Shattered Secrets

by Karen Harper

  The sprawling sawmill was now owned and operated by Grant Mason, who had been a good friend of Gabe’s since childhood. In second grade at the Cold Creek Elementary School, their teacher, Miss Sanders, had seated the kids alphabetically by first names, and he and Grant had been buddies ever since. Grant thought Gabe was nuts when he joined the service and was sent overseas and it had been a long time since the two of them had just cut out of town and chilled out somewhere together. They were both working way too hard without women or kids in their lives.

  Gabe knew this place well since he’d had summer jobs here when Grant’s father owned it. He’d swept up sawdust after everyone from scalers to debarkers to the guys who ran the big frame saw. He was familiar with the huge lumberyard with tall piles of stockpiled timber and stacked pallets of wood out back waiting to be processed after the big trucks hauled their loads in. Ann’s brothers worked here now, three men he was determined more than ever lately would never be his brothers-in-law.

  With a screech, screech, screech warning signal, a huge logging forklift started backing up in the parking lot. Gabe gave it a wide berth as he headed into the mill. He thought of Tess mentioning the corn harvester again. She might be right that it was a bad idea for both of them to go charging into Aaron Kurtz’s place to look at the machine. Besides, the guy was a deacon at the community church and had been a solid family man for years. Gabe couldn’t fathom Aaron not reporting seeing something strange in a cornfield, let alone snatching kids.

  But then, since more obvious suspects like Dane Thompson, even Sam Jeffers and that taxidermist loner, John Hillman, hadn’t panned out before, maybe it was also time to start looking at long shots, including Kurtz and even Mayor Owens. Was Reese really a nervous wreck each time a kidnap case was investigated by local and state law officers just because of bad PR for the town?

  “Yo, Gabe!” Ann’s brother Jonas shouted from his elevated position above the cutting line that fed logs into the debarker. He wore industrial earplugs that looked like earmuffs. A dust mask partly covered his face, but his voice was so loud the mask hardly muted it. “What’s happ’nin’, man?” Jonas shouted over the earsplitting din of the machine.

  Gabe just waved and headed up the metal steps toward Grant’s elevated office from which he could keep an eye on the entire floor of conveyor belts and moving parts.

  Grant was sitting on his desk, feet in his chair, working on a laptop balanced on his knees, probably so he could look farther down through his office’s glass windows. How things had changed since Grant’s dad used to oversee things with a pencil stuck behind his ear and a scratch pad in his shirt pocket.

  Despite his dad’s wishes he stay home and learn the business after college, Grant had gone out to northern California and Oregon, hung out with loggers, taken a job operating a big debarker in the field, not a mill. When Grant took over the business, his father had finally admitted a couple of years of roughing it was the right thing to do. It allowed Grant to mingle easily with everyone from environmentally minded CEOs to senators in D.C. to brush cat loggers in these hills.

  Grant looked up as Gabe closed the office door to mute the noise. “Got something I want you to see—to ID,” he told Grant, who put the laptop down and got up to shake his hand.

  “Good to see you too,” Grant said, his tone part teasing, part critical. “But I know you’ve been nose to the grindstone over this latest abduction. Anything I can do to help?”

  “Help’s exactly what I need,” Gabe said.

  In junior high and high school, they’d been so close they’d either finished each other’s sentences or just answered without the other’s question being asked. Though they were both tall, Grant was lanky and blond with blue eyes—the marauding Viking look—whereas Gabe was broader and dark-haired, but they used to feel like twins anyway.

  “Could this have been made or sold here at the mill?” Gabe asked, dragging the scarecrow out of the sacks. “This center piece of wood was sold here.”

  “Yeah, for sure, that’s our sticker,” Grant said, looking through the plastic. “But it’s obviously old. Dad used to sell those scarecrows years ago, but we don’t carry anything like that now. We do, though, have bins by the door in the spring and winter of those squared-off stakes. People use them for staking up tomatoes, peppers, garden crops like that. In the winter, they string them together with wire to make snow fences. But the intact scarecrow for sale—not since about the time I was in college.

  “But, you know,” Grant went on, cocking his head, “this outfit—I have seen that too. I’m thinking my mom used to sew these for decorative scarecrows, other homemade figures with wooden bodies too, like Christmas angels that people could put in their yards, wooden Easter bunnies—her mad money back then, I guess. Some friends from church helped her make the outfits.”

  “Like who? Do you remember?”

  “Ah, Marva Green, I think. Wanda Kurtz, for sure. Those two among all her friends were always tight. They used to kid about their names rhyming, and both were close to Mom. They did almost all the food at Dad’s and Mom’s funerals.”

  “Wanda—Aaron Kurtz’s wife.”

  “Yeah, but we’re talking at least twenty years ago. Sorry I can’t help you more. So, what’s the deal with the scarecrow?”

  “Tell you later. You’ve been a big help.”

  “Don’t tell me the idiots cooking up meth or getting high on bath salts are bootlegging them in old scarecrows.”

  “All right, I won’t tell you that. Thanks, bud. See you,” he said, clapping Grant on the shoulder, and made for the door, already stuffing Mr. Mean back into the paper sacks, top and bottom.

  “If it’s that important you have to take off,” Grant called after him, “you owe me a beer somewhere!”

  Gabe turned back as he opened the door, and the noise from the mill floor hit him again. It was louder than the rotor wash of a helicopter. “I may owe you more than that.”

  As he went down the stairs, he saw Ann’s two other brothers staring at him from the catwalk across the big-toothed circular saw as it ripped into a huge log.

  * * *

  Tess drove directly from the Here Ye compound toward Aaron Kurtz’s farm. She did not see or hear the big reaper in the surrounding fields, though Aaron owned or leased land far and wide, so he might be elsewhere. Perhaps Ann’s pointed suggestion that Tess should sell her land to Aaron wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Tess was hoping the big-time farmer had gone home for a late lunch or early dinner. She passed fields he’d harvested, the cornstalks slashed low to the ground, leaving only stubble. As much as she didn’t want to hear or see the big machine near her house, she wished those fields could be cut soon so she could see far out from her windows again, even if that brought Dane Thompson’s pet cemetery into view. The thought of those huge projecting teeth that funneled the rows of corn into the belly of the beast, shooting cobs out into an open truck bed and chaff out the other way, really bothered her. Was she remembering that correctly? Had she somehow memory-merged the reaper’s metal teeth that protruded out the front with Mr. Mean’s toothy grin? Memory merge—it was a term she’d seen skimming through one of the books Miss Etta had left with her.

  She drove past the Kurtz driveway, turned around at the next intersection and drove back. Their place had always been so well kept and beautiful. The old white farmhouse sported neat black trim. The big red barn and other back buildings looked freshly painted, and tall twin silos stood like guards over it all. The yard displayed brick-lined flower beds and a spacious stretch of grass before the endless cornfields began. The wide-set property lines were edged by white fences.

  Driving slowly, she turned in the paved drive, lined with corn shocks and pumpkins. She did not want to go out to one of those back buildings to see the reaper since they stood so close to the corn. But this had to be done. If Gabe was with her,
it would look too official, too fishy. And besides, by asking Aaron if he wanted to buy her land, maybe she could suggest he cut the cornfields surrounding her house soon.

  Again, as each time she drove past a farmhouse, even those abandoned and vandalized, lived in by poor people, or palatial like this, she asked herself if she recalled anything about it. The yard, the front of the house, the view—anything. But here, even with all those back buildings, she sensed nothing.

  There it was!

  The green John Deere harvester sat outside the barn next to a wagon hitched to a tractor. The wagon was full of shelled corn. She recalled it well, although she must have turned it into a monster of nightmares later. She viewed the elevated, glassed-in cab where the driver sat; the huge double wheels with yellow metal hubs; and the eight extensions thrust out in front that went between the rows so the cornstalks and cobs would feed in to be cut and shelled while the stalks were shredded for silage. She could see now why she thought of them as teeth when she was small, but at least she had clearly recalled something from the day she was taken.

  She knew for sure that Aaron Kurtz and a machine like this one—or maybe this very one—had been in the field that day. So, had he seen someone or something amiss he had covered up for some reason? She knew he had been questioned about that years ago. Or had he done something he didn’t want known?

  “You don’t listen, do you?” came a hard voice behind her. “Or can’t obey orders for your own good.”

  She jumped and spun around, expecting Aaron. It was Gabe. Why hadn’t she heard him drive in? She realized then she’d been hearing in her head the sounds of the reaper—this grim reaper—when here it sat, still and quiet.

  “There’s no law against my looking at this,” she told Gabe.

  “How about trespassing?”

  “They wouldn’t press charges—”

  “How about impeding an investigation when I told you not to come here alone?”

  He took her arm and steered her toward her car.

  “Gabe, let go! Your presence will tip him off that something’s wrong.”

  “Something is wrong! You are not formally on this case. We don’t know who’s responsible. Someone may get spooked or desperate if you’re running around here and—”

  “Oh, Sheriff, hello!” a woman’s voice called out from the back porch of the farmhouse. “Is there a problem?”

  “Hi, Mrs. Kurtz. No, there’s no problem. I was just telling Tess Lockwood—she’s a preschool teacher—that I thought a field trip for little kids to see some big, noisy farm machinery wasn’t very smart, that she ought to stick to taking them to the firehouse to see an engine. Besides, they’d get a lecture from the fire guys about fire safety.”

  Tess was amazed at how quickly and smoothly he’d come up with those lies. Wasn’t the job of a law enforcement officer to deal in the truth?

  Wanda Kurtz came closer, wiping her hands on an apron. “Tess Lockwood,” she said, squinting into the afternoon sun. “Why, I heard you were back. And you’re welcome here anytime. Are you helping teach the religious sect children down the road? Of course, we’d be happy to have them visit, if that’s what you mean. I could have Aaron cut one of our back fields into a real easy maze for them to run though. He’s not here right now, though. Had a doctor’s appointment in Chillicothe.”

  Tess hemmed and hawed a bit to get out of the corner Gabe had backed her into. He might be angry with her, but she was angry too. She quickly said goodbye and started for her car. As she got in, she could see Gabe was showing Mr. Mean to Wanda Kurtz. What was he thinking? If Aaron was somehow guilty, wouldn’t that tip him off?

  Talk about a corn maze! She felt she was running through one, searching for someone or something hiding barely out of reach. She just hoped her desperation didn’t trap her in a dead end.

  * * *

  Drinking some wine from the last bottle she’d brought from home and pacing from her kitchen to the living room, Tess was even more furious when Gabe didn’t call or stop by to explain why he was showing the scarecrow to Wanda Kurtz. What had he learned? She knew she should tell him about the girl’s screams at the Hear Ye compound. But she had to admit there was no way Brice Monson, however controlling and strange he was, could abduct a girl and keep her there with all those people around. And Monson had mentioned that Gabe had visited there, so he must be watching the compound too, and Gabe hadn’t shared that with her. She thought that he’d wanted her help, but now he was critical and cold.

  She wondered if she should get a Realtor to take over selling the house so she could get out of town faster. Yet, she’d started to harbor the hope that not only could she help Gabe solve the abductions, but that she might get her memories back too—and be able to deal with them.

  She considered her options now, since Gabe seemed to have turned hostile. She could call Char for some of her wise and warm sisterly advice. Call her father out west and try to learn if he knew something he hadn’t told anyone about her being taken. They were her personal contacts, so Gabe could not object to family phone calls. She had to do something to keep from doing nothing, from just worrying and getting more upset. What time would it be in New Mexico and on the West Coast now? Char was usually out in some traditional hogan working with Navajo children, and Tess didn’t want to talk to her dad’s wife—she’d never met the woman—if he was at work.

  She looked at the three library books Miss Etta had brought, which were piled in the rocking chair by the window. Maybe she should take another look at them to see if that triggered more memories. If she remembered anything, she’d just call Vic Reingold and tell him instead of Gabe.

  She knew she was absolutely, stark-raving crazy to have feelings for the sheriff, the son of the man who couldn’t solve her case years ago. And even when she was so angry with him and couldn’t wait to get out of Cold Creek, it was insanity to want to see him. It was terrifying. She shivered every time he looked at her. And when he’d kissed her, she’d felt she was not only looking at a waterfall, but going over it.

  * * *

  Gabe felt silly walking into the tanning salon Marva Green managed. It was feminine inside, but that figured. He couldn’t think of too many guys around here who would patronize a place like this. Probably not many of the local women would use it either. Not that the Lake Azure women weren’t local now, he reminded himself. It was just that, his having grown up here in the foothills of Appalachia, it was sometimes hard to get used to the more affluent lifestyle of the newer residents. But then, the Lake Azure folks had voted strong for him at their polling place at the community lodge, so he had no beef with them, unless they broke the law.

  “Why, Sheriff McCord, what brings you here?” Marva asked, looking up from reading a magazine. Maybe it was a downtime for her, but that was good. He didn’t need anyone but Wanda and Marva seeing this scarecrow right now. He was hoping it indirectly roiled the waters with Aaron or Dane, if they were involved with the kidnappings. He wanted to get someone real nervous so they’d make a rash move or a mistake and come out of hiding, though that was a risk too. He wanted them to make a move toward him, not Tess.

  “I just came from Wanda Kurtz’s, and she says you and my mother used to make these and sell them at Mason’s Mill,” he said, pulling the scarecrow out of the sacks. Come on, Mr. Mean, he thought, rattle someone’s cage besides Tess’s.

  Marva gave a little gasp, then smiled. “Why, yes, we did, back in the old days when a job at an upscale tanning salon in Cold Creek would have been like something from that old TV show The Twilight Zone. The three of us cut and stitched those little outfits, stuffed the bodies and sold them at the mill and split the money. I wouldn’t be surprised if more than one of your Christmas presents was bought with our profits when you were a boy. But why are you asking?”

  “I can’t say more than that it’s part of the kidnapping inves
tigation.”

  “Why, how can that be? But...” She paused and took a deep breath. “If it helps to clear Dane of the suspicion some folks still have of him, just because that cornfield joins his property with the Lockwood house, I’ll be glad to help in any way I can. And thank you, Sheriff, for not rushing to bring him in or question him right away as your father did, because Dane has absolutely nothing to do with those horrible disappearances of any of those girls!”

  “I hope to prove that’s true, Marva. But let him know I will need a statement from him and he should sit tight.”

  “Oh. Well, he’s gone hunting with Sam Jeffers and John Hillman—but only for overnight. Of course, I’ll tell him. Actually,” she said, leaning closer to him and whispering as the street door opened and a slender woman walked in, “Dane only went along because Sam said there was a wounded stag he could tend to that had a broken leg. Dane may tranquilize it and get the others to help him bring it back here. My brother is so tenderhearted, Sheriff. And if they find the stag dead—I’m surprised Sam didn’t just shoot it, but he penned it in instead—John will mount it.”

  “That’s quite a trio, isn’t it?” Gabe said as he quickly stuffed the scarecrow back into its sacks. “An animal healer, an animal hunter and a dead-animal preserver.”

  “Well, yes, but they’ve been friends for years.”

  “Thanks, Marva,” he said, and touched the brim of his hat to her and the customer, who already looked so tan her skin was leathery. Of everything Marva had said to try to put him off suspecting her brother, she’d actually given him a lot to go on.

  * * *

  Tess was engrossed in the books Miss Etta had left for her and was making notes while lying in bed. She learned that memories of traumatic events could change over time, so machines could become monsters in dreams, when the monsters were really humans. And suppression was a common coping mechanism for someone with childhood trauma. She read about terror dreams, which were not recalled on waking, something she could have written a book on. But what really grabbed her attention was the story of one child victim who blamed himself for later kidnappings that were patterned after his.