by Laura Childs
“Adorable,” purred Toni. “You said there’s two?”
“Over here,” said Mike, leading them to the next box stall. “This one was born just an hour ago.”
“Oh my gosh,” exclaimed Suzanne, gazing at the calf that was all legs and enormous, soft doe eyes. “What a beautiful baby.”
With wheels of Gouda, cheddar, and Swiss cheese packed in cardboard boxes on their backseat, Suzanne and Toni headed back toward Kindred.
“Do you know Earl is in the million-dollar club?” asked Toni.
“You mean Missy’s Earl?” said Suzanne.
Toni nodded. “She told me he’s already sold a million dollars’ worth of insurance.”
‘The thing is,” said Suzanne, “if an average life insurance policy is, say, a hundred thousand dollars, then you really only need ten sales to hit that number.”
“When you put it that way, the number’s not so impressive,” said Toni. “I guess a million dollars isn’t what it used to be.”
“Only if you have it, cash money, in the bank,” replied Suzanne.
Toni reached over and flipped a dial on the scanner. “For a lark,” she said. “Let’s just listen in.”
“Sure,” said Suzanne, gazing out the window, pressing her forehead against the cool of the glass.
“Hmm,” sniffed Toni. “Nothing but static.” She batted at the dial, trying to give it another twirl.
“Want me to do that?” Between Toni’s so-called flying and her fussing with the scanner dial, she wasn’t exactly the most conscientious driver on the road.
“Have at it,” replied Toni.
Suzanne bent forward and slowly turned the dial. It blipped and bleeped and a few crackly voices faded in and out. “Not much,” she said.
“Keep trying,” said Toni. “If you get, like, the highway patrol or something, it’s really cool. They’re always ten-fouring or ten-twentying about something.”
Suzanne worked the dial some more, picking up some hollow-sounding chatter, but nothing all that discernible or even particularly interesting. “No luck,” she told Toni.
“Wait,” said Toni, “you just went by something.”
Suzanne turned it back and the tuner burped a few words that sounded like “dispatch ambulance.”
“Hear that?” said Toni. “I think you got the EMT guys. Maybe a car accident somewhere.”
“Now it’s faded,” said Suzanne frowning. “I don’t think it’s the best . . .” she began, then hesitated as the scanner suddenly let loose a high-pitched beep and a man’s voice, crackly but understandable, uttered the words “red Mustang.”
“Say what?” said Toni, perking up.
Suzanne’s nimble fingers were already working the tuner, trying to pull in a stronger signal.
“... reported on County Road 47,” came the gruff voice again. “Eastbound.”
Toni cocked her head. “Sounds like that old coot, Sheriff Burney.” Sheriff Bill Burney was the sheriff in Deer County.
“. . . possible ten-twenty-nine,” came Burney’s voice again.
“What’s he babbling about?” asked Toni.
“He said red Mustang, didn’t he?” asked Suzanne, a little excited now. “I think that’s what he said.”
“And County Road 47,” added Toni. She cast a sideways glance at Suzanne. “What?”
“I think he might have been putting out a call on Bo Becker’s car,” said Suzanne.
“I thought you told me Becker skipped town,” said Toni.
“He did,” said Suzanne. “Does this look like town?”
“Noooo,” said Toni, slowing her car slightly. “In fact, if we backtracked a mile and cut over that twisty old sawmill road, we’d intersect with 47.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been out that way,” said Suzanne.
“That’s ‘cause it’s like ... the back end of the county.”
“I’m sure all the local residents would be thrilled to hear you talk that way.”
“Are you kidding? Hardly anybody lives out that way,” said Toni. ‘There’s just an abandoned church that’s half falling down.”
“Huh,” said Suzanne, thinking.
“You want to check it out?” Toni asked. “Because we could ... like ... be over there in ten minutes.”
“No way,” said Suzanne. “We should stay out of this.”
“Yeah,” said Toni, speeding up again. “You’re probably right.”
“On the other hand,” said Suzanne, “I did kind of promise Missy...”
“You sure did,” said Toni, whipping her car into a quick u-turn before Suzanne could finish her sentence.
“But we gotta be careful,” cautioned Suzanne. “If Bo Becker’s driving around out here or, for some reason, parked his car out this way, we gotta make sure law enforcement moves in first. Then maybe we can cruise in, real casual like.”
“How are we going to explain our showing up?” asked Toni.
“If anybody asks, we’ll tell ‘em the truth,” said Suzanne. “That we were out this way and heard the broadcast on Junior’s police scanner.”
“Scanners aren’t illegal, are they?” asked Toni.
“Not that I know of,” said Suzanne. “I think you can pick one up at any Radio Shack.”
“Okay then, that’s our plan,” said Toni, putting the pedal to the metal and barreling down the road full-bore. They found the turnoff for the sawmill road and turned onto it, a narrow blacktop road filled with twists and turns and dipsy-doodles.
“This is like a roller coaster,” said Suzanne.
“But kind of fun,” added Toni.
Suzanne peered out at scraggly pines and what looked like soggy fields and wetlands. “You’re right, not a lot of homes out this way.”
“Bad farmland, I guess,” said Toni. She came up a narrow draw, then hit the brakes when her headlights caught the marker for County Road 47.
“Now what?” asked Suzanne, as Toni’s car rumbled beneath them. “We went through so many twists and turns it’s hard to tell which way’s east.”
“Hang on a minute,” said Toni, “while I consult my onboard navigation system.”
“Wow,” said Suzanne, impressed, “where did you pick up one of those gizmos?”
Toni reached down into a pile of empty Lay’s Potato Chips bags and Zagnut wrappers, and pulled out a tattered map.
“At the Sunoco station,” said Toni with a laugh. She turned on the overhead light, wrinkled her brow as she studied the map, then said, “left.”
They drove for the next three miles and didn’t see a doggone thing. One desultory-looking farmhouse with a dim yard light, but nothing else. No red Mustang, no Bo Becker hunkered down with an accomplice, nothing.
“Disappointing,” muttered Toni.
Suzanne leaned forward, concentrating on the road. “I think that might be the turnoff for that old church you mentioned. Just up ahead.” There was a broken wooden cross on a hill of weeds.
“Take a look,” said Toni, pumping the brakes and cranking the steering wheel. And then they were creeping down a road where patches of dead yellow grass far outnumbered the hunks of broken blacktop.
“What’s that up ahead?” asked Suzanne. It was swampy out here and a faint ground mist permeated the atmosphere, making everything slightly dreamlike and out-of-focus.
“The old church,” said Toni. “Guess when everybody moved to town the parishioners just let it go to rack and ruin. Or else they all died off.” She crept ahead slowly, then rolled to a stop in the patchy weeds that flourished directly in front of the church. “Nobody here,” she said. “Not even the sheriff or highway patrol.” She sounded even more disappointed.
“Must have missed him,” said Suzanne.
“Just a wild-goose chase,” agreed Toni. “Well, it would have been interesting.”
They sat in the dark for a few moments, each lost in her own thoughts. Finally Toni turned her gaze on Suzanne. “Maybe we should take a quick look-see?”
“Y
ou think?” said Suzanne.
In answer, Toni leaned over and popped open the glove box, pulled out a flashlight.
“Flashlight,” said Suzanne. “Good.”
“Ah,” said Toni, grinning, “this isn’t just an ordinary, garden-variety flashlight. It’s a combination flashlight and stun gun.”
“You’re not serious,” said Suzanne.
“Sure. Junior got it for me. He’s nuts for any kind of crazy gadget.”
“You know,” said Suzanne, “maybe Junior really is delivering auto parts, after all. Except you better watch out which end of that thing you turn on.”
“You got that right,” Toni said with a laugh, as they both climbed from the car.
“We probably shouldn’t be doing this,” said Suzanne, glancing about nervously.
Toni nodded. “I know.” She buttoned her jean jacket, turned on her flashlight, and bounced the beam around. The thin stream of light cut through the night. Toni shuddered. “Cold.”
“And spooky,” added Suzanne. For some reason, most of the nearby trees appeared half dead. Maybe they’d drowned from encroaching swamp water, or maybe they’d just succumbed to Dutch elm disease or some other tree malady. It also didn’t help that a sharp wind had sprung up. Sweeping through bare, dead branches, it made them click and clack like rattling bones.
“Lookit the church,” Toni pointed out. “Completely falling apart.” They moved toward the dilapidated structure, saw that years of hard weather had stripped every speck of paint from the wood, giving the old building a sodden gray color.
“Roof’s caved in, too,” added Suzanne, noting that the few curved beams that had once formed the roof now looked decidedly like ribs. “Sad that an old church ends up abandoned and broken down like this.”
“There’s nothing going on here,” said Toni. “If Bo Becker was seen out this way, this sure wasn’t one of his stops.”
“Maybe ... check in back?” asked Suzanne.
They stumbled around the side of the church through the weeds, but there was nothing out back but an old cemetery.
“Now this is certifiably creepy,” said Suzanne as they stepped tentatively between a row of gravestones.
“These graves are really old,” said Toni, flashing her light on a row of stone tablets pitted with age. Canted in all different directions, they looked like broken teeth. “This one dates to the eighteen hundreds.”
“I wonder if the descendants still come out here?” mused Suzanne. “To ... you know ... visit the graves?”
“Doubtful,” said Toni. “This whole place looks abandoned. No perpetual care here. Or sign of any relative who’s come to visit.”
‘The grass hasn’t even been mowed,” said Suzanne. “Kind of sad, really.”
Toni flashed her light around again. “Nada,” she said. “Time to go?”
“Wait a minute,” said Suzanne. Either her eyes were playing tricks on her or she’d picked up a flash of something. “Shine your light over that way again.” She pointed toward a distant outcropping of trees.
Toni ran her beam across a round-topped crypt that stood maybe six feet high, then across the statue of an angel whose head had long ago been lopped off. “Nope,” she said. “Nothing here.” She kicked at something with her toe, frowned, then aimed her light downward. “Weird,” she muttered.
“Hm?” said Suzanne. She’d already turned to leave.
“It’s like dead flowers,” said Toni.
“Everything’s dead out here,” said Suzanne. She looked back. “Are you coming?”
“No,” said Toni, “I mean, like, recently dead.”
“What are you talking about?”
Toni took a step back and moved her light across the ground. There, scattered in an almost semicircle around her, were a dozen or so half-dead lilies.
“Oh crap!” exclaimed Suzanne.
“What?” asked Toni. “You think somebody’s been here?”
Suzanne nodded.
Toni’s teeth were chattering now. “Are these like ... funeral flowers?”
“I think so,” said Suzanne. She gestured with her hand. “Gimme your flashlight.” Toni handed it over. Slowly, Suzanne moved the beam across a row of gravestones, past a cluster of wrought-iron crosses, over a waist-high tomb, toward the very back of the cemetery. A tiny sparkle of red seemed to taunt and glint. “Look there,” cried Suzanne. “Over to the left.” The vastness of the surrounding woods seemed to suck up the light, but Suzanne still thought she’d caught a faint illumination of red.
“What is that?” asked Toni. She’d seen it, too.
“Almost like a reflection from a taillight,” said Suzanne.
“Holy smokes!” cried Toni. “There’s a car over there?”
The two women stepped carefully through waist-high grasses, moving slowly and nervously. Finally, as they drew closer, they were able to see the dark outline of a car parked beneath a gnarled oak.
“Definitely a car,” said Suzanne.
“What if it’s Becker’s car?” asked Toni. “What if he ditched it here and made a switch or something? Had an accomplice? Here, give me that light.” Toni took the light and walked slowly toward the car. “It’s red,” she called back. “Mustang.”
“Becker’s,” said Suzanne. She reached up, pushed her hair behind her ears, listening for footsteps. For danger. Out here in the darkness, she’d noticed that her eyes and ears seemed to play tricks on her, while the wind whipped by and touched her with chilly tendrils.
“We gotta call this in,” said Toni. ‘This is big-time.” She spun back toward Suzanne, her light tracing a circle.
“Dear Lord!” Suzanne gasped suddenly, her voice tight with fear. Toni’s moving flashlight had picked up a dark shape that suddenly materialized right beside her.
“Huh?” said Toni abruptly. She frowned, glanced at her friend, and aimed her light at the thing that seemed to hold Suzanne in a grip of terror.
There, hanging from a tree limb, slowly twisting in the wind, was a dead body.
“Oh my God!” Now Toni’s voice rose in a pained, horrified wail. “You see those black motorcycle boots? I think it’s . .. it’s Juniorl Oh no, somebody hanged Junior!” Her flashlight tumbled to the ground as Toni threw her hands over her face and let loose a high, keening howl.
“No, no,” Suzanne cried, pulling herself together and scrambling for the flashlight. “It’s not him! I’m sure it’s not him!”
Toni’s fingers spread apart gingerly and two dark, doubtful eyes peeked through. “Then who?” she asked in a jittery voice.
Suzanne steadied herself and directed the beam up the hanging body, moving it slowly, feet to head. Finally, she said, “It’s Bo Becker.”
“Get out!” said Toni, aghast. “Bo Becker hanged from a tree? Murdered?” Her words seemed to resonate within the both of them, and they backed up several paces. As if they feared that Becker’s limp body might suddenly be injected with life, like Frankenstein’s monster, to twist loose and come lurching after them.
“This is some crazy stuff,” Suzanne muttered.
Toni’s teeth chattered loudly, from cold and fear. “What if he hung himself?” she whispered. She quickly made the sign of the cross. “It’s a sin, you know ... the worst sin of all!”
Suzanne grimaced as she studied the limp, swaying body. “The rope was tossed over a branch maybe three feet above his head, then stretched across to a V in the trunk, then...”
The rest of her sentence was lost in the loud wail of a siren.
“Oh cripes!” screeched Toni, as they were suddenly caught in the spotlights and high beams of three different vehicles that roared along the edge of the cemetery, then converged directly upon them.
The driver’s side door flew open on the lead vehicle and a tall, thin man jumped out, his gun pointed directly at them. Suzanne could have sworn it was a pearl-handled revolver. “Hands up!” he ordered.
“Lord love a duck,” muttered Suzanne. “It’s Sheriff Burney.”
Sheriff Bill Burney, head law officer of Deer County, was joined by two other deputies who were just as stone-faced and serious as he was, and aiming even more firepower at them. Suzanne wasn’t sure if they had actually crossed official lines into his county, but Burney and his men had obviously responded to the call about the sighting of Becker’s car. Only now it wasn’t just the car that was the problem.
“Excuse me,” said Suzanne, “this is not...”
