Beneath the Bones

by Tim Waggoner

  Stanton Manchester had been Joanne’s predecessor, serving as sheriff of Cross County for almost thirty years before retiring. Precisely one week after Joanne had stepped into the job, Manchester had taken a lamp cord, tied one end to the knob of a closed door, wrapped the other around his throat, got down on his knees, leaned forward, and strangled himself. He hadn’t left a note, but Dale had told Joanne once that Manchester hadn’t needed to.

  Everyone knows why he did it. A man sees a lot in three decades on the job. Things that he can’t forget, no matter how hard he tries. Stan saw too much, that’s all.

  Joanne wondered if that was truly the reason why Manchester had committed suicide. She also wondered if, when she retired, she’d end up doing the same thing.

  “It’s a copycat, Dale. And don’t tell me that the sheriff’s office and you are the only ones who know about Coulter’s mark. It became public record during his trial. Besides, you know how people talk around here. Anyone who’d seen the corpses — cops, EMTs, the coroner at the time, morgue attendants — any of them could’ve described the symbol well enough for someone to copy it. It’s not as if it’s all that complicated an image to reproduce.”

  “True. But why copy it now, almost twenty years after the original murders and six after Carl’s execution?”

  Joanne wadded up the wet paper towel, walked over to the sink, and threw it away in the wastebasket underneath.

  “You know I don’t like making guesses without facts, Dale.” She returned to the table, sat down, and took a sip of her remaining water. “You can come up with as many ideas as I can. Maybe whoever killed the boy decided to carve Carl’s design into his belly to throw suspicion off him or herself. Maybe the killer’s simply crazy.”

  “I know one thing. There’s nothing simple about this murder. If there was, you wouldn’t have had one of your patented Feelings.”

  Joanne could hear the capital F in the way Dale stressed the word. She grimaced. “I should’ve known you’d notice.”

  “I see all and tell little.” Dale’s tone was light, but Joanne wasn’t certain he was joking. “So … how bad was it?”

  She recalled the roaring in her ears, the stabbing pain behind her eyes, the nausea roiling in her stomach, the memory so intense she almost felt the sensations anew.

  She swallowed to prevent her gorge from rising, and thrust the memory away. “Bad enough,” she said, her voice raspy and strained.

  Several seconds passed before Dale responded. “I’ll keep digging then. I’ll let you know if I find out anything. Try to get some sleep, Joanne.” He paused. “Sounds like you’re going to need it.”

  Dale disconnected before she could reply. She continued holding her phone to her ear for a moment, as if she thought he might call back to say goodbye. But Dale wasn’t a hello-goodbye kind of person. He wasn’t inconsiderate. He just thought social niceties were a waste of time. She put the phone back on the kitchen counter and returned to sit at the breakfast nook table.

  When Dale said he’d “keep digging,” Joanne knew he meant more than going through his old files. Decades ago, before coming to Cross County, he’d been a crime reporter in Chicago. She knew the reason he’d left the big city for life in rural Ohio had something to do with the deaths of his wife and daughter, but she didn’t know the details. Whenever she asked, Dale would only say they’d died in an accident and then change the subject. Joanne understood that it remained a painful subject for him, even after all these years, and so she never pried any further.

  But big city or Ohio countryside, Dale was a hands-on reporter, which meant that he would start his own investigation into tonight’s murder. Joanne knew she should try to dissuade him. A civilian, no matter how well meaning, shouldn’t interfere with a police investigation, but in many ways Cross County was a world unto itself, with its own rules. This would hardly be the first time Dale had pitched in to help the Sheriff’s office. Besides, Joanne doubted she could stop Dale even if she wanted to. And she didn’t. Dale had his own sources of information, his own connections, some of which Joanne knew, most of which she didn’t. If her Feeling had been right, and something truly awful was coming, then she was going to need all the help she could to deal with it.

  When it came right down to it, despite Dale’s less-than-forthcoming nature, Joanne trusted him more than anyone else she’d ever known. After all, if it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t be alive right now.

  • • •

  Dale sat on his couch, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, as he looked down at the newspaper clippings spread out on the surface of his coffee table. Dale’s apartment was located in downtown Rhine on Fairfax Street, above the Echo office. It wasn’t much — living room, kitchenette, bathroom, bedroom, a couple of closets — but it was big enough for him. He didn’t spend a lot of time here anyway. Usually, he was downstairs working or out somewhere, investigating a story or just visiting folks, maintaining relationships with sources and sniffing around to see what was happening in the county and if it was worth writing about. His furniture, what little he had, consisted of Goodwill rejects, and every time he sat on the couch, he remembered just how uncomfortable the damned thing was, and he vowed to get a new one soon … when he got around to it.

  The blinds in the living room were up — Dale never lowered them. He didn’t feel a need to here on the second floor — and glowing fluorescence from the streetlight spilled in from outside. It was the only illumination in the apartment, but it was enough for him to see by. Dale had spent a good part of his life in the darkness, and he’d long ago learned to be comfortable among the shadows.

  He’d lied to Joanne. He was tired, but he didn’t want to go to sleep, not yet. He had work to do. Besides, whenever he lay down and closed his eyes, he found himself thinking of Marianne and their daughter Alice. Alice would’ve been close to Joanne’s age today if she …

  Well, he’d left a lot of things behind in Chi-town when he’d departed, and his love of sleep was least among them.

  If Joanne had been here — not that she’d ever been to his apartment — she would’ve been surprised to see that he’d removed his suit jacket and tie. She’d have been even more surprised to discover the clippings Dale was looking at had nothing do with the Carl the Cutter.

  LOCAL GIRL REPORTED MISSING. NO CLUES IN CHILD’S DISAPPEARANCE. POLICE CONTINUE SEARCH FOR MISSING CROSS COUNTY CHILD. LOST GIRL FOUND!

  Dale had written some of the articles, but not all. His paper, The Cross County Echo, only came out weekly, and the case had caught the attention of newspapers throughout Ohio: Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, even as far away as Cleveland. And the papers’ fascination with the story had only grown after the girl was recovered.

  MISSING GIRL, MISSING MEMORIES. LOST FOR SIX DAYS, GIRL ASKS, “WHERE WAS I?” POLICE AT A LOSS TO EXPLAIN GIRL’S DISAPPEARANCE.

  But among the blaring, sensationalistic headlines, one caught and held Dale’s attention like no other —

  GIRL FOUND WANDERING IN WOODS BY ECHO REPORTER.

  It was one of his articles, and though he hadn’t re-read it for years, he recalled it word for word. It was one of the finest pieces of fiction he’d ever written.

  Oh, some of it was true. He had found Joanne and he had returned her to her parents, but the rest was nothing but lies. Necessary ones, perhaps. But lies nevertheless. Dale had been a reporter all of his adult life, and he regretted having to falsify this story. More, he regretted having to lie to Stan Manchester about what had really happened. Stan had been a good friend, and while the sheriff hadn’t pressed the issue, Dale strongly suspected Stan knew he’d lied. While they’d remained friends, there had been a distance between them after that, one that had persisted until Stan killed himself. But in order to bring Joanne home, Dale had been forced to make a deal, and part of the bargain was his silence.

  At the time, he’d believed he had no choice. Now he wasn’t so sure. But despite his regrets, whenever he looked at Joanne, he knew he�
��d made the right decision. She’d grown into a fine woman, and she’d served the people of Cross County well as sheriff. As good as Stan Manchester had been at the job, Joanne was better. And though Dale knew he could take no credit for Joanne’s accomplishments, he couldn’t help feeling an almost fatherly pride in her.

  But Joanne had paid a price for her freedom as well. She had no memory of what had occurred to her during the six days she was missing, though Dale suspected some of the details found their way into her dreams from time to time. For twenty years she’d lived with the gap in her memory and the uncertainly of what might have happened — or worse, been done to her during that missing time. But as difficult as living with that mystery might be for Joanne, Dale knew it was in reality a blessing, though of course he could never tell her that.

  Joanne had paid a second price, as well — her Feelings. She’d never experienced them before her disappearance, and even now they came upon her rarely, only when some sort of danger threatened. The more intense the Feeling, the greater the danger. Like the time three years ago, when two blocks of Rhine’s historical district were wiped out by an arsonist who turned out to be an autistic child. Or last summer, when an entire Cincinnati family who’d come to the area for a Memorial Day picnic on the shore of Lake Hush was drowned, fifty feet from water’s edge, lungs filled with water, clothes bone-dry. From what Joanne had said, and not said, on the phone, the Feeling she’d experienced at the murder scene tonight had been a real doozy, stronger than either of those other times.

  Whatever was coming, however bad it would get, Dale would help her. He always had. He just hoped that, whatever price they might have to pay this time, it wouldn’t be too steep. He wasn’t sure either of them could afford it.

  • • •

  The less than imaginatively named Cross County Administration Building was located just a couple blocks over from Dale’s place. The mayor’s office was there, along with the sheriff and fire departments, and the township trustees had a meeting room there as well. But eight miles northeast of town, on the other side of Mare’s Nest Woods, with a view of the western edge of Lake Hush, lay the true county seat. Sanctity.

  Well over two hundred years old, the building resembled a castle constructed entirely of dark gray stone. Decade upon decade of ivy growth covered much of the structure, making it seem as if Sanctity, instead of being built one brick at a time, had instead emerged fully formed from the earth, ivy vines thrusting it upward from the hidden, dark depths where it had been born. And maybe they had.

  The mansion grounds were silent and still. No birds sang, no raccoons or deer moved cautiously across the grass, and even the night breeze made no noise as it moved through the forest and across the ebon waters of the lake. All was quiet … exactly the way Althea Cross desired it. And whatever Althea desired, Althea got — or else.

  While Joanne sat drinking water in her kitchen and Dale sat on his couch looking at old news clippings, Marshall Cross — freshly showered, shaved, and wearing an obscenely expensive Italian suit — stood in the hallway outside Althea’s room. Regardless of the hour, no one appeared before the matriarch of the Cross family in anything other than formal dress, not even her children and grandchildren. Marshall was trying to decide what his mother would desire most in this particular instance. Should he leave her alone to sleep, or should he wake her and inform her of the night’s events?

  Marshall himself had been awakened less than an hour ago, when he’d received a call from Stuart Ennist. The EMT possessed a modicum of Cross blood, hardly enough to note, but he enjoyed feeling that he was of service to “his” family, and Marshall deposited a little extra something in Stuart’s bank account every month, just in case his sense of familial duty ever began to waver. Stuart had told Marshall about the homicide that had occurred earlier tonight, and while the murder of a local boy mattered little to Marshall — it wasn’t as if the kid was a Cross, after all — one of the details Stuart had passed along did matter to him. Very much. But what he couldn’t decide was whether or not it would matter to Mother. Marshall Cross was not normally an indecisive man, but there was much at stake here, and he had to make sure to play this smart, right from the beginning.

  He was still trying to decide when he heard a door open farther down the hallway.

  Althea insisted that all members of the immediate family reside at Sanctity, and that those closest to her — and she decided who deserved that honor based on a complex and ever-shifting set of criteria that she kept to herself — have their quarters on the same floor as hers. The nearer your room was to Althea’s, the higher your status in the family. Marshall’s suite of rooms was across the hall from his mother’s. The door that opened now was on the same side of the hall as Althea’s, two down on the left. Marshall hadn’t turned on the hall lights when he’d stepped out of his suite, and no light spilled out of the open doorway to show him who was coming out. But he didn’t need to see to know who it was. He’d long ago memorized every inch of Sanctity, from the common areas that everyone in the family knew about to the more … restricted areas. Thus he wasn’t surprised when a moment later, the sound of bare feet padding on hard wood drew close, and he heard the too-adult voice of his daughter whisper, “Father? Is that you?”

  Marshall didn’t relax upon hearing Lenora speak. No Cross ever fully relaxed in the presence of another, regardless of how close they were. A healthy dose of suspicion was not only vital to advancing in status within the family, it was often the key to survival as well.

  “What are you doing up?” Marshall asked, his whisper coming out more harshly than he intended.

  The dim silhouette of the woman who had once been Marshall’s little girl stopped three feet away from him. Not completely out of reach, but far enough away to grant her a good head start if she needed to turn and run. Marshall felt parental pride that he’d taught his little girl well, but he also felt a wave of sadness. Lenora was more distant around him than strictly necessary, even by Cross standards. Things between them had been strained at best since her mother had … left.

  Lenora wore a silk robe over her nightgown, and if she thought it odd that her father was standing in the hall in the middle of the night, wearing a suit and smelling of freshly applied aftershave, she gave no sign. “Not that it matters, but I’m hungry. I’m going down to the kitchen. You — ” She yawned, and when she resumed speaking, she sounded a bit more awake. “You want me to bring you back something?”

  Twenty-three years old, and she’s still getting up in the middle of the night for a snack, just like when she was a toddler. At least, Marshall amended, that’s what it looked like. He wondered if the real reason his daughter had awakened was because she’d sensed something bad had happened tonight. He wondered if she also sensed his own ambivalence about how to handle it.

  “Thanks, but I’m all right. You go ahead.”

  He couldn’t make out her facial expression in the dark, but he saw her cock her head to the side, and he heard the mocking smile in her voice. “You may not be hungry, Daddy, but if you were all right, you wouldn’t be standing outside Grandma’s door, wearing a suit this time of night.”

  He felt Lenora press him, testing his mental defenses to see if she could get a rise out of him. She was his daughter, and therefore strong, but she was no match for him. He pushed back, and she winced, letting out a tiny mew of pain.

  Though it was too dark for him to make out her features, he felt Lenora’s anger, tempered by fear. Marshall kept his own emotions in check as he waited for Lenora to make another move — if she was foolish enough.

  Lenora turned away, breaking eye contact, and she moved past Marshall down the hall, continuing on her way downstairs to the kitchen in search of her snack. Though Marshall’s impassive expression didn’t change, inwardly he was proud of his daughter. She might have lost her battle of wills with him, but she wasn’t going to slink back to her room and hide in shame. Even in defeat she was going to hold her head up high.

/>   But after several steps Lenora stopped and looked back over her shoulder.

  “Go on in. You know she’d want you to. She always wants you to.” Then Lenora faced forward once more and resumed walking.

  Marshall didn’t know what infuriated him more: that Lenora had seen him hesitating in front of her grandmother’s door, or that she was right about what he should do. For an instant he was tempted to reach out with his mind and strike back at her, but he knew that was what she was hoping for. To make him lose control. So he drew in a deep breath and held it as he waited for his daughter to reach the end of the hallway and begin descending the spiral staircase. He then let the breath out slowly, allowing it to bear his anger away with it. He then gently rapped a knuckle on Althea’s door. A few moments later, a commanding and quite wide-awake voice called out.

  “Come in, Marshall.”

  He felt his mother’s words as a command, an inward pull that he was powerless to resist. If Lenora were still here, he knew she’d be loving every second of this.

  Fighting back a wave of resentment that bordered on fury, Marshall opened the door and stepped into his mother’s room.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  By 6:45 Joanne had showered, dressed in a clean uniform, and was pouring a second cup of coffee into a travel mug when her cell phone rang. She hoped it was Terry, expected it to be Dale, but it turned out to be neither. It was Ronnie Doyle, her second in command.

  “Hey, Ronnie. I was just about to head in.”

  “You might want to take a detour over to the Caffeine Café first, Sheriff.” No matter how many times Joanne had told him to call her by her first name, Ronnie never did. He said he didn’t think it was respectful. His voice sounded muffled, and she knew he was wearing his mask. No surprise there. He’d probably just gotten in and hadn’t had time to finish the morning sterilization of his work station. He always wore a surgical mask when using cleaning chemicals.