by Brett Riley
Raymond looked at his clublike hand. Jesus, he muttered.
Well, at least it missed his heart, said LeBlanc.
They drank more coffee. And they waited. Frost returned and sat next to Raymond, who turned to him, eyebrows raised. Frost glanced at Rennie.
Maybe I should tell you later, he said.
Rennie regarded him. Her eyes were moist, but no tears fell.
My husband’s layin on a table gettin his chest cut open. My son almost got killed. Anything you got to say, you say it in front of us.
Frost cleared his throat. Raymond looked at him with sympathy. McDowell took Rennie’s hand and squeezed.
Well. Um, yes, Frost said. I’ve consulted with a colleague at the University of Southeast Arkansas. He specializes in occult legends of the American Southwest. He’s never read anything about the Piney Woods Kid in connection with ghost sightings, but he did confirm some things I already knew.
Such as? Rennie asked.
Um. Well. I’ve been through this with Ray, but for the rest of you: Salt and cold iron repel ghosts. And spirits of those who died violently or whose bodies weren’t respected—both of which seem to apply here—tie themselves to a certain locale or an object. Our ghost seems connected to the diner grounds, particularly the Dead House, but mostly to those old boots. The stains on them must really be the Kid’s blood, like that old article claimed.
Rennie’s eyes were almost as cold as the Kid’s. How do we kill it?
Well, the legends suggest that if you destroy the focal object or consecrate the ground, the spirit’s links to this plane will break. Burning the bones also works, but we have no idea where they are.
Sounds like you ain’t sure anything will work at all, Rennie said.
I have no way of knowing. If at least some of the legends are true, there’s a good chance. If not… Frost trailed off and shrugged.
Raymond sipped coffee and wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve. His hands shook, the ruined one on fire. He needed a pill or a half dozen BCs, and soon.
We find a way to burn the storage shed with the boots inside and stay alive, Raymond said. Two birds, one stone. But if he’s tied to the property itself and not just that building, I don’t know what we’ll do. Call a priest, I reckon.
If we could get our hands on some holy water, some hosts, and a whole bunch more salt, we could try it ourselves, Frost mused.
Raymond stared at him. You mean literally salt the earth?
Just to keep it away from us. But I’m no priest. I’d probably fuck up the Latin and get us killed. So that leaves burning.
Deputy Roen arrived, soaked to the bone. Water dripped from his hat brim. Seeing Rennie and Will, he blushed, and his bottom lip quivered. His eyes moistened. Rennie stood and went to him. She put her hands on his shoulders and squeezed. Roen could not look her in the eye. Rennie hugged the little man, knocking his hat askew, not caring that he soaked her clothes. He laid his head on her shoulder and sobbed.
Now, now, she whispered. It ain’t your fault. She pushed him away, not unkindly. This town needs you. You’re the chief, at least until the town council finds somebody permanent.
Roen looked at her as if she were crazy. Me? In charge? I ain’t sure that’s such a good idea.
Rennie patted his cheek. Nobody’s expectin you to be Bob. Just do the job you’ve been trained for.
Roen sat. He stared into space, as if he had been bopped on the head with a sledgehammer. Rennie had no authority to make appointments, but it seemed unlikely anybody would argue with her for at least another day.
The council’s gonna run the city until C.W.’s up and about, Raymond said.
She turned to him. Two members are outta town. Another one’s in this very hospital with her ulcer. The other two can’t get a quorum until one of the others gets back. And we ain’t got a deputy mayor.
How much time do we have before they stick their noses in?
No tellin.
Raymond squeezed her hand and looked at everyone in the room, one at a time. We need to talk about what’s next, he said. Right now.
An hour later, they had concocted a plan that, Raymond hoped, was too simple to screw up. But they needed supplies, so they could not implement it for at least a day. LeBlanc and Frost had already left, bound for the Walmart Supercenter in Stephenville, with instructions to head on to Granbury or even Fort Worth, if necessary.
Raymond and McDowell stayed behind with Rennie, who had begun a de facto mayoral administration from the waiting room. She made phone calls, sent texts, and took more calls on the waiting room landline. Her husband was fighting for his life on an operating table, and here she was, barking out orders and taking notes on the backs of old magazines and shedding nary a tear, as if she had allowed herself one cry and would not indulge in another until she had squared away the town. She’s stronger than me. It ain’t even close.
Roen had left to secure the diner, having promised to assign at least one car to sit on the place until the agency arrived.
Rennie had given Raymond some aspirin. They dulled the pain a bit, but it was still with him, festering and boiling.
Raymond turned to Will. Walk with me?
Will got up. Raymond led him into the hall. They walked side by side down the corridor, the chirpings of monitors emanating from every room with an open door. Raymond followed the signs until they found the cafeteria and went inside, where Raymond bought them coffee. They sat at a round table with four ratty chairs. Raymond’s was unbalanced. Every time he shifted his weight, the chair’s off leg struck the floor, jarring his hand. He grimaced.
Will blew steam from the top of the cup and nodded at the hand. How is it?
Only hurts when I’m conscious. Raymond drank the scalding coffee, wincing as it outraged his tongue and soft palate. Maybe it would take his mind off the hand.
The kid looked like he had done two or three hypodermics’ worth of bad heroin, all saucer eyes with bruised-looking bags under them, his hair corkscrewed and dirty.
You think Daddy’s gonna be okay?
I think he’s tougher than hell and too stubborn not to walk outta here.
Will looked Raymond in the eye. The guy that shot him—
Raymond held his gaze. Wasn’t no guy. But I guess you figured that out.
I just wanted somebody to say it. I thought maybe I was goin crazy.
Not unless we all are. I wonder if psych hospitals give group discounts.
Will laughed, but it sounded hollow and brittle. So. Did you know?
Did I know what? That y’all was bein haunted? Or that a ghost could shoot you?
Will shrugged. Either. Both.
Not until it did this, Raymond said, holding up his cast. I mean, we knew what folks was sayin, but we didn’t believe it. Who would?
The boy’s jaw tightened. But you did know. Before it shot Daddy.
Raymond sighed. He felt a hundred years old. I reckon I did. Look, son, we thought we had a plan. But ain’t none of us ever done this kind of thing before. And we tried to get your daddy to stay away from the diner.
So it’s his fault?
No. But you know how he is. Especially with me.
Will looked away and nodded. I guess I do. I want to be mad at you, but you didn’t shoot him.
Be mad at me if that’s what you need. I’ll still love you.
Will drank his coffee. I wanna help kill that thing.
No, sir.
It’s my daddy in there.
I know. But it’s your momma in the waitin room. She needs you. And if I’m watchin you, I can’t do my job.
You don’t gotta watch me. I’m almost a grown-up, legally.
It don’t work that way. I’ll worry about you when you’re fifty. That’s family.
Will laughed again. Shit. So I just sit around. What if you
get killed while I do nothin?
You’re takin care of your momma. That’s the most important job of all. It’s the one your daddy would want you to do.
A tear formed in the boy’s eye, but he wiped it away. He sniffled. This sucks.
It surely does. After they finished their coffee, they went back to the others.
Another hour passed. Raymond managed not to drive to the nearest liquor store and stockpile whiskey and bourbon, even though it would have been easier to face the coming hours drunk. Instead, he ran to Dairy Queen, catching them just before they closed, and pissed off the manager and teenage staff by ordering enough food for a dozen people. He swung by the hotel and grabbed his Percocet. When he returned, Rennie ate two burgers and a fistful of fries. Raymond took his pill. McDowell wolfed down her food, but Will barely touched his. He sprawled on the floor, using his mother’s purse as a pillow, and fell asleep.
At some point, someone started a ruckus down the hall. Raymond and Rennie investigated, leaving McDowell in case the boy woke up or the surgeon returned with news. At the end of the corridor, Police Chief Bob Bradley’s body had arrived. His uniform was soiled. His eyes were closed, his face pale, his forehead sunken in places and lumpy in others and deep purple. Comanche’s off-duty officers stood around the gurney, heads bowed, holding their hats. Some of them prayed. Raymond and Rennie joined them. The mud caked on his own pants and shoes shamed Raymond. You ought to mourn when you’re clean. Somewhere a woman wept, her wracking sobs reverberating through the corridors like thunder in a canyon. Probably Bradley’s wife, whom Raymond had not met. What might the woman look like? Did she have children? What kind of house did she live in? Raymond had worked beside Bradley for days and days, had conspired with him and argued with him, but had never bothered to find out who he was or what his life was like. That kind of self-centered behavior had been common when he was drinking. What was his excuse now?
Percocet dulled only a certain kind of pain.
He walked down the hall and leaned against a doorjamb. His hand throbbed in time with his heartbeat. Another hospital, another corridor, another death. Nothing about it ever changed. The nurses’ sympathetic looks. The doctors’ voices and movements, as brisk and efficient as automatons. Once he had stood in an ER waiting room as a short man in light blue scrubs approached, a surgical mask dangling from his neck. This doctor wore an expression akin to sympathy, but his eyes remained alert, detached. Mister Turner, we did everything we could. We’ve stabilized her, but I’m afraid your wife has slipped into a vegetative state. Yes, sir, I understand. Time will tell us a lot more, but we’re reading only minimal brain activity. Most people with this kind of damage never wake up. Yes, sir. You should inform your family. Later, a second neurologist stood over Marie’s smashed and withering body and said much the same. That woman’s eyes seemed softer than the first doctor’s, her sympathy more genuine, but it made no difference. There is no nice, polite, conciliatory way to tell someone his wife is brain dead, that the most he can hope for is a future of suppurating bedsores and bags full to bursting with piss and shit. Then came the orderlies, who had pulled Raymond out of Marie’s room after she died, big men with strong arms and powerful thighs who had nevertheless found it nearly impossible to drag him away. The prick high on his upper arm as someone shot him full of sedative. The droning voice of the priest someone called in, spouting his useless words.
Raymond had hated hospitals ever since. He had not even gone to see Dwayne Hirsch, his old NOPD partner, after he got shot breaking up a domestic disturbance. The bullet had passed through Hirsch’s outer abdomen, missing every major organ. The hospital kept him for only two days, mostly monitoring the wound for infection, but Raymond could not bring himself to cross the building’s threshold.
Now it was Mrs. Bradley’s turn to fall down grief’s bottomless hole. Her turn to wake in the night, blissfully unaware, just for a moment, of the absence beside her. And she would live through that nightmare because Raymond had failed again. He had not been with Marie when she crashed, and who knew how he might have altered things? Now he had let Frost and Bradley out of his sight, and the chief lay as dead and cold as ancient stone.
An orderly arrived and muttered his condolences to the men and women gathered there. Everyone stepped back so he could push the gurney to the morgue. A crying woman came in through another door. She was five and a half feet tall and probably 180, with shoulder-length brunette hair and a small white scar across the bridge of her nose. Mrs. Bradley, Raymond presumed. He wanted to kick himself for noticing details at such a time. The woman was not a suspect. She was a widow. A nurse walked with her, arm around her waist.
Rennie hugged Mrs. Bradley. Helen. I’m so sorry.
Helen Bradley tried to speak but only sobbed harder, the words lost in grunts and expostulations. The nurse nodded at Rennie and pulled Mrs. Bradley through the doors. Roen followed. Were they going to make that poor woman identify the body when everybody in town knew the chief? Or perhaps the chapel lay in that direction.
Rennie returned to Raymond’s side.
They got two girls, she said, one of ’em in junior high. Bob just bought a bass boat, too. They loved their fishin. Poor woman.
Yeah, Raymond said. But she ain’t the only one whose husband got shot. How are you?
Mine’s alive, so I’m feelin pretty good, all things considered. We better get on back before Will wakes up. Together, they turned and walked back down the hallway. But when they reached the waiting area, Rennie stopped him.
I know you did your best. You and yours risked your lives, and I love you all for it. But this can’t happen to Will. It just can’t. I need you to be your best self now. The brother I grew up with. The one who was willin to drive to Austin and kick C.W.’s ass after we had our first fight in college. The one who dug himself out from under his grief and got his life back. I need the fighter. And I need him right now. If the council decides to shut you down, I won’t have a say in it.
Raymond nodded. For the first time, they had a hard deadline. He rubbed his temples and sighed, knowing the coming night would be long and stressful, that he could not risk taking any pills past a certain point.
He walked outside to call Red Thornapple and was only mildly surprised to find the man interviewing the two medics from the diner. Raymond waited until Thornapple shook hands with the men and started toward the hospital doors.
A word? Raymond said.
Yeah. Off the record, I reckon.
That’s right. We need equipment.
Thornapple looked weary. Like what? A tank?
No, Raymond said. More shotguns. 20-gauges. One for you, your lady friend, and Adam Garner.
So we’re all gonna fight.
I hope not. But if you have to, you’ll need guns that fit our salt rounds. Can you do that?
Thornapple laughed, a hollow, exhausted sound. If I can’t scare up a few shotguns, I’m a jackrabbit.
At 2 a.m., Roark’s surgeon entered the waiting room. Rennie sat still, composed. Will lay on a cot someone had brought in. LeBlanc and Frost had not returned. They were likely still waiting on Ollie Tidewater to reload more rounds with rock salt. Raymond stood up with Rennie and McDowell, who put one hand on Rennie’s shoulder.
Yes? Rennie said.
The surgeon, whose name Raymond never heard, crossed his arms and said, Mr. Roark was rolled out of surgery twenty minutes ago. He’s critical, but we’re optimistic.
Rennie’s lips quivered, but her voice was steady. What’s the damage?
He lost most of a lung, and his system’s had quite the shock, but he’s stable. In the short term, he’s going to hurt, and I doubt he’ll ever run a marathon or deep-water free dive. But unless something unexpected happens—and you have to realize it’s always a possibility—his long-term prognosis looks good.
The doctor left the room. McDowell hugged Rennie, who looke
d at Raymond.
You want us to wake up Will? he asked.
I’ll do it. Just give me a minute.
She walked past them and down the corridor, as if she were pursuing the surgeon. Raymond and McDowell looked at each other. Raymond raised his eyebrows and nodded in Rennie’s direction. McDowell shook her head. Raymond deferred. When it came to emotions, she always knew best. Just then, deep, throaty sobs echoed along the hall, the sounds of someone either falling through chasms of sadness or finding a nearly bottomless relief, perhaps both. A nurse passed by. She did not look in the waiting room and did not seem alarmed at the noise. In hospitals, people lost control all the time, the sounds as familiar as the beeps of machines and the low-frequency mutter of the PA system and the whispers of relatives making plans for events they probably expected but never sought.
Chapter Twenty-Five
September 16, 2016, Early Morning—Comanche, Texas
The group sat around Red Thornapple’s dining table, drinking strong coffee and eating cinnamon rolls Joyce Johnstone had whipped up from scratch. Raymond, McDowell, Frost, and LeBlanc tried to rub the weariness from their eyes. No one had slept.
Doing his best to ignore his hand as it screamed bloody murder, Raymond had called Rennie, saying, We just can’t get there any faster, not if we all wanna keep our body parts sittin where they grew.
The council’s supposed to meet this afternoon, Rennie said.
Can you stall ’em?
The hell with ’em. I don’t care if they vote to bring in the National Guard. Finish what we started.
Damn right.
He sounded more optimistic than he felt. How much support would David Roen provide? If the council appointed him acting chief and ordered him to cordon off the diner, he might do it. He would not like it, and he would probably cuss, but the little fellow had spent his career following orders. The fact that Bradley himself had bucked authority to do what was right might make a difference, but it might not. Better to plan for Roen’s absence, even his hostility. Raymond reached for another roll and sipped his coffee, watching Frost try to stay awake.
