Strange Country

by Deborah Coates

  He glanced toward Gerson. He wasn’t sure about Gerson.

  “Something in particular about them?” Ole asked. He appeared to be studying the bones, not looking at Boyd or even—at least on the surface—trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about.

  “I don’t know,” Boyd admitted, because he really didn’t.

  “We’ll bag ’em with the rest,” Ole said.

  “No,” Gerson said.

  “They could be evidence,” Boyd said.

  “I’m sure they will be,” Gerson said evenly. “I’ll take charge of them.”

  “What?” Cross moved back into the light. “No. This is a murder investigation. We agreed. There’s a procedure.”

  “We’ve had this discussion before,” Gerson said coolly. “Some things are outside the scope of regular procedures. I saw something a few minutes ago—a flash of light—as, I expect, did Deputy Davies here.” She indicated Boyd with a brief nod. “You didn’t see it. The sheriff didn’t see it. I can’t ignore that.”

  Cross made a sound like a snarl crossed with a groan, pushed past Boyd and Ole, and went back up the stairs. Near the top, he said without turning back, “I have nothing to do with it. I’ll be upstairs.”

  “Becky knows a little something about this sort of thing,” Ole said to Boyd after Cross was gone.

  “Becky?”

  “Special Agent Gerson.”

  Gerson smiled for the first time. “Not much,” she said. “You hear things from other investigators or at a conference. Something happens on an investigation. You look into it. And sometimes, if you’re open-minded, you learn something new. Ole’s told me about the things that have happened here. He says you’ve been involved.”

  Boyd looked at Ole. He looked at the skeleton, at the small objects—he’d call them stones until he knew differently—nearly buried in the hard-packed earth of the cellar, tried to understand how this had suddenly become part of an actual police investigation. He’d always separated it in his mind—the dreams he had, the things that had happened to him and to Hallie, and police work. He needed them to be separate. He needed the daily routine of police work to counteract the unpredictable chaos of his dreams and Hallie’s ghosts, of the under and blood magic. He needed something that was knowable.

  But here they were.

  “What will you do with them?” Boyd asked. “With these … stones or whatever they are?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Gerson admitted. “The sheriff says you’re good with details, that you notice things. Would you be willing to take one? Tell me what you find? You saw and heard what I saw, correct?” Boyd nodded and Gerson continued. “There aren’t many sources of information about this sort of thing, though I have access to a few. We need to use everything we’ve got, all avenues. Right now, you’re one of those avenues. If you’re willing, I’ll sign one of the stones out to you. We’ll have a paper trail. And I’m confident you’ll bring it back.”

  It wouldn’t be an official paper trail, Boyd thought, couldn’t be. What he and Gerson were doing would interfere with the official chain of evidence. On the other hand, it was clear the bones had been in the cellar a long time. Maybe they were in the cellar before Prue had moved in. Maybe they had exactly nothing to do with her death. Or maybe they were the key to everything. Either way, Boyd wanted to know. It was a puzzle. Several puzzles. What were the stones? Why were they in the cellar? What did they have to do with Prue Stalking Horse? With the bones they’d been placed beside? With magic?

  “All right,” he said, thinking how much his view of the world and what was possible had changed over the last half year.

  Gerson nodded again. “I’ll get evidence bags. We’ll want to get them out of here before the forensic team comes down.”

  Ole watched her go. Then he said to Boyd, “Look, I don’t really understand this. And, frankly, I don’t want to. But there’s been a hell of a lot of strange stuff going on in this county for the last six, eight months or so.”

  “Longer than that,” Boyd said.

  Ole gave him a sour look. “Maybe,” he conceded, as if it were a negotiation, “for longer than that. Maybe. You’ve been involved in it. That goddamned Hallie Michaels has been involved. There’s always a big damn mess, and nobody tells me anything.”

  “Did you want to know?” Boyd asked him.

  “No! Hell no, I didn’t want to know!” Ole’s voice boomed in the confined space. “I don’t want to know now. But if it’s going to affect my county and my people, if good people are going to start disappearing again or if someone’s going to go around shooting people at three o’clock in the morning with a high-powered rifle? Well, I gotta tell you, I am not overlooking anything. Not anything,” he said firmly.

  They heard the quick sound of footsteps above them. A door squeaked on its hinges.

  “You’re going to be my guy,” Ole said.

  “What?” Though Boyd was pretty sure he knew what Ole was telling him, was somewhat nonplussed that it had come to this. It was a big change from the thing that only happened to him, the thing he never talked about, the dreams that couldn’t be explained and that he’d never wanted.

  “My guy who looks into stuff like this,” Ole said. “You’re going to liaise with Becky. She’s going to tell you stuff. Though—” He reflected. “—I gotta tell you, I don’t think she knows as much as you’d expect.” He waved a hand at the skeleton. “And right now, you need to get those—whatever they are—out of here before the forensic guy gets here.”

  He clapped Boyd on the shoulder hard enough to make him take a half step forward, then turned and left, clumping up the stairs with a tread so heavy, dirt sifted from the stair tread onto the cellar floor each time his boot landed.

  When Boyd finally reentered the kitchen after Gerson had brought down the evidence bags and they’d collected the stones, marked the bags, and she’d handed one of the bagged stones to him, he found Ole on the phone. He was taking notes in a spiral notebook that was half the size of his hand. “Hold on,” he told the person on the phone when he saw Boyd. To Boyd he said, “Hold on a minute, would you?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just turned back to his notebook, saying, “Yeah, give me the rest.”

  Boyd felt a cold draft against the back of his neck, like a puff of frosted breath. He looked at the kitchen door, but it was closed.

  “Been looking at her phone,” Ole said to Boyd as he stuck his own phone in his shirt pocket. “At her phone calls.” He flipped back a page and shoved his notebook toward Boyd. Four numbers neatly written on the page. “Recognize any of them?” Ole asked.

  Boyd was certain Ole already knew whose numbers they were. The fourth one was the sheriff’s office, not 911, just the regular office number. “She called these numbers yesterday?”

  “Uh-huh,” Ole said.

  “The Minnesota number?” It was the third number. St. Paul area code. She’d called it twice, once just before she’d called the sheriff’s office.

  Ole frowned. “It’s a copier business. Asked them if they knew a Prue Stalking Horse and they said—we’ll have to check our records. But she called at midnight. Who the hell was there at midnight?”

  Boyd didn’t have an answer, and he figured Ole didn’t expect him to have one. “You want to know if I recognize either of the local numbers?” he said instead.

  “Do you?”

  “One of them’s Laddie Kennedy’s,” he said.

  “Huh,” Ole said, though Boyd was certain he’d known before he asked. “The other one’s the barn number out at Sigurdson’s,” he told Boyd.

  “That could mean a lot of people. What time?”

  Ole shrugged. “Seven. One-minute call. Which could mean a conversation. Could mean she left a message. Could mean anything. Foreman out there says Pat and Tel went to Pierre for some estate auction yesterday morning, won’t be back for a few days. Says that phone’s in Tel’s office, but everyone uses it.” He leaned back in his chair. “Hell. You going to see
Laddie?” he asked.

  “What?” Boyd was tired of feeling out of step.

  “Laddie Kennedy,” Ole said patiently. “You think you’ll see him today? I been trying to call him, but he ain’t home. He spends time out to Pabby’s place, doesn’t he?”

  “I can ask Hallie if she’s seen him,” Boyd said.

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Ole said, like it actually had been. He rose to his feet, graceful for a man his size, and clapped Boyd on the shoulder. “You need to get some sleep,” he said. “Get out of here.”

  9

  “You better come up to the house,” Hallie said. It had gotten dark while they stood there, a heavy cloud like spilled ink flowing over the sun.

  Beth looked at her hard for a minute, then nodded. Hallie thought she saw something moving way out in the field to the east, dry grass folding over and then back. She couldn’t be sure, but she knew she’d feel better—like they’d both be safer—back inside the hex ring.

  Half a minute later, with both vehicles parked side by side in the yard, Hallie waited for Beth, then led her around to the kitchen, opening the door on a rush of warm air from inside. She shed coat and gloves, started another pot of coffee, washed her hands at the kitchen sink, then turned to Beth, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed. She’d asked the question—Where have you been?—now it was Beth’s turn.

  “Can I use your bathroom?” Beth asked.

  “You know where it is,” Hallie said.

  It was almost five minutes before she returned. Hallie pulled the second note from her pocket, took the first note from the shelf where she’d put it, and compared them. They looked exactly the same to her. She’d put them both back on the shelf, poured coffee into two mugs, and was setting the mugs on the kitchen table when Beth returned.

  They sat. Hallie waited.

  Beth lifted the mug to her lips, took a taste, grimaced, and set it back down. She looked at the dishes stacked in the glass-front cupboards, at the old milk glass overhead light fixture, at the faded red café curtain on the window to the right of the back door. She tapped the side of her thumb against the table, quick, like there was so much tension stored just in that single digit that it couldn’t stay still.

  “I know where there’s an entrance,” she finally said. “Well, almost,” she qualified. “I know about where there’s an entrance.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hallie asked.

  Beth shifted in her chair. She looked at her coffee without drinking from it. “I figured it would be better if I came, if I asked you face-to-face.” She let out a long breath like a sigh, shifted the strap of the messenger bag she’d been carrying up and over her head, and set it on the floor with a thump. She pulled off her gloves. She said, “Look, there’s no one—I mean I don’t have any family anymore. And there’s no one who knows. Except Boyd. And, I guess, you. See—”

  Beth’s mouth compressed in a thin line, and Hallie was surprised that she couldn’t read Beth’s emotions at all. When she’d met Beth—well, actually the entire time she’d known her—Beth had been mostly scared and occasionally angry. Hallie hadn’t written her off, exactly, more figured she couldn’t count on her, that Beth wasn’t used to the kinds of things that were happening and wouldn’t be much help. But this Beth, five months later, looked harder and determined, like she had a plan and she was carrying that plan out, no matter what.

  “I figured,” Beth said, like Hallie should already understand, “I figured you’d be able to open it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You wouldn’t believe the people I’ve talked to since—well, since,” Beth said. “Most of them won’t even talk unless you offer them money or, you know, threaten them. I’m not very good at threatening, though I think I’m getting better. It’s like—you know there aren’t that many magic-users and you’d think it would be more of a community, like everyone would help everyone else, but it’s not. Trust me. It’s been really weird.” She took another sip from her coffee, considered it, then took a larger swallow.

  “You’ve been talking to magic-users?” Because Hallie would have thought after Travis Hollowell stalked her and threatened her and tried to take her into the under that Beth would have had enough of magic.

  “He came to see me right before,” she confided. “Right before you fixed everything.”

  “Hollowell?”

  “Pabby and that other reaper had left about an hour before, told me to stay inside,” Beth said, not answering Hallie’s question directly. “I told them I wanted to help, but that reaper, the white one, said that I’d be a target. I guess they thought Hollowell would grab me or something, but he couldn’t marry me without my consent, so what was the danger?” Beth blew on her fingertips and rubbed her arms.

  Hallie could name at least a dozen dangers. But then, she’d actually been there at the end. Beth hadn’t.

  “It was a good thing I hadn’t gone, as it turned out, because I might not have gotten to see him.” She waved a hand like that would make everything clear. “You know, my father.”

  “Death?” So that was where he’d been. Maker had said at the time that he wasn’t really there and Hallie’d thought it meant he disappeared deeper into the under or that he was damaged so much by the disappearing walls between the worlds that he’d been pretty much a ghost. Apparently, though, while the rest of them were trying to save the entire goddamned world, Death had been visiting his daughter.

  “Yeah.” Beth smiled. “It was kind of weird and awesome at the same time. I mean, he’s Death. He’s, like, in charge of all the reapers and harbingers. Basically everything in the under? He’s in charge of it.”

  “I’m not sure that’s right,” Hallie said. “I don’t think he’s in charge of everything.” She didn’t think anyone or anything was in charge of unmakers, for instance. They were implacable, unstoppable. There wasn’t much awesome about an unmaker, to Hallie’s way of thinking. Though there wasn’t much awesome about Death either.

  “No, he is,” Beth said. “He’s in charge. And he loved my mother, you know. I mean really loved her. She should have, I don’t know, she should have gone with him. She didn’t have to stay with Odie. I don’t know why she did.”

  “Beth—” Because Hallie wasn’t sure any of that was right, wasn’t sure Death had ever even asked Beth’s mother to go into the under with him. She wasn’t even really sure Death had loved Beth’s mother, though she understood that he thought he had and Hallie believed that he’d appreciated her at least, which she guessed was something.

  “No, I know. It’s not important, really. She’s gone now and beyond his reach, because I guess people move on? I don’t really understand all that. Yet. I don’t understand it yet.” She shoved back her chair and rose, going to the kitchen window to stare out at the open field just beyond the backyard. “He told me he wanted to quit,” she continued. “To stop being Death. To be human again, I guess. He told me you were going to take his place.”

  Now it was Hallie’s turn to rise. “No, I’m not,” she said. She hadn’t actually told Death that, of course, but only because he hadn’t given her the chance. It was why she didn’t sleep well anymore, why she looked for shadows everywhere she went. Waiting for Death. Sooner or later, he would come. Even Maker agreed. Because that’s what Death did. “I’m not going to take his place.”

  Beth shrugged. “That’s what he said.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at Hallie, but didn’t move away from the window. Hallie wanted to tell her to leave, to just get out right now. She didn’t want to talk about Death, about any of it. But Beth was here and she wanted something and Hallie figured it wouldn’t hurt to find out what it was.

  “I asked him where my mother was, where Lily was. He was Death, right? I thought he would know. But—” She shook her head. “—I’m not sure he really understood what I was asking. He told me this confusing story about fortune-tellers and magic-users and how you can tell if they know
things or if they’re just making something up. He said some of them did have real power, said once—and this was a long time ago, or at least it sounded like it from the way he talked about it. Said this fortune-teller—or magic-user, he seemed to get confused about which was which—anyway, this person, a real, live person, once walked into the under and came back out again. Which is really amazing when you think about it. I asked him what it meant, how they did it. He said no one’s ever done it—like he hadn’t just told me that story. Then he asked me who I was, like he’d forgotten.” She tilted her head to one side as if she were considering the implications of that.

  “He was—” Hallie thought about how to describe it. “He wasn’t quite all there, then,” she said. “Because the walls were disappearing, because everything was falling apart.”

  “Yeah,” Beth said, though Hallie wasn’t sure she cared all that much about the why of things. “He said, ‘Look—’ Then he disappeared. Just—” She snapped her fingers. “—disappeared. Like that. Right in the middle of whatever he’d been going to say.”

  Which must have been when she and Boyd and the others had done it, stopped the walls from falling between the worlds, between the world of the living and the under.

  “And that was unfair, you know,” Beth continued. “It was really unfair. I lost my mom and my sister and even my stepfather. I mean he wasn’t much, but he was my stepfather. I lost all of them, and then I got, like, five minutes with my real father. I had no one. I have no one. I decided there had to be a way to see him again, my father. I mean, you’ve seen him. And he’s there. In the under. People can go there. You went there.”

  “That’s not—,” Hallie began, but Beth continued as if she hadn’t even spoken.