Blood of Angels

by Marshall, Michael

  Hidden amongst tree roots and random bits of rock, there was a small rectangular recess in the side of the hill. The bottom of the recess was the ground; the sides were slightly bowed and consisted of stones, not unlike those which lay around, but set together in a dry wall construction to create supports about a foot wide and three feet high, a little over two feet apart. Across these lay a flat lintel stone. On top of that, earth.

  The man squatted a moment and looked at the opening, tracing a finger over the joints between some of the stones. Then he stood and looked over it, sweeping his gaze across the hill behind. Pulled a camera out of his pocket and took a couple of pictures. Walked around the base of the hillock a little way, observing the relationship between the door and the hill.

  Then, his eyes still on the feature, he came back to where Oz was waiting.

  'Okay,' he said. 'Now you can talk.'

  •••

  In 1869 a resident of a homestead near Lincoln—then a hamlet of little size or repute—was foraging for firewood in the forest when he came across something odd. A stone construction, something that looked like a very small doorway. The next day he and his son cleared the undergrowth, and moved a collection of large stones which appeared to have been inserted into the mouth of a tunnel beyond: it was hard to see how they could have got there otherwise, and what function they could have had except to impede access. The son was sent inside, with a candle. He discovered the tunnel continued into the hillside for approximately eight feet, before broadening into a round, arched chamber with a diameter and height of around three metres. That night the son, who was talented with a pencil, drew what he had seen. The next day his father went in himself, navigating the narrow tunnel with some difficulty. He was inside for forty minutes, and when he emerged he instructed the son that they were going to block up the entrance again. To prevent children or livestock becoming trapped inside, he said, though neither were common to the area. He was also firm that they speak of this to no one outside the family. The son recorded the events in a private diary, which was discovered in an archive in Lincoln's small museum—along with the drawing—over a hundred years later.

  A local curiosity, nothing more. An abandoned root cellar, very likely, built to preserve vegetables in the lean early years, its stone construction enabling it to outlast any sign of the cabin it once served.

  Except that on February 1, 1876, the Boston Journal had reported the discovery of another underground chamber near Dedham, south of that city. Over the course of the next five decades hundreds of similar chambers were discovered across New England—in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut. Usually, but not always, associated with hillsides, they were of two types: simple covered passageways, often formed by taking advantage of natural crevices in rock; or more complicated beehive structures, like the Lincoln chamber, dry-walled and corbelled to arching ceilings. Both forms were usually covered and in-filled with earth, moulding them into the hillside or ridge where they were found.

  It didn't take long for some people to notice the similarity of these structures to stone chambers built in Europe a long, long time before America was supposed to have been discovered. Mainstream archaeology was firm on the subject, however; these were root cellars, built by early colonial settlers—since moved on or died—and forgotten until rediscovery. Some of them (like the Dedham chamber itself) seemed to become mislaid again, and the phenomenon faded into obscurity.

  There the matter rested until the 1960s, by which time enthusiastic amateurs had grown so clamorous in their desire to read something else into the chambers that the archaeologists had to take charge of the subject once again. The pros weighed in with a wealth of tedious data concerning the lack of pre-Columbian artefacts in the area, the fact that the distribution of the discovered structures largely mirrored known colonial settlement patterns in New England, and that oral and historical traditions confirmed the existence of stone root cellars. QED, in effect—now go away and leave this to the professionals. But the amateurs pointed out that some chambers seemed to have an astronomical orientation: one at the Gungywamp site in Connecticut, for example, which featured a channel markedly similar to one in the prehistoric New Grange monument in Ireland. An accident, said the archaeologists. But a sample of charcoal taken from a chamber in Windham County, Vermont, was radiocarbon dated to around 1405, said the amateurs. Carbon dating is notoriously tricky, the archaeologists scoffed (except when it backs up what you say, countered the amateurs). And even if most of them are root cellars, others are ludicrously large for that purpose, the amateurs further insisted, by now quite bad-temperedly.

  'Whatever,' said the archaeologists, sticking their fingers in their ears. 'Go away.'

  'But something tells me you know all this,' Oz muttered, tailing off. 'Half of it is in that piece in the Ledger, for a start.'

  He had grown uncomfortable under the man's steady gaze, and for once in his life wanted to stop talking. Everybody's heard of the thousand-yard stare of the Vietnam vet. This guy's seemed to reach for maybe ten times that distance—which was unsettling, especially if it was boring straight through your head.

  'What's inside?'

  Oz laughed. 'Yeah, right. You think I've been in there?'

  'You've written about this place three times that I know about, and you've never gone inside?'

  'Look at the entrance,' Oz said. 'One of the questions over these things is why the openings are usually too small for easy access. Now look at me, dude. How's your spatial awareness? You see me fitting up there? Even if there weren't a shitload of rocks in the way?'

  There was silence for a few moments, and then Oz glumly watched the man taking off his coat.

  •••

  It took over a half-hour. The rain had thinned to little more than mist by the time the guy was having to stick his torso into the hole to reach far enough to pull out more rocks. Oz did what he'd been told, which was to take the ones he was passed and put them in a neat pile to the side. Then there was a slight but distinct change in the echoed sound of the man's breath, and he emerged slowly, pulling with him a rock far larger—and flatter—than any of the others.

  'It's open,' he said. He looked at Oz.

  'Not that I don't want to, man,' Oz said, and now that the way was clear, he really sort of did. 'But I'm a little too old, too chunky, and way too claustrophobic. Went in one of these up in Vermont eighteen months ago, had a much bigger entrance, and I still felt like I was being buried alive.'

  The guy smiled very slightly at this, but Oz didn't think it was anything to do with mockery. More as if Oz had said something unexpectedly close to the mark.

  Then he was down there, only his feet still visible in the mouth of the entrance, and soon nothing left at all.

  Oz sat down on the pile of rocks and waited.

  After ten minutes he leaned over and peered up the tunnel. A couple of yards away he could see a brief sweep of a powerful flashlight. The guy came prepared, that was for sure.

  Oz sat back on the rocks. It was raining again and he wished he had a coffee, but otherwise he was feeling kind of psyched. Only a few hours before he'd been rueing a very average Monday morning, wishing something would happen. Well, it had. This, without question, was something happening. He had been to this place maybe fifteen, twenty times over the years. Sat close to where he was now, wondering what the purpose of the structure was. And now someone was inside, maybe finding out.

  After another fifteen minutes he heard the sound of the man coming back. He emerged hands first, holding a couple of small, clear plastic bags. Each had something in it, though Oz couldn't see what. The man got to his feet, brushed off the worst of the mud, and picked up his coat. The bags went into the pockets.

  'What you got there? What did you see? Is it like the drawing?'

  'The drawing was pretty good.'

  'So what did you…'

  Then there was a cracking noise, very loud. Plus the sound of someone shouting. Oz turned t
o see Frank Pritchard striding fast up the rise towards them, a shotgun in his hands.

  'Oh, shit. This is bad,' Oz said. 'This is precisely who we most don't want to see at this point.'

  The other man watched the farmer's progress, wiping dirt off his hands. Soon the content of Pritchard's hollering was discernible. He was a little drunk, as usual, and he was determined that no goddamned bastard was going to just come on his land whenever he felt like it. He had his goddamned gun and he was going to use it this time, and he was confident that no goddamned jury in the land would convict.

  He came to a halt and levelled the gun at them.

  'Oh crap,' Oz said, now very scared. 'Look, Frank…'

  Pritchard was waving the gun pretty wildly. If he pulled the trigger it was going to take off someone's head.

  'We're busy,' the man called Zandt said, mildly.

  The old guy shut up, like a clam closing in a snap. After a moment Oz realized the guy in the long coat was holding a weapon too. A gun had appeared from nowhere in his right hand, and was pointing directly at Pritchard's head. It was not wavering at all.

  'I accept that this constitutes trespass,' the man said, in a calm, low tone. 'And as such, grieves you. But you're going to go now, and leave us alone. And if you see Mr Turner here again, you're going to look the other way and walk on by. Can we agree to that?'

  'This is my land,' Pritchard said, with surprising clarity.

  'We know that. We'll do it no harm.'

  The old man seemed to subside, and then abruptly turned and walked. After a couple of yards he looked back.

  'That thing's bad news,' he said. 'I'm telling you.'

  'Yes,' the other man said. 'It is.'

  Pritchard swore at no one in particular, and then stalked away.

  As Oz watched him go, the other man bent to the pile of rocks and started moving them back into the mouth of the tunnel.

  Within ten minutes no one was getting back in there in a hurry. This time the bigger, flatter rock was the last to go in. When you saw it blocking the entrance, you realized it had been designed that way.

  The man stood. 'You never get more specific on where this thing is located, understood? Neither in print or on your website or in that appalling radio show.'

  'Why? Now you've been in there…' Oz tailed off quickly when he saw the man looking at him. 'Okay,' he said.

  The man took the camera out of his pocket and handed it to him. 'There's fifteen shots of the inside. The rest of the disk is full of similar material. Including the interior of the Dedham chamber.'

  'What? No way. That was lost…'

  'I found it again. Put it all up on your site, so I can get them if I need to.'

  'But…why are you doing this?'

  'People need to know. But you came here alone, went inside alone. Right?'

  'Man, I'm forgetting your existence in real time. It will be a pleasure. Trust me.'

  The man smiled, and this time it looked almost real. Then he turned and walked away.

  •••

  By the time Oz got back to the gate the black car had gone, and fresh rain had begun to fill its tracks. Happily, a car came along only five minutes after Oz made it to Old Pond Lane.

  Unhappily, it contained his ex-wife.

  Chapter 13

  In the morning things had happened fast. We were woken just after eight by a call from Reidel: a local cop had gotten a hit on Larry Widmar. He had been seen talking to a woman in a bar on the Owensville Road on the night he disappeared. Nina took details and arranged to meet him at the bar in forty minutes.

  While she showered I called the number Unger had supplied in his email, after using a dark corner of the internet to confirm it belonged to a phone that was registered to a Mr C Unger, street address withheld. This looked good, down to Unger using his alleged intelligence status to keep information out of a database that wasn't supposed to exist in the first place. I still didn't want to use my own phone to call him, but other options were limited. Calling from the room or lobby or a public call box would place me even more securely than a cell trace. The only other approach was social engineering: borrowing a phone from a member of the public with or without their consent. All I'd be doing was transferring the danger to an innocent bystander—which even my training-wheeled moral system would find it hard to classify as 'good'.

  So in the end I just called him, and after all that he didn't pick up. I was redirected to voicemail and told I'd reached Carl Unger's phone and I should leave a message. The voice didn't sound familiar, but they seldom do. I said who I was and that he was welcome to call me back.

  Then we went out and got in my rental and headed for the bar.

  •••

  Reidel was already there, standing with a woman in the middle of a parking lot that was cold and empty and bordered with mist. The bar sat by the side of the road about a half mile out of town, and was a long, flat oblong tricked up to look slightly like a boat. Why, when the nearest ocean was a long day's drive away, was hard to imagine. It was called 'The Mayflower'.

  Reidel introduced the woman as Hazel and explained they were in the lot because the manager was late arriving to open up.

  'So,' Nina said, showing her badge. 'Hazel—you want to tell me what you've told the detective here?'

  Hazel was in her thirties and smoker-thin, decent looks heading calcified. Her voice sounded like you could use her throat to take the edges off things, and also as if she was more of an evening person. She stood with the body language of a woman who had about two minutes' good temper left in her at any one time.

  'The guy in the picture I was showed. He's in once in a while, not often. Wednesday night he was here, though, mid to late, and I know it was Wednesday because I was pissed because it was supposed to be my night off but Gretchen went no-warning AWOL again but hell, that's okay—because bubble-butt is screwing Lloyd right now and so she's fucking golden.'

  'Lloyd being the manager,' Reidel said. 'He hasn't been talked to yet. He wasn't here last night or on Wednesday.'

  'Yeah, right,' Hazel said. 'Too busy getting it wet. He's married, you know. Three kids. Cute fucking kids, too.'

  'Last Wednesday,' Nina prompted.

  Hazel shrugged. 'I didn't talk to the guy and I don't really know him and all I told the cop was he was there, and I saw him talking to some chick with short hair who's in here sometimes, drinks vodka straight up. Personally I always thought she was, like, a woman's woman, but what the hell do I know?'

  'Can you give us more of a description of the woman?'

  'Your height, forty pounds heavier, pasty face. Wouldn't want to kiss her.'

  'You think any of the other staff might know who she is?'

  'Maybe Donna. But she's away till Thursday.'

  We turned at the sound of a vehicle pulling into the lot. It was a red truck, and it parked right up against the front of the building.

  'Or him,' Hazel added, folding her arms even more tightly. 'Assuming he brought his brain today.'

  The guy who got out of the truck was in his late forties, slim and losing colour on top. He was trying hard for silver fox but came across more like a greying weasel with a tan.

  'What's going on?'

  'Police,' Reidel said. 'We're here about a customer of yours. Man called Lawrence Widmar.'

  Lloyd looked immediately wary. 'Right. Guy who got killed.'

  Hazel stared. 'He's dead?'

  'Yes,' Nina said. 'He's the man who was found in Raynor's Wood. Didn't the policeman tell you?'

  'No. He just asked if I recognized…I didn't know.' She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, fumbled for a light. I held one out for her. 'Thanks. Jesus.'

  'I wouldn't call him a regular,' the manager said, moving smoothly into distancing mode. 'Came in here maybe once, twice a month. Didn't drink a whole lot. Sat in a booth, read a book mostly. Sometimes he'd talk to someone.'

  'Women?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Hazel says he was in conversatio
n last Wednesday.'

  Lloyd looked at Hazel. 'You know the one,' she said. 'Big-faced. Short hair. I figured maybe she was a dyke.'

  'She is a dyke, Hazel. I told you that. That's Diane Lawton. He was talking to her?'

  'Sure was.'

  'Wasting his time then,' the manager said, evidently baffled. 'I guess some guys are just plain dumb.'

  Hazel gave him a look that would have scorched paint.

  'You got a phone book in the bar, sir?' Nina asked.

  The manager led her and Reidel over to the door. While they were inside I waited in the lot with the waitress.

  She accepted my offer of another cigarette, in no evident hurry to get inside. 'You figure it's someone from Thornton?'

  'Or nearby. This Lawton woman seem good for it to you?'

  She frowned, surprised to be asked. 'Well, no, not at all. But I mean, I don't know about people who kill people. There's got to be something about them, right? You'd be able to see it?'

  'Not really,' I said.

  'For real? You known some killers?'

  'A few.'

  'What are they like?'

  'Same as you or me. But they kill people.'

  'But then…how come?'

  'Got me,' I said. 'That's just the way it is.'

  'I had a boyfriend once,' she said, after a moment. 'Seemed like he might hurt somebody some day. Just something about him, like, sometimes he looked at his hands funny. But he never did, far as I know. We broke up and one night he came around and sat in my yard. Didn't shout or nothing. Just sat out there. I thought that would be the night, but then he went away.'

  'What happened after that?'

  'Nothing,' she said. 'I'd see him around. Couple years later he got killed in a car wreck.' She shrugged. 'Don't know why I told you that.'

  Nina and Reidel came back out. Nina stopped with Hazel a moment and thanked her for her time. 'I'd appreciate it if you didn't speak to anybody about this,' she said. 'At this stage all we want to do is eliminate Ms Lawton from the investigation.'