Dead Fall Back

by Tony Masero

  “True enough, ma’am,” Stoeffel agreed, fetching more boxes.

  “Lord, you got enough stuff there for a legion. I ain´t got any money for all this and I never ordered nothing, so where is it all coming from? Cain´t be Reverend Clitus, he already been past a day or so back.”

  “No, ma’am. This is just a small offering to help you get by. There´s no need for any payment; it’s all taken care of. And look here, there´s this pot of flowers for you.”

  Mother Jobin stood there silently a moment. A shadow amongst shadows.

  “You done this, didn´t you, Chief?”

  Stoeffel sighed. “It´s nothing, Mother. Look I´ll take these inside for you and be on my way.”

  “I reckon you´d better come inside with me and take a glass or two, son. I see something’s troubling you.”

  Stoeffel felt like an admonished child under the old lady´s stern invitation but he obeyed her and carried the cartons into her small kitchen. She lit an oil lamp and fetched a bottle and two glasses.

  “This here,” she said, raising the bottle which glowed red in the lamplight. “Is my own special liquor, I make it myself from the wild berries I find in the woods. An´ I´ll be mighty surprised if you don´t think it´s the cat´s whiskers.” She poured with a shaky hand and offered the glass to Stoeffel. “Set there, Chief. And take it slow, that’s powerful stuff.”

  Stoeffel sat down awkwardly in the high backed wooden chair. “I´m obliged, ma’am.” He sipped the drink and found it sweet and full, rich with flavor. “Why that is a mighty fine wine, Mother Jobin.”

  She sat down in her rocking chair and holding her glass in both hands savored a mouthful.

  “The one blessed pleasure I have left,” she cackled.

  They sat silently for a while watching the shadows dance in the lamp flame.

  “I´ll tell you something, Chief. Might ease your mind some.” She paused momentarily then hawked and spat casually into her cuspidor.

  Stoeffel watched her wondering how she could tell his heart ached so.

  “That cabin out back there, you know it?” Stoeffel nodded affirmation. “Well, when I was a young woman I was a damned pretty little thing an´ lived out here quite happy with just my folks, didn´ have no siblings, I was a only child not wanting or expecting much out of life. Up one day, a young woodsman passes by the house and my Ma civilly asked him to join us for supper. In them days these boys would live out in the woods for months all on their own away from town. They didn´t have much and just worked the wood, felling and stripping the trees for the lumber mill. He was a handsome devil an´ I was a young girl going on sixteen years old who knew next to nothing about anything `cep caring for livestock and such.”

  The drink tasted good and Stoeffel indicated the bottle, not wishing to interrupt the old lady´s tale.

  Mother Jobin nodded and as Stoeffel refilled his glass she took up her story.

  “Well, to cut it short I fell head over heels for this boy. Peers Longridge was his name and he came from out of State somewhere, I never did find out where. It seemed Peers was just as interested in me as I was in him and he came to call pretty frequently after that. My folks liked him. He was an easygoing fella, polite and attentive. I guess they saw him as a good match for their daughter. So, we would set there on that porch outside. We had a swing seat then and we would drink lemonade and when we thought no one was looking we would hold hands. You´ll never know, you youngsters, how just holding hands can be the most exciting thing a person can experience. Nowadays it has to be the whole kit-`n-kaboodle, but back then it was enough.”

  She sipped her glass to ease all the talking.

  “One time I let him kiss me,” her voice drifted off softly at the memory and became young again.

  “Like angels wings, it was. I felt as if my heart would stop beating altogether.”

  Stoeffel smiled kindly at her words. A remembered passion that must have been over seventy years old and still as fresh a perfume as flowers in the old woman´s mind.

  “We set to marry. My Pa and him shook hands on it and all was taken care of. Then though, them little fellow’s invaded Pearl and the war started. I wanted us to wed before he left to go fighting but he wouldn´t have it. Just hold yourself for me, he said. Just wait `til I get back. So I did as he asked and listened to the radio each night to hear what was going on. Remember, Chief, I had next to no schooling. I didn´t know where they was talking about on the radio. All them South Pacific islands. Iwo Jima and such. Didn´t mean nothing to me, I didn´t even know what a ocean looked like let alone where it was. Well, they dropped that terrible bomb an´ it all finished. I waited for Peers to come back. I waited a long, long time. He didn´t come back for years. Neither of us was much good at reading an´ writing so not much letter writing went on. My Pa found out he had been shot up some but had survived okay. Peers had been in hospital for a while then he lit out on his own and just went missing. So time passed, then one day I seen him. Standing on the path to the house. He looked terrible. Like a ghost. Raggedy clothes an´ eyes sunk in his head. I remember dropping the pail I held but I couldn´t move and we just looked at each other across that space out there.

  My Ma called out to me and I turned to answer her, when I looked back he was gone. I wasn´t sure if I had seen him or just imagined it. I never told my folks, so they never knew what happened. After that he appeared to me from time to time. Just flitting in an´ out of the woods, like a thing you catch at the corner of your eye. I began to think it was all my hopes conjuring up an apparition. I prayed, Lord how I prayed to make it real. Then one day, he spoke to me.”

  Stoeffel waited in the silence. The old woman stared into the lamp flame, her eyes liquid with tears. The lamplight breaking the tears into pinpoints of light in the dark shadows under her brows.

  “He called to me by my given name. Eleanor, he said. Eleanor, I´m sorry. I´m real sorry. That was the only time he ever spoke. He said that then he was gone. Moving in that forest like a wild animal, just drifting off as if he was autumn leaves. My heart broke, I can tell you. It was all real. He was here. Right next to me an´ yet untouchable. So I took to leaving out a covered basket of food on the porch, right where the swing seat was. Come morning it was always gone.

  My Pa reckoned the things he done and seen in the war had broke him. He was no man anymore they thought, living like a forest creature out there somewhere deep in the woods. I´d wait for him to come fetch the food I left out but I never saw him, he was real good at moving in the woods without being seen. I reckon they trained him some in the army for that. Then I would call to him, go out there in the forest and call. I waited, I´d say. I waited for you, Peers. But he never answered. Lord forgive me but I wanted to die I was that heartbroke.

  So, we hear this chopping an´ felling going on and we think the lumbermen are back at work. My Pa went out to see and came back telling us that someone was building a cabin over yonder back a-ways. We expected to have new neighbors soon. But no one came by, we never saw a soul, just heard all this banging and such. Each time my Pa went over there everything stopped. It was like some wood fairies was building the thing.

  When it was done, the cabin looked real pretty, I know, I went over to see. All the wood seams were caulked and sealed. The doors and windows fit real good. Even had a chimney an´ stove inside. It was a home, you see, Chief. Peers had made us a home. An´ I tell you this true, after it was done I never saw or heard a word of him from that day to this.”

  Stoeffel sat back amazed as she finished. “Not a word?” he asked.

  Mother Jobin shook her head. “No, he was gone. I´ve thought on it a long time and I reckon he probably died out there all alone somewhere. He couldn´t face people no more, you see. Must have been all broken up inside and nothing made sense anymore. Just bits and pieces of it. Leastways though, I had that small thing, he did come back here an´ built us a home.”

  She paused and took another sip of her drink. “Sad thing is, Chief… An
d you can take this and understand it how you will. Howsomever you might build the house you still have to live in it, otherwise it ain´t no damned use at all.”

  Stoeffel set down his glass. “That sure is a sad tale, ma’am. I´m real sorry to hear it had to end that way.”

  “I think you´ve been there, Chief. Ain´t that right? I feel it comin´ off you like steam on a skillet. But you know all that hurting ain´t going to change a thing, you have to try a little lovin´ to kill off the pain.”

  Stoeffel nodded wryly. “You´re a perceptive old woman.”

  She waved a withered hand dismissively and smiled. “Naw, I just been around a long time.”

  “Well, thank you for your time and advice. I´ll certainly think on it.”

  “You do that. And you might like to take another look at Peers´ cabin. I heard a vehicle up there earlier, I wonder if them people is back.”

  Stoeffel frowned darkly at the information. “Okay,” he said. “I´ll check it out.”

  His dashboard clock read out a digital 03.30 by the time Stoeffel made it back up to the clearing in the woods. It was pitch black in the deep of a moonless night and nothing was visible outside the funneled beam of his headlights. Stoeffel parked and looked across the clearing as the high beams highlighted the destroyed cabin. Nothing moved. He called in.

  “Leroy, you there?”

  “Sure am, Chief. What’s up? Thought you´d be fast asleep by now.”

  “I´m up at the burnt out cabin. There´s been movement reported up here by the old lady and I´m just checking.”

  “You need backup, Chief?”

  “No. Just letting you know.”

  “Okay. By the way, Chief. I had a comeback from U.S. Customs on those toys.”

  “Let´s hear it.”

  “No one imports them. But Customs say they do appear on a manifest for a house contents movement over from Japan. A Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Loville. I checked it out and the house is here in Lodrun. The folks themselves live in L.A. (need periods for Los Angeles, because LA is the postal abbreviation for Louisiana) and this is their holiday home. Apparently this Loville guy is something to do with the movie industry. Lotta dough. He comes up maybe once, twice a year. Does some hunting with his pals, that sort of thing. Funny thing is, the family has no children.”

  For once Stoeffel was grateful for the post 9/11 paranoia. Customs was real careful now about what came into the country and comprehensive manifests were order of the day. “Okay. That’s good work, Leroy. We´ll check it come daylight. You got the address?”

  “Sure have, Chief. They´re at Boden Place Farm, bitty piece outside of town.”

  “I know it. Call you back when I´ve had a look around up here. Out.”

  Stoeffel hung up the mike and collected his flashlight. He stepped out of the car and ran the beam around the clearing.

  The thing sat there. Propped upright in the middle of the clearing like an open invitation. A black plastic sack reflecting the flashlight beam in ripples of brightness The thing was big, the sort of thick plastic bag that an industrial boiler might arrive in and fastened at the top with a turn or two of plastic coated wire. Stoeffel moved over cautiously. The old lady had been right, whoever these people were they had certainly been here since he, Summersby and Jimmy Luke had been up. Stoeffel unbuttoned the fastening strap on his holster and took out his pistol. He clicked off the safety and kept his finger ready alongside the trigger guard.

  He walked all around the sack, slowly checking the damp earth with his flashlight. There were large sized boot prints and he avoided them carefully, they would need to make casts later. He found the high tension fishing line around back. Almost invisible to the naked eye, only the run of torchlight along the gossamer length gave it away as a silver thread.

  The line ran across the clearing to a dried up bush that camouflaged a positioned claymore mine. The curved box shaped anti-personnel device could spray a burst of shredding metal balls over anybody that triggered the booby trap by moving the sack. Stoeffel knew the story; he had seen enough of them in the army overseas. He freed the attached line and made the ugly looking mine safe. Whoever these people were they knew their stuff and were prepared to go to any lengths it seemed.

  Stoeffel tested the hefty sack with the barrel of his gun. It squeaked and settled softly away from the pressure. He slipped a fold-up knife from his pocket and slit a line down the front of the plastic. The slash opened easily, forced by the weight inside and a river of polystyrene chips sprang out, flowing whitely onto the clearing floor. Stoeffel backed off before the white wave reached his feet. He ran his flashlight’s beam up quickly into the interior.

  Fish dead eyed, the bloody face of George stared back at him. Curls of polystyrene sticking to the pale skin like snow on a statue. He was bound with packing tape, knees bent up to his chin and arms down by his side, the tape wound around the body fastening it like a mummy. Stoeffel stared, a cold weight settling in his heart as he noted the dark brown stain running out from under George´s chin down onto his soaked shirt.

  As it silted out, the polystyrene load lightened inside the bag and the folded body moved forward, shifting weight from off the second hidden detonator. Stoeffel was tumbled backwards by a pressure wave as the clearing lit up in a sudden explosion of light. A white flash of sparkling phosphorus droplets climbed skywards and blazed there in a pyrotechnic display as they flew out from the vaporized sack.

  Temporarily blinded, Stoeffel could only see a hazy blotch of purple before his eyes. He never knew it but the compact mass of George´s body redirected the blast away from him before it was incinerated. Miraculously none of the phosphorus particles struck him. Exploding into flame as they reach the air, they torched the trees around the clearing behind and spread little pools of fire on the ground. Dazedly, Stoeffel sat up, seeing nothing except the bloom of purple burned into his retina by the brilliant light. He could smell the fire and scrambled wildly backwards on hands and heels away from the roaring pyre at the center of the clearing.

  He collapsed back against the wheel hub of his police cruiser, mind whirling as very slowly his vision began to clear.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Deputy Leroy Banks hummed a tuneless melody. He sighed a deep sigh, looked up at the ceiling and circled one thumb around the other. Should he have another coffee or not? That was the only pressing question he had to answer.

  Leroy hated the night shift. You would think that out of some two thousand odd people there would be one of them creating something exciting at nighttime. But the town was dead. Except for Lucille on Arbor Street, that is. Lord, what kept that girl at it? Every night doing that thing before a window with the blinds open. It was enough to drive a guy crazy. And maybe that’s just why she did it, reasoned Leroy with a sudden flash of insight.

  Since the Chief had called, Leroy had looked in on the prisoner, Brian Links, written out his report on Mrs. McGaddy and checked incoming directive emails and wanted notice faxes. That was it. He was done until Ayleen relieved him. All things considered though, he knew they were lucky, in some other states cutbacks were so stringent that many police stations were reduced to one officer to keep them running. Some night’s only eight men guarded an entire state with a workload that stretched way beyond their capacity. If people only knew they would be fearing more than just another terrorist attack. Here though, with the heavy resort traffic in the summer months and the high residential profile of the region, the county thought it wise to keep on a viable quota of staff throughout the year. (Tony… Since Stoeffel and his officers are all local or county cops, the staffing wouldn’t have been decided by the State of West Virginia, nor would they have worked as state troopers, so I changed this a little to be more accurate)

  The glass door swung inwards and a man entered. Big guy. Brawny. Leroy sat up in his chair. Maybe some action at last. Although probably no more than a tractor-trailer breakdown on the train tracks.

  “Help you, sir?” he asked.

/>   “Chief in?” The man said, looking at him once briefly from beneath lowered brows before his eyes quartered the room.

  “No, sir. Not just now. How may I help?”

  The man reached behind himself and lugged out a cut down shotgun with a pistol handgrip that he had slung over his shoulder out of sight.

  “No way I know, son.” He pumped the barrel grip noisily, cranking a shell into the chamber. “`Cept maybe you can hand me over the cell keys.”

  Leroy was half out of his seat when he saw the shotgun. He fell back, almost tumbling over the chair.

  “Don´t do it, boy,” growled the man as Leroy fumbled at his holster. “I´ll cut you in half.”

  Leroy´s hand trembled away from his pistol.

  “Don´ you do anything foolish, mister. I ain´t going for it,” he said nervously in a high-pitched squeaky voice that he himself was surprised to hear.

  “Right,” said the man with a gruff laugh. “Now, just you set still and keep your hands in front of you on the desk there.” The man circled the counter and pressed the barrel under Leroy´s chin. “Now, gimme the keys before I rain your brains all over the ceiling.”

  Leroy felt his knees weaken and a hollow space fill his stomach. His mind raced, fighting to keep the fear in check and still come up with a solution more befitting an officer of the law.

  “I ... I, er, don´t have the keys here,” he mumbled.

  The barrel jabbed deeper. “Then where the hell do you have them?”

  “Er, Chief´s got them. Keeps them with him at all times.” Leroy knew he was rushing it, it did not sound convincing even to himself.

  “Yeah, right,” husked the man, with a throaty chuckle as his eyes ran over the desktop. “And what’s this little ole set on the desktop right here then?” He jabbed amongst a pile of papers for the half hidden ring of keys.

  Leroy swallowed. Why the hell did he have to leave them there, why hadn´t he put them in the drawer like he was supposed to?