by Milk;Honey
Hollander started belting out off-key torch songs. Decker cranked up the police radio, hoping Mike could take a hint.
“Jesus!” Hollander said. He lowered the volume. “You trying to make us deaf, aiming for disability or something? What’s with you today?”
“I’m on edge.”
“I can see that.”
“Exit here,” Decker said, pointing to the ascending mountain road.
“Kinda steep,” Hollander remarked.
“Want me to drive?”
“Yeah, why don’t you?” Hollander pulled over onto the shoulder of the street. “You know the way.”
Decker gunned the motor and burned rubber as he pulled out. He heard Hollander suck in his breath, but ignored him and kept accelerating the car.
A minute later, he said, “You take Granny Darcy, Mike. I’ll take Pappy.”
“O-kay.”
“Keep the questions light. After all, we don’t have anything to hold them on. Forensics hasn’t released the bodies yet, so something still may come up. But as of right now, we’ve got zip—nothing to tie them to the crime scene. But they don’t know that.”
“O-kay.”
“And don’t smoke your pipe in front of her,” Decker said. “From what I understand, she’s a real fundamentalist. Probably thinks tobacco is an invention of the Devil.” He inhaled a whiff of the odor in the car, then said, “Not far from the truth.”
Hollander stuck his pipe in his jacket, leaned the passenger seat as far back as it would go, and closed his eyes. Decker shifted into low gear as he descended into the canyon, slowed as he hit the winding canyon road. Tawny grain fields glinted specks of sunlight, livestock grazed in the distance. An idyllic slice of Americana, discounting the butchery that had taken place. Sudden rage. It happened all the time….
Abel’s voice telling him: Who was he to judge?
Good point, Old Honest Abe. Very good point.
Decker heard Hollander snore. He’d known Mike for six years, never seen the man riled. Hollander was a good cop, not hard-driven, but his pacing had given him longevity in a job reknowned for burnout.
He passed Hell’s Heaven, saw the rows of choppers, the bikers armored with leather and denim. The same snapshot as a week ago. No doubt the same three weeks ago.
If four people died in the forest and no one noticed…
Decker shook Hollander’s shoulder a mile before the Darcy farm. Hollander grunted, then woke. Decker slowed, turned right onto the gravel road that led to the house. The yellow crime-scene ribbon had been broken, but an end was still tied to the porch post. It lay lifeless on the ground like a used party streamer. Decker killed the motor, and he and Hollander exited the car. The air was warm and still, perfumed with hay and clover.
“Where’s the welcoming party?” Hollander said.
“I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting.” Decker knocked on the door. Knocked again a minute later.
“We’re too late,” Hollander said.
Decker walked around back, Hollander followed. A fifties two-tone aqua-and-white Dodge was parked in the weed-choked lot. The windows were rolled down; stuffing leaked out of the tuck and roll. Decker tried the barn door—locked. He hooded his eyes with his hand and scanned the field. In the distance were the pine boxes—the beehives. A patch of blue gingham was moving between them. Decker walked about fifty feet forward, saw the outline of a stoop-shouldered woman wearing a veil and gloves. He continued forward.
Hollander said, “We should have brought some insect repellent.”
Decker didn’t answer.
Hollander struggled to keep up with Decker. “Think there’s any merit to ‘They won’t bother you if you don’t bother them’?”
“Not when there’re thousands of the suckers,” Decker said.
“Great.”
The woman didn’t raise her head as they approached. She was large-boned and big-bosomed. Her features were obscured by the veil, but Decker could see the ruddiness of her complexion. Her hair was straight and gray, cut to one length like the little Dutch boy. It fell to the nape of her neck and sparkled silver at the ends. Decker stopped when they were within speaking range.
“Mrs. Darcy?” he said.
There was no response. Decker spoke louder—maybe the old woman was hard of hearing, because she continued to ignore them.
Decker shouted, “We’re police, ma’am! I want to tell you from the bottom of my heart how sorry we are for your loss.”
No answer.
“I heard from all your neighbors what a fine boy Luke was. How much he loved you and his pappy. You must have done a right fine job of raising him.”
She muttered something.
Decker said, “Excuse me, ma’am?”
The woman didn’t respond.
“I know you raised him with the fear of God and the love of Jesus. A fine Christian soldier—”
“Not fine enough,” Granny Darcy said.
“It wasn’t Luke’s fault,” Decker said. “It was that she-devil.”
Granny Darcy suddenly stiffened. She remained silent for a moment, then said, “You preach the word of the Gospel, but you ain’t to be trusted.” She faced them, then raised her veil. “Get off of my property.”
Hollander shifted his weight. Decker said, “We need to talk, Granny—”
“I said, get off of my property!”
With surprising agility, she leaped from box to box, banging on the hives, liberating swarms of agitated bees. As the dark funnels coalesced, merged into a droning black cloud, she began to laugh.
Hollander and Decker started running, but the cloud was quicker. Soon they were enveloped, hard nodules of fuzzy sleet pelting their face and skin. Hollander swore, tried to bat them away, but it only riled the bees further. Decker felt one sting, then another, and another, His brain fired into overdrive, trying to find a way out.
Think like Byron Howard.
Smoke!
Decker found his cigarettes and began lighting them. He screamed to Hollander to light his pipe, explaining that smoke confused bees. Hollander reached into his pocket and held a match to the bowl of his briar. Immediately, a thick cloud of tobacco swirled around their faces. A minute later, the bees were still upon them, still surrounded them, obscuring their vision, but had slowed their attacks.
“Now what?” Hollander asked, puffing out smoke. He had to shout to be heard over the one-note dirge of the bees.
Decker coughed, dragging on five cigarettes at once, blowing out without inhaling. He yelled back, “We could try walking away…slowly.” He heard more laughter in the background—Granny’s laughter, he thought. But another voice was screaming as well. Words he couldn’t understand. A moment later, a distinctly male voice shouted for them to stay in their tracks!
“I can’t see a fucking thing!” Hollander screamed.
Decker reached for his snub nose, and told Hollander to draw his weapon. A bee flew in his mouth. Decker spat it out.
“I can’t aim, if I can’t see,” Hollander cried out.
“Relax!” Decker yelled. But he was anything but calm.
Hollander quickly refilled his bowl and began puffing out steamy, scented smoke. He gripped his pipe and said, “I get out of this one, I’m gonna enshrine this sucker.”
“Stay right there,” the deep voice said. Less menacing tone this time. “I’ll come fetch yeh.”
The air suddenly thickened until they were engulfed by pillows of soot. Their eyes burned, overflowed tears, their throats were desiccated from smoke and heat. They coughed and sputtered, stoned by flying insects. Bees in their hair, under their clothes, on their hands, up their pant legs. Not biting now, just exploring, thready legs pricking skin as they crawled. The seconds dragged on as they stood choking in the inferno. Finally, two strong arms led them into open air and brushed them free of their live dust. Decker sucked in several deep breaths, coughing, clearing his lungs and mouth of the foul taste of ashy residue. Behind him were humming bellows o
f smoke rising and, thinning in the breeze, a cackle of crazed laughter.
The male voice said, “You men wait right here while I take care of them bees. And put away them guns. You won’t need ’em here.”
Through fuzzy vision, Decker made out the speaker. Not a large man, physically, but there was something about the way he carried himself. Independent. Straight back aligned perpendicular to a broad set of shoulders. A confident walk. He wore gloves but no veil. The hair atop his head was jet black.
Decker wiped his eyes. His neck was burning from bee stings. Despite the heat, he wore a jacket. So did Hollander. Thank God for long sleeves. He noticed thick welts on the back of Hollander’s neck and hands. “You okay, Mike?”
“Yeah.” Hollander winced with pain. “I’ll live. They got you bad?”
“Back of my neck.”
“Who’s the savior? Pappy Darcy himself?”
“Probably.” Decker watched the old man guide the bees back into the hives. Unlike Byron Howard, he worked quickly, effortlessly, ordering the old lady around as he needed her. The woman had transformed once again. No longer was she a possessed spirit. Now, she acted the perfect obedient wife, following her husband’s commands with slavish duty.
The old man directed the bees onto wood-framed wire matrices filled with honeycomb. Once the insects latched on to their food, he dropped the frames one at a time lengthwise into one of the pine boxes. The man worked nonstop for a half hour. It took six frames to fill one of the pine boxes. There were enough bees to replenish four hives.
When he was finally done, he brushed off his pant legs, shot a quick glance at Decker, then stared at the ground. There had been surrender in the old man’s eyes, a look that said nothing could hurt him anymore. He looped his arm around Granny Darcy’s shoulders, guided her forward. Then, almost as an afterthought, waved for Decker and Hollander to follow him.
29
No one said a word until they were inside the house. The place was pungent with ammonia and lye soap. The floors had been mopped and polished, the yellow-and-red floral sofa and matching drapes had been cleaned. On the floor, Katie and Earl sat on a hand-loomed circular rug, playing building blocks. Earl was erecting a stacked tower, and Katie took extreme delight in his construction. An open cereal box lay on its side; its contents had spilled out in a heap. A trail of ants were working their way over to the brown sugary balls. Katie looked up when she saw the old couple enter, even smiled at Decker. But Earl stiffened. Only when Pappy D reassured his son that the policeman hadn’t come to take him away did Earl relax and return his attention to the blocks.
“Knot down?” Katie asked.
“No, Katie, not yet,” Earl answered. His tone was very serious. Carefully, he added another block to his tower. “Now, you kin knock it down.”
“Knot down?”
“Yes.” Earl turned to Hollander, giggling as he talked. “She likes to knock down.”
The old man said to the old lady, “Take the two little ones in the other room, Granny.”
“I wanna stay here, Pappy,” Earl said.
The old man tousled the small man’s head. “You kin come back in a minute or two, son.”
Earl didn’t move.
“Go on and git now. Don’t make me say it twice, Earl.”
Granny Darcy led the two “children” into a back room out of Decker’s sight. Pappy Darcy motioned Decker and Hollander to the sofa. He stood, gazed out the window. A minute passed before he spoke. Finally, he said, “She ain’t right in the head. My pardon for…for what happened out there.”
“When did she start acting that way?” Decker asked. “After Luke’s death?”
“Before. It started when Earl was born, got worse when Luke married. After Luke died…”
Pappy Darcy turned toward them. His face was long and tired, eyes bright blue but hooded with sadness, cheeks pitted and slack. A turkey wattle fell to his Adam’s apple. He left them alone for a moment, came back with two napkins full of ice. Hollander placed his on his hand, Decker’s went to the back of his neck.
“The baby-making thing,” Pappy said. “When she found out that…that Linda’s womb was being filled up with other men’s seed. She went lunatic, believed in her heart that it was evil what Linda was doing. She thought Linda was the Devil.”
“But Luke agreed to it,” Decker said.
“’Cause Linda wanted it so bad,” Pappy said. “She was driving my poor boy crazy. Driving me to the poorhouse.” He shook his head. “Thirty thousand dollars I gave those two over six years. You have any idea how much money that was for me? Had to refinance my land, Manfred always on my back, waiting for me to default.”
Hollander said, “A lot of effort for no results.”
“You got it, mister,” Pappy said fiercely. “I couldn’t afford it no more. Misters, I tried for them. Tried for Luke’s sake. I loved my son. But…but I got a daughter and two healthy grandchildren to think about. Not to mention Earl. All my money was goin’ to Luke and Linda. It weren’t fair, and I just couldn’t do it no more.”
The old man shook his head, reached in his pocket and lit up a cigarette.
“Then she started in on Luke, trying to get him to sell my land. Getting Carla all riled up ’cause she wasn’t a partner in the land. Hell, why should she be? She didn’t do no work for it. But the worst was when Linda started sending them rich builders over to pester me. The girl was plumb crazy with the idea of trying to get herself a baby. It made us all crazy. Specially Luke. Then one day he told Granny D what they were doin’ to Linda, how the baby might not even be his…that drove Granny deep into her spells. Tell you the truth, mister, I didn’t like the idea, either. I was spendin’ all this money, and the baby weren’t even gonna be my blood. I finally said, No more, Linda, No more.”
Hollander transferred the napkin to the back of his neck. The pain from the stings on his hands had begun to subside. Decker said, “Linda didn’t like being told no, did she?”
“You got it, mister,” Pappy Darcy said. “She said she was gonna find her own way…then…dear Lord…it all fell to pieces. Just…fell to pieces.”
“She had an affair with Byron Howard,” Decker said.
“I was ready to throw her out on her butt,” Pappy Darcy said. “My wife, too! But Luke…he felt bad. Like it was all his fault ’cause he couldn’t make her a baby. And Linda was crying, carrying on so. So they stayed together. Luke said he was a believer in Jesus, and if the Lord could forgive, so would he. And he acted real nice and forgiving to Linda on the outside. But…”
“But what?” Decker said.
“But something changed him on the inside,” Pappy knitted his brow. “And it brought out the worst in Granny. Luke and my wife…late at night. Talking and whispering…I tried to pretend that it weren’t happenin’. But I knew in my heart it weren’t no good no more.”
“What were they talking about?” Decker asked.
Pappy Darcy shook his head. “It was wrong, what they was doing.” He clenched his fist. “Just wrong.”
“What were they doing?” Decker asked.
“They were makin’ plans for Linda…the two of them.”
“What plans?”
“Dear Lord.” Pappy Darcy’s eyes grew moist. “Who she’d sleep with so she could get a baby. Linda didn’t want to do it. But Luke…like I said, mister, he’d changed. And my wife seemed to go deeper and deeper into her spells. They made her do it. Said she’d never be happy until she had her baby. Then Granny started tellin’ her how much money we spent on her baby-makin’, makin’ her feel all guilty.” He locked eyes with Decker. “But it was wrong!”
Hollander asked, “What’d they do specifically, Pappy?”
“Luke and Granny,” Pappy Darcy said, “the two of them picked out men for Linda—men with lots of kids. If Linda would argue, my wife would bring up the affair with Byron, then the money again. Tell her she was lucky that she had Luke altogether.” The old man wiped sweat from his forehead. “He�
�d question her afterward. All the dirty details, and she didn’t want to talk about them. But he told her that she was his wife and he had to know. It was bad…mean-spirited.”
“He pimped her,” Hollander said.
Pappy D screwed up his face. “No, sir, no, no, no!” he exclaimed. “He didn’t sell her, just…just told her who to sleep with to get a baby.”
Decker tried to keep his face flat. But inwardly he wanted to take a shower. Luke degrading his wife, outwardly acting altruistic, inwardly gloating at his revenge on Linda for her affair with Byron. The whole thing was so smarmy. He said, “They were all chosen by Luke?”
“Luke and my wife,” Pappy D said. “Like I said, this baby thing was making everyone crazy.”
“Sue Beth know about this?” Decker said.
“No, sir.”
“And Carla?”
“Carla…” The old man shook his head. “Poor dear daughter Carly.” He stifled a deep sob. “She got real mad at Linda when she found out that Linda was steppin’ out on Luke. Linda…she never told her the truth. Carly wouldn’t have believed it anyway. Up until that time, Carly and Linda was drinkin’ buddies. A little rowdy but harmless. But after Linda’s affairs…Carly, she started gettin’ real wild.”
“And your wife permitted it?” Hollander said.
“She blamed it all on Linda.”
“What happened after Katie was born?” Decker said. “Did they ease up on Linda?”
“No, sir,” Pappy said. “They had a man waiting for her three months later. Linda wanted more time, but my wife…she said it had took her a long time to get pregnant with Katie. Gotta start right away for number two. Luke wanted five kids. That’s what Granny told Linda, Luke wanted five kids, and Linda wasn’t gettin’ any younger.”
Decker saw Hollander grimace. A moment later, Granny Darcy shuffled out, chin to her chest, hands rigidly at her side.
“Can I come out now?” she asked.
“No, ma’am,” Pappy Darcy said.
“Please, Pappy,” she pleaded.
“You go back in there right now, or I’ll tan your hide.”
