, from your daddy’s side of the family.”
Wendell searched the man’s face and instantly saw the family resemblance: the firm jawline and the deep set of the eyes. He tried to remember the last time he had seen any of his family, other than Joan Andrews, who attended church every Sunday morning, and decided it had been several months. As Dudley Craven stepped a little closer into the light, Wendell recognized him. It was that farmer cousin of his who lived way up in the mountains—Uncle Edgar’s oldest boy.
“Why, of course, Dudley!” said Wendell, forcing a smile. “Sure, I remember you. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” He reached out and shook the man’s hand. It was warm and a little clammy.
“Yep,” said Dud. “I ain’t much of a churchgoer, I’m afraid. Haven’t been to Sunday services in, oh, I’d say ten years or so.”
“Well, we would certainly welcome you here,” Wendell told him, smile firmly affixed. A pure heathen through and through, he thought to himself in disgust. “So, what can I do for you, Dudley?”
“I need your help, Wendell,” said the farmer. He glanced nervously over his shoulder. “But not for myself. No, I’ve got somebody out in the truck there. Somebody in need of spiritual guidance.”
Wendell’s ego swelled a little. “Why, of course, I would be glad to help out in any way.” He peered past Dud into the darkness beyond. He could barely make out the gray pickup truck. It was parked at the far boundary of the empty parking lot, next to a stand of tall pines. “Why don’t you bring him inside?”
“Well…” sa
id Dudley, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “This fella, he’s got a thing about churches. Would you mind coming out to the truck and talking to him? I’d sure appreciate it.”
The young preacher felt a little annoyed at the inconvenience but was careful not to show his true feelings. He was a master at that. “It would be no trouble at all,” he said. “Let’s go talk with the gentleman.”
Wendell closed the door behind him, and together they started across the paved lot. “What seems to be this fellow’s trouble?” he asked out of curiosity.
“He’s lost his faith in God,” said Dud, not lying. “He thinks he’s got more in common with the devil than he does with the Lord.”
Wendell almost licked his lips in anticipation. He loved such challenges. “Oh, my! Well, we shall certainly do our best to show him the error of his ways.”
They reached the truck a moment later. Wendell glanced through the windshield into the dark cab. It was empty. “Where is he?”
“I dunno,” said Dud. He took a couple of steps back from the minister, keeping his distance. “Maybe he stepped into the woods yonder to take a piss.”
Wendell frowned at Dud’s vulgarity. He walked around the front of the truck, peering into the shadows that stretched between the parking lot and the pine grove. “Sir?” he called. “Sir, are you there?” He turned back to Dud. “What is his name?”
The farmer’s face looked pale in the darkness. “Josiah,” he said.
Wendell turned back toward the woods. Josiah. Something about that name nagged at him. He felt an alarm go off in his head, trying to warn him, but it was too late in coming.
A shadowy form seemed to rise from out of the ground scarcely five feet in front of him. Wendell Craven attempted to step back but didn’t have a chance. A face the color of candlewax emerged from out of the darkness, a stern face that seemed vaguely familiar to the Baptist minister. Then an equally pale hand shot out and grabbed him by the throat. Wendell pulled at the man’s hand, attempting to loosen his grasp, but it was no use. The elderly man’s fingers were like a steel collar around his neck. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t break their hold.
